Why do we read Scripture together in our Growth Groups? New Testament scholar NT Wright compares Scripture to a five-act play, full of drama and surprise, wherein the people of God are invited into the story to improvise the final act. We enter the narrative to see how our stories interact with the epic drama of God’s redemption of the world. Every page of the Bible offers us an invitation—to ask questions, to wonder about why Jesus does what he does, to seek to know the mind of the Creator and Redeemer. And all biblical devotion is to allow us to be “thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:17). At PasCov, we are committed to being captivated by God’s Word together!
As Rachel Held Evans wrote in her final book, Inspired,“God is still breathing. The Bible is both inspired and inspiring. Our job is to ready the sails and gather the embers, to discuss and debate, and like the biblical character Jacob, to wrestle with the mystery until God gives us a blessing. If you’re curious, you will never leave the text without learning something new. If you’re persistent, you just might leave inspired.”
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
While our eyes are trained on the news reports that give us updates about the devastating effects of Hurricane Dorian that has battered and destroyed much of the northern Bahamas, we pray to the Lord:
Pray for those in need of rescue that it will come swiftly.
There are many who are in need of miracles. That teams would arrive an hour sooner, that dogs would catch a faint scent amidst the stench of death, that the right piece of debris would be moved. For all the training and effort that the courageous rescue teams put in, at this point they need miracles more than anything else. And for those seeking to expedite relief and humanitarian aid to the unimaginably traumatized areas--- may they be safe and effective in getting supplies to survivors despite the destroyed infrastructure.
Pray for the rescuers – safety, rest, encouragement, in the midst of horror and unrelenting pain.
The job that the rescue teams face is completely overwhelming and they will fail many more times than they will succeed. Rescue teams suffer great personal trauma and often become suicidal months after an event. Pray for these courageous men and women now and after they return from the ravaged areas with countless grieving survivors.
Pray for families that have witnessed the unthinkable, are worried about loved ones, and fearful for their own safety.
The aftermath of this catastrophic hurricane will be months and years of emotional trauma, staggering challenges for rebuilding, and recovery of a deep sense of hope for people whose lives have been upended and amputated from what they were last week.
Lord have mercy!
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
In their book Groups That Thrive, Joel Comiskey and Jim Egli researched 4800 small group participants across four continents. They asked the question "Why are some small groups dynamic, attractive, and breathe the life of Christ? Why do other groups stagnate and close?" They discovered that in a thriving group people feel loved, accepted and embraced. The meeting is like a gathering of good friends with the presence of Jesus in their midst. Each member is a participant, so there is an "our group" mentality, with no one on the sidelines. Facilitators are not Bible teachers but gentle guides who encourage the asking of open questions and honest discussion. Thriving communities require a supernatural mix of prayer and Spirit-led anointing that makes a way for everyone to participate, for the healing presence of God, and for vibrant life that blesses others. And these groups remain committed to multiplying and expanding, to inviting friends, to keeping a chair open for guests to be included.
Our PasCov October rollout of Growth Groups will follow this sort of thriving group model with inductive Bible study and conversation, perhaps after a meal. These formational groups will be hosted in various locations throughout the San Gabriel Valley and will be places of deep connection, where we can listen to the Word and each other as we seek to follow Jesus.
Watch the church lobby for the Growth Groups board to appear on September 8th for sign-ups. Until then, please join us in praying for many to be stirred by the Spirit to draw nearer to God!
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
A friend told me that he thinks of our lives with God as an orchestra. He reminded me of that moment before the concert when the concertmaster asks the oboist to sound an A. At first there is chaos and noise as all parts of the orchestra try to align themselves with that note. But as each instrument moves closer and closer to it, the noise diminishes and when they all finally sound it together, there is a moment of rest, of homecoming.
That is how it feels to me. We are always tuning in the orchestra of followers of Jesus. Somewhere deep inside there is a sound from God that is ours alone to hear, and we struggle daily to hear it and tune our life to it. Sometimes there are people and situations that help us to hear our note more clearly; other times, people and situations make it harder for us to hear. A lot depends on our commitment to listening and our intention to stay coherent with this note. It is only when our lives are tuned to that note that we can play life's mysterious and holy music without tainting it with our own discordance, our own bitterness, resentment, agenda, and fears.
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
He said to the crowd: "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, 'It's going to rain,' and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, 'It's going to be hot,' and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to pay attention to the present moment?” —Luke 12. 54-56
In this 500-channel, multi-sensory, hyperactive world, what do you give your attention to? Do you follow your favorite team? Watch the weather? Track the stock market? Keep tabs on movie stars? Or are these things you ignore for other matters?
