The Progressive Christian Voice

We, as a community of Christian faith within our society are called to attend to, to engage with, to participate in creating solutions that honor all human beings. This is our big picture of ‘what we have done to the least of these, we have done it to God.’ It’s not about simply being educated and knowing these neighbors exist. It is about actively following the Great Shepherd into places of brokenness so that we all can be made whole. But for as much as this text speaks to the startling and unexpected places where the kingdom of God breaks through in the world, this text is also about us as individuals and our intimate relationship with God.

God's Generosity. Braunstein

Christian Living 101. Braunstein

Members of the congregation share a bit about their faith journey.

The law is not meant be used as a trap to belittle others or a means to sustain power. Rather, the law is a gift from God to help God’s people understand what it means to be a holy people. And, applying the rule of love to the law and to the prophets opens us up to a whole new world that continues to be reformed with the dynamic and loving presence of God through Christ in the world.

I wonder what the apostle Paul would write in a letter to Western Presbyterian Church? What would he be grateful for.

2014-10-12 Sermon. Braunstein

What is resurrection power? Well, I think it is the power that pours new life into lifeless circumstances. It is that kind of power that perseveres and overcomes anything that would resist what is compassionate, good and right in the eyes of God. I believe that is something this community knows something about.

Though authority and order is seemingly easier to abide by, we are enriched and nourished when we remain open to the possibilities of the future. When we discard the blinders we have built over our eyes, made of pride, made of the need to be right, made of greed for power – when we discard these blinders, the hope of witnessing what the living God can and will do in the world becomes more brilliant and beautiful and tangible than rigid claims of authority.

As Jesus teaches of the kingdom of God, Jesus speaks of money and how we are called to live in the midst of an economy.

On June, 2014, 7 members of the Western community journeyed to Chavies, KY to serve with the Appalachia Service Project. This podcast is a compilation of stories shared and lessons learned from the experience in Kentucky. Speakers include Calvin Bader, Petrus de Wet, Rebecca Jackson and Bill Saint.

The church is a community of people who seek to follow Jesus. This does not mean that we all think and act and look the same or that somehow when we are together, we are able to deny our own egos and rid ourselves of pride entirely. We learn today from this text that we, as individuals in a community of faith, as members of the church, are not called to dwell in our victimization, nor dwell in our habits which hurt others. Rather, we are called to be co-creators of reconciliation, bearers of God’s love for the world, ushers of justice and peace in the world and we practice that together, here in the church, and out in the world.

There is a pattern developing through Jesus’ teachings that discipleship includes the act of leaving one thing behind to go towards something else – of making a choice to stop doing one thing so that a choice can be made to do something else. We, as Christians are called to lose our self-centered focus, our protections from pain, our fears of failure, our fears of the darkness to gain a life which follows Christ, to gain a life which co-creates with God a light which shines into the dark places, to gain a life that will not taste death.

This passage calls us to ponder our own understanding of who Jesus is in the world. It was Peter’s testimony, Peter’s evidence of hope in the power of what God can and will do in the world, that is the rock upon which this church is built. And, we are called this morning to ponder our own belief.

This discussion of what faith is, is real and important and has consequences not only for our own personal faith, but others too. There is a time for retreat, for tending to one’s spirit, one’s spirituality – and there is a time to remember that our words and our actions matter to God and to the world.