Our inclusive language liturgies generally set the structure and theme of Sunday morning worship.
GATHERING
REFLECTION
This is our God. Not a distant judge nor a sadist, but a God who weeps. A God who suffers, not only for us, but with us. Nowhere is the presence of God amidst suffering more salient than on the cross. Therefore what can I do but confess that this is not a God who causes suffering. This is a God who bears suffering. I need to believe that God does not initiate suffering; God transforms it.
Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint, p. 114
GATHERING
REFLECTION
REFLECTION
We are the vessels of God’s voice, her words blowing through us, bidding us to tell the tales that only we can speak.
Jan L. Richardson, In Wisdom’s Path
GATHERING
REFLECTION
Remember, God, that we are the plants in your fields, so connected to the earth that you know what would happen if you did not rain upon us. And if your light ceased to lift us from the ground and craft our bodies; how might we draw near you like the sun? Remember, God, to love us in a way our souls can taste and rejoice in.
– St. Teresa of Avila, in Love Poems from God, by Daniel Ladinsky, p.284…
GATHERING
REFLECTION
Because we dare to believe that Jesus is the world’s light still, we are not stumbling in this darkness. … Carry this glowing ember, even if it is covered and waiting for the day’s lighting and work ahead, that is keeping the perpetual light of God’s love and goodness alive in this old world.
from Sarah Bessey’s Field Notes, January 19, 2026…
GATHERING
REFLECTION
If as Herod, we fill our lives with things,
And again with things,
If we consider ourselves so unimportant that
We must fill every moment of our lives with action,
When will we have time to make the long slow journey
Across the desert as did the magi?
Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds?
Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary?
For each one of us there is a desert to travel,
A star to discover
And a being within ourselves to bring to life.
Anonymous …