Do you fasten your attention on fear and anxiety, or do you keep your eyes peeled for grace? Is your radar tuned to people's judgments, or do you attend to the love of God within you? Do you fill your consciousness with past mistakes, fears of the future, things you regret or dread or the way you wish things were—especially the way you wish things were— or do you pay attention to the present moment?
What do you see? What is true in you and around you right now? What is happening this moment? How is your breathing? Start there. Stay there. Pay attention to the present moment. Be available to the grace of God that is hidden in what is around you. Simply be present. You'll be surprised how lovely it is.
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
Fred Rogers said that. As in Mister. As in the fire engine red cardigan and the songs about neighbors. I’ve been ruminating on those words this past month. Complicated. How often do I use that word in my daily life? How often do I run through my days living “busy,” living “complicated”? I’m thinking about deep simplicity versus shallow complexity. What does it mean to cultivate a deep and simple life, to weed out the things that—in their seeming importance—seduce me into believing their complications are necessary? What is deep? What is simple? The answer to those questions almost always points toward what is good. I want to cultivate the simple and the deep in my ordinary life. I want to be present for real people in my physical life. I want to serve my church and community. I want to be a good friend, a person who isn’t constantly busy, constantly distracted.
“How can you live with the terrifying thought that the hurricane has become human, that the fire has become flesh, that life itself came to life and walked in our midst? Christianity either means that, or it means nothing. It is either the more devastating disclosure of the deepest reality in the world, or it’s a sham, a nonsense, a bit of deceitful play-acting. Most of us, unable to cope with saying either of those things, condemn ourselves to live in the shallow world in between.” N T Wright All God’s Worth
There’s the word again: shallow. As humans, we most often train ourselves to choose the shallow. It hurts less. And in order to make ourselves feel valuable, we shape the shallow to look important, complicated. Shallow lives are dangerous things.
And then there’s Jesus. We who believe in him are the people who believe in the hurricane turned human, in the fire become flesh. How far are we willing to walk into this faith of ours? Are we willing to trust in the deep reality that leads us out of shallow complications and into the rich simplicity of Jesus?
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
It’s a tiny word in the English language, but the word “yet” is so powerful.
In Isaiah 64:8, the sentence starts with “Yet.” This is fundamental, in the Old Testament and even today, to a Hebrew view of spirituality. Sometimes you’ll see in Hebrew, “But now.” This “yet” or “but now” was always at the heart of Jewish spirituality, because it meant hope was always possible even when logic and circumstances seemed to point to a bad outcome. This “yet” tells us that Yahweh is always our Father or our Potter. Against all odds, he makes a different outcome possible. Through the Hebrew Old Testament, we see the verb “to form.” You could think of it as a father forming a daughter or son, or a potter forming clay in his hands.
The idea is that we are the people of God’s hands. We come from God and are completely dependent on God. Both Father and Potter convey to us close personal connections. God’s hands are actually on our squishy little misshapen lives. Our role is to remain malleable in God’s hands, opening our lives and hearts and souls with active anticipation and hope. We might doubt that a “yet” or “but now” is possible for us. If so, we pray that we may remain ready to see, to always have an active anticipation and hope for God’s surprising, gracious and powerful deliverance. (inspiration from Todd Hunter)
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
As we pivot in our sermon series from the faith-filled legacy story of Ruth, to the life of David in 1 Samuel, surely Manning's words could describe this man of God who stumbled his way into faithful living. David faced critical choices all across his life, building his character as he rose and fell with his many decisions. David learned to live with the complexity of his life with God, the highlights (and the lowlights).
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. —Matthew 14.19-20
Alone and struggling, I came to hear him. I stood in front and took it in. I heard a word of grace. I gave him my heart as he spoke.
I saw him break some bread, bless it and give it in baskets to his helpers. They gave me some. It tasted like freedom.
And then a hush fell, the others silent. I didn't see why, couldn't imagine why: I wanted to sing and shout, to praise loudly, to tell my story: there in the bread, my whole life poured into the bread, my whole life rose before me, like bread rising, full and very special, touched by God. Why not sing a song?
Only when I turned around did I see why the spreading hush, the awed silence, as the gift was passed from hand to hand: his helpers kept going among the people, bearing baskets of bread, giving it away. The bread did not end. He did not just feed me. He fed everybody. All of them. Here was a miracle: not me, but 5000. I was not alone. We were as one. A community, drawn together as if we were one body, one loaf of bread. The miracle was not the bread but the sharing, not that he made bread, but that he made a community, not that he gave me a gift, but that he gave the same gift to others, that he drew my “I” into a “we. I was saved, not by being made special, but by being included.
I imagine the miracle happens again and again, not by making bread appear, but by making it disappear, into the hands of the hungry.
I wonder what it was like to be one of those people helping him, following him, carrying those baskets out into the crowd, seeing the miracle in the unending bread, among the people. I think I could spend my life doing that.
Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation