Birth Pangs

*Confession of Sin & Call to Worship

Across the waters,
the restless breath blew.
And God began to create.

Through the centuries,
God journeyed with humanity.

And our forebears failed,
to live up to God’s hopes.

Forgive us, our forebears cried.
We have failed even now.
Forgive us, we beseech you, God.
Guide us as we strive to live as you would have us live.

And one arrived who inhaled the breath of God,
Jesus breathes out God’s ways of grace and love.

Through Jesus, we can see the way.
Through Jesus a new earth begins to unfold.

Jesus tells us that the violence, the wars and hatred, the collapsing institutions, and the rapid change are but birth pangs of a new way.
The birthpangs are signs that love will win. 

Love always wins.
God’s love always overcomes.

Praise be to God whose love unfolds even in our time.
Praise be to God whose love is even now being born in our world. Amen.

Tim is a runner, a hiker, a devoted husband, a father of two adult children, and their spouses, and a grandfather of four perfect children. A former early childhood educator, Tim is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He has served as pastor of both Disciples and United Church of Christ congregations. As we enter what we hope is the final phase of the pandemic, Tim is beginning a journey of rediscovering himself and discerning next steps. He writes from his home in Albany, Oregon and wherever the Spirit lures him.

Tagged with: ,
Posted in Call to Worship, Confession of Sin & Assurance, Genesis, Genesis 1-2, Lent, Mark, Mark 13, Mark 13:1-8, 24-37, New Testament, Old Testament, Seasons of the Church

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

Creative Commons License BY-NC-ND 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

All materials by Tim Graves unless otherwise noted. Creative Commons License BY-NC-ND 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

Category Search.
%d bloggers like this: