Faith
About this blog
Thinking the Faith, Praying the Faith, Living the Faith is written by the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship.
Thinking, praying, and living the faith is at the core of ministry in the Office of Theology and Worship. In the following videos, learn more about what thinking, praying, and living the faith means to the leadership of the Office of Theology and Worship. Discover why it matters and what difference it makes in our lives, work, and worship.
Charles Wiley
Barry Ensign-George
David Gambrell
Christine Hong
Karen Russell
Recent posts
- Our Challenging Way: Faithfulness, Sex, Ordination, and Marriage
- Unity, Confessions, and the Book of Order
- Come and See
- Please and Thank You
- Back to Basics on Ash Wednesday
Categories
- Theology (32)
- Worship (26)
- Faith (23)
- Spirituality (13)
- Leadership (11)
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Archives
Posts with tag: church
November 1, 2013Unity is an Action
Unity is an action, not a settled state that we achieve and can rest on. Unity is a participation thing, not something external to us. Unity is waiting to be lived today, not something settled in the past. It is a painful time across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) . . .
- Posted at 10:27 a.m.
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September 26, 2013
Something's Needed--Open Wards?
We all want church to be our own ideal place of spiritual growth where we encounter God. This is what we have in common. Exactly how we can have that while in communion with one another is where the problems begin.
- Posted at 6:58 p.m.
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September 20, 2013
The Church Is a Hospital (Among Other Things)
Abigail Van Buren is said to have given us an oft-repeated quote: "The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints." It’s an image that could help us see some things about the church that we might not grasp as well without its help. Here are four ways hospitals might illuminate elements of the church.
- Posted at 2:08 p.m.
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August 30, 2013
Grateful for Grace
There’s been chatter these days in the blogosphere about why we need the church. In a recent blog post on our Theology and Worship blog where Barry Ensign-George links to these discussions, he also points out that these posts assume that being part of the church is a voluntary decision when, in fact, by virtue of our baptism we already ARE a part of the body of Christ.
This has me thinking about farm wives who tell tales about killing a chicken for Sunday dinner. (I know it’s a graphic leap, but hang with me a minute.) One woman …
- Posted at 3:52 p.m.
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August 28, 2013
Church Chosen and Not-Chosen
It’s a perennial question that has come in for some engaged conversation over the last several weeks: “Why Church”? As in, specifically, why be part of and committed to an actual congregation?
- Posted at 9:56 a.m.
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August 15, 2013
Why Do We Need the Church Anyway?
Church reminds us of who we are and why we’re here. Hopefully, it also connects us with the sense of the holy, transcendent Creator who loves us, as seen mostly clearly in Jesus the Christ.
- Posted at 7:54 p.m.
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August 7, 2013
An Extended Ecclesial Analogy
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this. It bears repeating.
Once upon a time a group of people gathered concerned about the number of lives lost due to shipwrecks off their coast. Whenever there was a storm, they gathered on the shore watching for any signs of people needing rescue. When they saw someone perishing, they formed a human chain to pull them to safety.
Soon someone suggested they build a small lighthouse to warn sailors of the dangerous rocks. “At the same time,” someone else said, “let’s build a fireplace in the bottom of the lighthouse so that those …
- Posted at 5:16 p.m.
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March 15, 2012
What Does It Mean to Be a Denomination?
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a denomination in the church. What does that mean?
- Posted at 12:04 a.m.
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August 30, 2011
Not Whole Cloth, Just Ribbons
The church is not the whole cloth of Christ's glory; we're just scraps, bits and pieces.
- Posted at 2:50 p.m.
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