For the fourth Sunday of Advent, Love Sunday, the New Church of Montgomery welcomed Guest Minister, Rev. Catherine Lauber over zoom. She performed a sound meditation on the Gospel of Luke 1:26-56 using crystal singing bowls during her sermon entitled, “Faith Grounded in Love”.
Please listen/watch here and enjoy.:
Rev. Catherine Lauber, from Canada, will be leading our worship today. The title is “Faith Grounded In Love,” and will include a sound meditation instead of a sermon.
Please join us for Fellowship at 10:30 am, and Worship at 11.
Rev. Catherine Lauber will be leading our zoom only worship on December 18, and offering a Scripture and Sound Meditation, using crystal singing bowls while sharing verses from the Gospel of Luke. This immersive experience is intended to create a slight meditative state to help you access the inner sense of scripture in a deeply personal way.
Church members will be emailed the zoom link and may share it with their close contacts.
When the oppressor falls, are we free? When wars cease, are we at peace? Superficially maybe, but at a deeper level not necessarily. History shows one oppressor arising after the fall of another. Every truce, every armistice is no more than a pause before the outbreak of new hostilities. By contrast, heaven’s peace, the peace we wait for during Advent, the peace Swedenborg describes, is just that: the life of Heaven flowing into us.
Join us this Sunday, (Dec 5, 2021, at 11:00 am-worship, 10:30 am- fellowship) as we ask what it means to be truly at peace, within ourselves and with each other.
Rev. Dr. Jonathan Mitchell
Zoom link will be emailed to church members and their contacts.
We will be exploring the following readings:
Scriptures:
Psalm 85
Luke 2:8-14
Swedenborg:
[AC 5662, excerpts, adapted from the Potts translation]
“Peace” … is the inmost, and hence the universally reigning thing, in each and all things in heaven. For peace in heaven is like spring on earth, or like the dawn, which does not affect us by particular visible things, but by a universal beauty that flows into everything that is perceived, and fills not only the perception itself with this beauty but also the particular objects. At the present day scarcely anyone knows the meaning of “peace” when mentioned in the Word, as in the benediction, “The Lord lift up His face upon you, and bring you peace” (Num. 6:26); and in other places. Almost everyone believes peace to be security from enemies, and also tranquility at home and among companions. Such peace is not meant in this passage, but a peace which immeasurably transcends it – the heavenly peace just now spoken of. This peace can be bestowed on no one unless someone who is led by the Lord and is in the Lord, that is, in heaven where the Lord is all in all. For heavenly peace flows in when the obsessions (cupiditates) arising from the love of self and the love of the world are taken away.
Celebrate Advent’s Love Sunday at 11 a.m., on Zoom with the New Church of Montgomery. December 20, 2020, our Lay-leader Pete Toot will lead us in “celebrating the journey into Bethlehem with a Swedenborgian perspective on spiritual dimensions of the coming of the Lord.” Join us prior to the service at 10:30 am, for fellowship.
Please join us over Zoom, for fellowship (10:30 am) and Worship (11:00 am) this Sunday, December 6, 2020, with Guest Minister Rev. Jonathan Mitchell. This Sunday is Peace Sunday, in our Advent sequence. We will be having Communion, so have some bread and wine or juice to partake from, at home.
The theme for this Sunday, is: On the Way Home
The Advent story describes a journey to Bethlehem, for Joseph and Mary, a journey to their ancestral home. Traveling has become problematic in 2020, hence our online travel to worship this Sunday. All the more reason to undertake the spiritual journey to our ultimate home in heaven, the place where we most fit in, the place where we most deeply understand each other.
Bethlehem in Hebrew means the “House of Bread.” For Swedenborg, Bethlehem corresponds to the “Spiritual of the Celestial.” In, I hope, more accessible language, the spiritual journey to Bethlehem moves us into a deeply intuitive and compassionate understanding of our fellow humans.
In the midst of a year of fire, flood, conflict and pestilence, the Lord calls us to compassion and healing. Join us this Sunday as we help each other on the way home. ~ Rev. Mitchell
Join us at 11:00 am (10:30 am for hospitality) this Sunday, November 29th, via Zoom church, as we celebrate the first week of Advent with a service centered around the theme of hope.
This is also the Sunday of our Annual Meeting. During this time, we welcome new members, evaluate how our year has gone, plan for the future, elect new New Church of Montgomery Board members, and commit to giving something of ourselves to the church, whether it be time, talent or treasure.
Lay-leader Gloria Toot will present our service for this “Hope Sunday”. Please join us.
We have a busy Sunday planned for some of us!
At 11:00 AM the Glendale New Church Service and Pastor Clark Echols will continue their focuson the Gospel of Mark and the spiritual connection between God and one another.
The service is followed by a quick chili and soup luncheon so that the sanctuary can be decorated for the Advent season. Please let Pastor Clark know if you will be attending so they can plan accordingly for lunch. Any help is appreciated!
At 3 pm, the kids who are participating in the Christmas play will have play practice at the Glendale New Church.
Glendale New Church entryway window
The “Adoration of Christ”
Sunday Sermon by Rev. Dr. Sherrie Connelly 12/1/19
New Church of Montgomery
Isaiah 2:1-5
Isaiah at the mountaintop, foresees and prophecies that the Lord will be worshiped and adored. He shall be a Lord of peace and the people will walk in the light.
Psalm 12.2 joining together in the house of the Lord Jerusalem stands together, full of thanksgiving and praying for peace, as the people seek all that is good.
Romans 13:11-14
The time has come to awaken to our salvation as believers in the Lord. Setting aside darkness we are armored and light, with Jesus’ help.
Matthew 24:36-44
The Gospel of Matthew prophecies that the son of man is coming, at an unknown hour, but for sure he is coming to walk among us.
True Christian Religion (Rose) # 560
In truth, save your adoration for Jesus Christ himself, the son of God and source of eternal life. No other deserves this honor.
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Our Lord Jesus Christ is adored as the King of Peace, a source of good and a being of light, whether foreseen by Isaiah praying a sum of peace in Jerusalem, or armored in light as in Romans. In each of these we raise up our adoration of Christ.
Today is the first Sunday in the season of Advent, and as such the start of a new church year. It is a time of preparation, expectation and waiting, a blessed time, sometimes sitting in darkness but holding forth in the coming of the light.
The Lord’s coming is prophesied, and in that we can have assurance. The Christ child shall be born to redeem the world. An innocent babe resting in a Manger in a rude born, yet destined to become the savior of the world. Let us rejoice in anticipation awaiting the advent of hope and the birth of joy. Amen.
New Church of Montgomery, in Glendale 