CrossWalk Community Church Napa

The Natural, Unexpected Fruit of Gratitude: Politcs of Shalom

The natural response when filled with gratitude is to be gracious and giving toward others, to become more interested in others' well-being. When communities work together for the wellbeing of others, this necessarily becomes political, as shalom calls faithful communities to ensure shalom's development for everything, everyone, everywhere.

Grateful Together

Feasting together is nothing new. Our ancient Jewish ancestors have been coming together for thousands of years to remember and reset their lives. Thanksgiving affords us the opportunity to do the same.

Grateful Wee 2: Personal Praxis

This week we focus on the decisions we make that help us cultivate a life of gratitude, even regarding difficult scenes from our past that we struggle to reconcile.

Grateful Week 1: Feelin’ the Feels

Gratitude improves our experience of life and even our physical wellbeing. Yet sometimes we struggle to be grateful. This talk help us sort out our gratitude feelings and offers some insight for the journey ahead.

The Problem of Evil

The problem of evil is a significant reason many people leave the faith. The classic paradigm works for many, yet a growing number of people cannot accept a perspective that ultimately holds God responsible for the evil in the world that God could apparently thwart if desired. Open and Relational Theology offers another perspective that makes more sense. Don't throw out your faith; consider evolving your paradigm instead.

Entangled Prayer Week Seven: New Every Morning

Synopsis. The heavens declare the goodness of God. Creation itself – from the smallest organisms to the expanding universe – are generative, life-supporting, and beautiful.  Such a trajectory means that the guiding energy or force behind it is supportive, creative, faithful, reliable, consistent, generous, caring, and many other words that, taken together, simply boil down to one word: love.  The Bible says that God is loving, so much so that it goes further to say that God is love.  For those struggling to believe in a greater being, perhaps you can settle with the reverse of God is love: love is God.  In light of the beautiful creation in which we live and the love of God that is energizing, guiding, and inhabiting it all, how are we to respond to such good news?  Perhaps we should entrust our allegiance and our passion to following in the footsteps of Jesus who invited us to consider that such a giving of ourselves to what he was teaching would in fact save our lives.  And perhaps not just our lives, but the lives of many others and the planet we call home.

Entangled Prayer Week Six: Healing the World

This teaching features the perspective of three Process theologians: Marjorie Suchocki, Bruce Epperly, and Monica Coleman. Suchocki begins with an overview of prayer from a Process lens, followed by related thoughts from Epperly and Coleman. The latter two then address the question of praying for healing, specifically, offering their own "how to" approach.

Entangled Prayer Week 5: World-Transforming Prayer

The deconstruction and reconstruction process of faith – which we should expect to be an ongoing experience throughout our lives – can be extremely challenging at times.  We may certainly wonder if God is even real.  Such massive questions impact our confidence and interest in prayer. Sometimes we give up. Jesus instructs us to keep on praying, though, trusting in its efficacy. Could it be that when we least feel like praying is when we most need to pray?

Entangled Prayer Week 4: Spiritual Adventures

Prayer is about living and breathing attuned to God in a dynamic relationship. We do our best to remain conscious of the spiritual sea we’re all swimming in, responsive to the winds of the spirit, and humble enough to admit that we may have been nudged by God without knowing it was God, which should elicit awe.  When lived this way, life is truly a spiritual adventure that leads us to deepening maturity and service toward the world’s wellbeing. Note: This episode begins with a brief meditation leading into communion.

Entangled Prayer Week 3: Christ is Alive!

Christ is the
environment
in which we all live and breathe and have our being.  It connects us, comforts us, inspires us, heals us, moves us, woos us. Christ is that aspect of God that is always on the move everywhere, in everything, the Source of ongoing creative energy, novelty, ingenuity. Much larger than the focus of God’s presence on one leader (the classic rendering of Messiah-Christ), and even bigger than the individualistic anointing, Christ represents that other element, the this-ness of life. When we wake up to that, we enter reality differently. We see the world differently. We see ourselves differently – more graceful – and do the same for others. Ego takes a back seat in favor of something much deeper and greater. Our vision for life expands from self-centeredness alone to a deep respect for the wisdom of loving our neighbors as ourselves – we realize we must pursue both. Realizing we are all – everything – swimming in the same sea, we lend and direct the flow of Christ beyond ourselves toward everyone and everything.  In this we join Christ, adding to the creative, healing work, unkinking our hose, and allowing the love to flow. We become joyful conduits of love, light, grace – Christ.