In Spirit and Truth

"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God." —Romans 8:14-16 Do you remember the invincible days of youth? There was courage (and energy) to climb trees, run headlong down steep hills, and hang upside-down from the monkey bars. We weren’t afraid of the bumps and bruises, perhaps because we couldn’t see their inevitability. For the most part, we were carefree. Reality, however, sank in at some point. Now that we are paying the bills we worry about where our next meal is coming from. When we were kids, we just showed up to the table, but now we may spend hours or days wondering where it will all come from. According to the passage above, and many others in scripture, God is not looking for slaves, but rather he is looking for Chil

"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God." —Romans 8:14-16 We have heard that God desires relationship with us. I have found that it can be a little overwhelming to ponder what it means to be "in relationship" with the God of the universe. After all, God has many different titles and roles in which he could be operating. He is the Lord of Hosts (a military term), he is the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, he is the Lord of Lords, he is Abba Father, he is the Lord our provider, the question is, who is God when God wants to be close to me? I often feel like the four children in C.S. Lewis’ classic tale The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, as they were told of the Great King of that realm, Aslan the lion. One of th

"Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: 'Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony;'" —Revelation 12:10, 11a Perhaps it is the abundance of unbelievable stories we absorb through movies and other media, but our culture, in many ways, has lost the art of story-telling. Perhaps it is yet another symptom of our "specialist" emphasis. (e.g. If you have a problem with your ears, you go to an E.N.T.; if you need a story you go to an author or movie producer.) Whatever the reason, as a culture we have devalued our individual stories. Several years ago, my parents took a missions trip to Papua New Guinea. One of the things that made an impression on them during their visit was the storytelling culture. Any given person could re

Ekklesia is a new Sunday Evening service focused on intentional community. Here at Faith, we do community well. Through small groups like Sunday School classes, Knitters, Choir, UMW and UMM, we care for one another like a family. Here at Faith, we care for one another, work together in mission, pray for and with one another, as well as worship together. In so many ways, this church family really operates as a family. As we began talking about starting the evening service, we asked the question, what does our surrounding community need? What does South Tulsa really long for? We thought of facebook and twitter, myspace, linkedin, and a number of other social networking sites. We also thought of garage door openers that allow us to get into our homes without human contact. We see in our culture a desire to be connected, but in general a difficulty in actually doing so. The thing that the culture longs for, our life habits and technology actually prevent us from achieving. Even those who