Category Archives: Spirituality

SUPPORT YOUR CHURCH IN 2013

Neighborhood Congregational Church provides pastoral care, spiritual guidance, and tangible support to members, visitors, friends, homeless visitors, transient and vacationing neighbors all year long.  Many who receive our services have no means of financial support, but many of us do.  Your gift helps us help others, allowing us to continue with all our minesterial work, near and far: supporting our members, our local charities, and our friends in need; here in Laguna, as well as Los Angeles, and well beyond our borders.  Your gift, no matter how large or small, will make a significant impact in the lives of others. We now have a ‘donate’ button at the bottom left hand side of the main page.  Thank you for making a difference in the lives of so many others!   Continue reading →

Dealing with Issues – Thoughts from The Rev.

DEALING WITH “ISSUES”

Back in Gig Harbor, Washington, Master Ludke often warned our Tae Kwon Do class to shape up or we would have “issues.”  Nobody wanted “issues” with Master Ludke so discipline and order were quickly reestablished.  Things are simpler in the martial arts than they are in the church, as the church frowns on thinly veiled threats to keep people in line.  So, just how does the church properly respond when “issues” arise?  In an age of almost instant communication, it’s tempting to contact as many people as possible and lobby them to our side.  Jesus, however, has other advice.  Consider what he says in Matthew 18:15-17.

“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.  If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.  But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
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A Mother’s Love

      

by the Rev. B.J. Beu

 

       When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he gifted us with what has come to be known as the Lord’s Prayer:  “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name….”  Jesus constantly referred to God as “Abba,” which is Aramaic for “Father.”  In modern parlance we could even translate “Abba” as “Daddy.” 

       Many Christians use Jesus’ language as proof that God is also our Father, and by extension, that God is male.  Continue reading →

“Who Me?”

 REFLECTIONS FROM THE REVEREND
by the Rev. B.J. Beu

If you hang out at church long enough, you can expect to hear those pesky requests to give a hand at the church and to live your faith.  No matter how quick you are out of coffee hour, you may be invited to invite a friend to church, join a church ministry, participate in the prayer chain, invite a friend to church, help in our newly-formed nursery, assist in Sunday school, invite a friend to church, volunteer to usher or serve communion, phone your friends who are missing from church, invite a new friend to church, provide food some Sunday for fellowship hour, make a casserole for a family struggling with a sick loved one, invite a friend to church, and the list goes on and on.  Did I mention, invite a friend to church.
Before you dismiss this plea, thinking that God only uses people of unquestionable moral and religious fiber to do these things—not people like us, not people with our quirks, secret foibles, and decidedly non-holy peccadilloes—consider that you may be exactly the kind of people God wants after all.

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