Preparing for Worship - LeAnn Hampton.  Today (November 27) is the first Sunday of Advent, a time of preparation and waiting for the birth of Jesus. Waiting is difficult for most of us; in fact, I’ve never known anyone who lists waiting as a personality strength. We...

Preparing for Worship - Heather Mustain, associate pastor.   Today ends Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, a national campaign to draw attention to the problem and prevalence of hunger and homelessness in America. In partnership with Housing Forward and...

Preparing for Worship - Gina Biddle.   “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” which we sing today in worship, initially was a poem written by Thomas O. Chisholm in 1923 about God’s faithfulness over his lifetime. The lyrics reference Lamentations 3:22-23. I witnessed the...

Preparing for Worship - Doug Haney, associate pastor. Our Granny Haney lived in a small brick home around the corner from our house situated at the end of a dead-end street in Alpharetta, Georgia. To get to her house my siblings and I cut across the garden that...

Preparing for worship - Heather Mustain. The late Phyllis Tickle, in her book The Great Emergence, suggests that every 500 years the church has its own rummage sale, cleaning out old forms of spirituality and embarking on the process of finding new ones. Today we...

Preparing for Worship - Abbey Adcox. I have a complicated relationship with rest. Don’t get me wrong, I love curling up with a good book on a lazy Saturday morning or taking a nice cozy nap on Sunday afternoons. I love choosing to rest. Unfortunately, more often than...

Preparing for worship - John Kelly.   No, I can’t be the only one. There have to be others — those whose shoulders also drop the moment they encounter the suggestion of inconvenience. Those whose unadulterated enthusiasm is one stubbed toe away from devolving...

Preparing for Worship - Jeff Hampton.   Today in worship we hear a very strong theme of helping others and being the hands and feet of Christ on earth. It is a foundational message of our faith. But I wonder, too, if it doesn’t beg the question: Have we been good...

Preparing for Worship - Kathryn Keller.   I descended from a heritage of faith. My maternal Grandma, who passed on earlier this year, and Grandpa, who has been with us in Dallas for much of the pandemic, told us for years that they prayed for all of their...

Preparing for Worship - Brianna Childs.   I’ve always been someone who can fall asleep and stay asleep just about anytime, anywhere. I just NEED good sleep or else I am deeply impacted. People vary based on a variety of factors on how much sleep they might need,...