ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 21, 2025Guest Writer: Rev. Dr. Terry Ewing from Phillips Theological SeminaryAs I was sitting outside on a recent spring afternoon, I noticed a shadow gliding across the yard in front of me. Then, the shadow moved steadily across and over the place in which I was sitting. It was the shadow of red-tailed hawk and in graceful loops moved on past me. I have heard others
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 19, 2025FYI – my Etchings will not come each day during my sabbatical. As much as I enjoy doing them, I appreciate not feeling the stress to crank them out each day. So we are out of town, and our kid calls us to inform us that we have a leak in the yard near the street. The MUD District had sent someone out, and he
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 16, 2025Guest Writer: Michelle Beech, Shepherd/Founder of Ekklesia (ekklesialove.com)To be called to serve in the world, yet not be of the world, is to participate in God’s movement of hope and transformation. God calls to us with the bold proclamation in Isaiah 43:19: “Behold, I am doing a new thing!” Like James Cone, who rooted Black theology in the cries of the oppressed, I sense that
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 15, 2025So I’m on the beach the other day, and I see a guy flying a kite. It is a pretty spectacular kite, and lots of people were enjoying his kite flying. On two occasions, he sat down on his beach chair, tied the kite string to his chair, and took a nap. The kite continued to fly to the delight of many. Later, when he
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 14, 2025Guest Writer: Robert Cobb, a friend of Cypress Creek Christian Church“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…”. Ephesians 2:8 “The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love”. Psalm 145:8 Richard Rohr in a recent meditation writes that Grace is not something God
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 13, 2025I have used the line more than once, “Not all those who wander are lost.” Just recently, in an email blast from Sojourner Magazine, I was reminded that it was J.R.R. Tolkien, in the book The Fellowship of the Ring, who first coined the phrase. In Genesis 12, Abram and Sarai (later known as Abraham and Sarah) follow the call of God to leave behind
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 12, 2025Prayer for the Week:For the capacity to forgive we seek your Holy Resilience Forgiveness— not to forget not to give the impression that the wrong was right not to do what we were told to do we seek the capacity to forgive to share in the work of healing and redemption,
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 11, 2025In John 8:2-5, we read: The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” In spite of what Christians have
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 10, 2025Anne Lamott’s book, Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace, is one of those books that can be read quickly and thoroughly enjoyed, or it can be read slowly and deliberately as if one is walking across holy ground. Early in the book, Lamott wrote, “It turns out that welcome is solidarity.” I often brag on Cypress Creek Christian Church’s hospitality and openness to the
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSMay 9, 2025In Matthew 5:5, we have one of the Beatitudes that Jesus shared during the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. My friend and colleague, Rev. Bob Hill, reminded me of some words from the great William Sloane Coffin: “…unless we become meek, there will be no one left to inherit the earth…” In Greek, the word for