Conversations Beyond the Pew with the Rev

How do you deal with changes in your relationships?

How do you experience God's presence when relationships change? Sunday, July 14, 2024 Genesis 13:1-18

How do you experience God’s presence when life changes? Sunday, July 7, 2024 Genesis 8:20-22, 9:1-17

A conversation with Jen and Josh on how do you deal with fear? We reflected on the previous Sunday's message on "How do you experience God when you are afraid?"

How do you experience God’s presence when you are afraid? Sunday, June 30, 2024 Genesis 3:1-24

How do you know God’s will for your life? Sunday, June 23, 2024 Ephesians 5:6-21 Quotes Socrates says: “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” Buddha: “Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze...

How does God help you make a good life? Sunday, June 16, 2024  Luke 11:14-36 Quotes Hippocrates: “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” Jean-Paul Sartre (zhaan paal saar truh): “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” Viktor E. Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our r...

How do you know you belong? Sunday, June 9, 2024 Matthew 4:12-25

How do you create a legacy that matters? Sunday, June 2, 2024 John 12: 34-50 Quotes Taylor Swift: “No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.” William Shakesspeare: “No legacy is so rich as honesty.” Lionel Richie: “‘Let the music play on’ would be my legacy.”

Who does God call you to be? Sunday, May 26, 2024 John 8:1-19 Quotes Wayne Dyer: “Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.” W.E.B DuBois: “A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal imprisons and lowers.” Brené Brown: “You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” John 13:34-35  “I give you a new co...

How do you improve communication? Sunday, May 19, 2024 Acts 2:1-28 Quotes Rowan Williams: “Bad human communication leaves us less room to grow.” Rita Mae Brown: “Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.” Buddha: “Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.” Mark Twain: “A man’s character may be learned fro...

How do you create a meaningful life? Sunday, May 12, 2024 Luke 8:1-18 Quotes: Aristotle: “The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Buddha: “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness n...

How do you have energy for what is important? Do you ever feel like your energy is in short supply and one more thing and you feel leveled? Sunday, May 5, 2024John 1:1-18 Quotes Mother Teresa: “Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.” Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

How do you love well… especially when others and situations don’t make it easy? Do you ever feel like the world is lacking love, compassion, understanding, respect, etc? Do you ever get frustrated with the way people treat one another, the way you’ve been treated or how you respond to others when they aren’t easy to be around? Sunday, April 28, 2024 John 15:1-21 Quotes James Baldwin: “Love does no...

How do you find yourself when you feel lost? Sunday, April 21, 2024John 10:1-18 Quotes “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other.” - John 13:34 “Why do you see the splinter that’s in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but don’t notice the log in your own eye?” - Matthew 7:3 “Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forg...

How do you move forward in life? Sunday, April 14, 2024 John 21:1-8 Sayings of Jesus: “Why do you see the splinter that’s in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but don’t notice the log in your own eye?” - Matthew 7:3 “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.” John 8:7 “If you forgive the sins of any, they will be forgiven.” John 20:23 “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also...

How do you heal a broken heart? Sunday, April 7, 2024 John 20:19-23 Quotes: India Arie: “For me, the healing process starts with graciousness and forgiveness.” Leo Buscaglia: “Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keep you from hope and love.” Elizabeth Gilbert: “When you are standi...

How do you find happiness? Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024 Luke 24:1-12 Isaiah 25:6-9 Sayings of Jesus: “You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.” - Matthew 22:39 “...be wise as snakes, and innocent as doves” - Matthew 10:16 “Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” - Matthew 6:34 “Love your enemies, do good...

How do you change your relationships? Sunday, March 24, 2024 Luke 22:1-27 Quote A.J. Levine says: “Sacrifice was a way of sharing a meal with God… And it had many functions, because there were many types of sacrifices: thanksgiving offerings, freewill offerings, dedicatory offerings, festal offerings, and yes, sin offerings… In eating the meat, the worshiper would be, symbolically, sharing a meal...

How do you create a better life for yourself? Sunday, March 17, 2024 1 Thessalonians 5:10-28 Quotes Marcus Aurelius: “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” Harriet Beecher Stowe: “The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.” Robert Downey Jr.: "I'd like to thank...

How do you change your day when things feel out of control? Sunday, March 10, 2024 Colossians 3:8-17 Quotes Ralph W. Sockman: “True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be.” Simon Sinek: “Humility is being open to the ideas of others.”

How do you stay away from negativity? How do you not let other people’s negativity affect you? How does gratitude impact your perspective? Sunday, March 3, 2024 2 Corinthians 4:1-18 Quotes Walter Brueggemann: “There is a generosity of the spirit in the gospel, a generosity not overpowered by our fears… It is this gospel based generosity that will still our fears, curb our anger, quench our brutali...

How does gratitude change what is important to you? Sunday, February 25, 2024 1 Corinthians 10:14-33 Quotes Psalm 24:1“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants too.” Henri Nouwen: “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to...

How do you practice gratitude when life is hard? Sunday, February 18, 2024Matthew 15:21-39 Quotes Henri Nouwen: “The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.” “Perhaps nothing helps us make the movement from our little selves to a larger world than remembering God in gratitude. Such a persp...

How do you not get stuck in drama? Sunday, February 11, 2024Acts 8-26 Quotes Viktor E. Frankl: “When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.” Chuck Palahniuk: “People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas, their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just...