Please join us over Zoom, this Sunday, February 26, 2023. Rev. Catherine Lauber of Ontario, will be our Visiting Minister. She will perform “A Lenten Sound Meditation for Self-Reflection,” using crystal singing bowls. Readings will be from Genesis 2 and 3.
On this first Sunday of Lent, we are invited to reflect on the Repentance stage of Regeneration. Repentance requires self-examination. Rev. Catherine Lauber will be guiding us through a sound meditation based on verses from Genesis as we experience the inner sense of scripture as a guide for self-examination of our own temptations.
Fellowship begins at 10:30 am, Worship at 11:00 am. Zoom link is provided to church members and their contacts or available upon request by emailing the church.
Please join us at the Glendale New Church or via Zoom, on Sunday, June 19, for fellowship at 10:30 am, and worship at 11:00 am. Rev. Dr. Sherrie Connelly will be providing our message.
Swedenborg Book Room and Bust of Swedenborg (side view)
Please join us Sunday, June 5, 2022, for a hybrid, in-person/zoom service with Rev. Ronald Brugler officiating from Florida. We will have Fellowship at 10:30 am, and our service will begin at 11:00 am. The title will be “When Jesus Left.”
“Expecting the Best” Sermon notes from Rev. Dr. Sherrie Connelly The New Church of Montgomery, via zoom January 3, 2021
The new year has begun and the light has come. Aha! The light has come. We are overjoyed by the new, the bright, the wide possibilities before us.
Indeed, this just past year, 2020, has been a difficult year for many people, if not all of us. It has been full of illness and challenges. So the good news of the Epiphany is a refreshing welcome. A time of blessings, indeed.
Paul alerts us to the mystery that will soon be revealed as the coming of Jesus Christ. The depth of this mysterious gift is direct access to God, our Lord on high. To know God and God’s love.
In the gospel, we hear of the familiar figures of the three wisemen—three men on a pilgrimage. From the East-following the bright star at night.
They found where the star had stopped and discovered a newborn baby in a manger, in swaddling clothes, in a feeding trough meant for hay and grain for the farm animals.
The gifts they brought to the babe, the son in Mary’s arms, were gold frankincense, and myrrh. They brought their best to him. Gold, signifying the good, frankincense, signifying internal truth from good, and myrrh signifying external truth from good.
These wandering kings recognized the Divine in this tiny human child, and already understood the amazing and grace-filled future that was His to unfold in the year to come.
The magic of a new year is the richness of potential. It is a time of expectation. A full, momentous time mostly unknown.
Because it is a new year, 2021, a new time, and a time full of anticipation, rightly it is a time for expecting the best, It is a time when we are glad to be refreshed and time to hope for the very best that is possible in the new year to come.
We are full of hopes and possibility, even dreams. Hope that the Covid-19 vaccine will work and cure a terrible illness which has caused so much suffering, illness and death. To date, over 2 million cases have been confirmed the USA, and now after 1762 deaths yesterday, a total of over 350K people have tragically died in our country. Over 1.83 million, worldwide. Hopes that people’s health will be restored and their broken families healed anew. And hopes that our divided country will be restored and united.
What are your hopes? And what are your dreams? What do you wish would happen in this new year, 2021?
Martin Luther King, Jr. is known for his stirring and memorable speech, “I Have a Dream!” The good news of Epiphany is that we all can follow a Holy Star and we all can dream dreams, too. Dreams can be wide, far flung and global. They can involved our country as well as our states cities and towns. Of course, they can involve our individual families and ourselves.
Today’s message is broad and hopeful. You are invited to Expect the Best, as well as rolling up your sleeves and working for it. You are invited to rejoin and to celebrate. 2020 is past, and the new year has come. What will you celebrate?
How will you celebrate?
Will you celebrate with others?
Or by yourself?
Will you plan the year?
Season by season?
Month by month?
Week by week?
Or let it unfold naturally? Day by day? Hour by hour? Minute by minute?
A new year is a joyful gift full of opportunity and promise… Life is yours. Full for the taking and the making… Embrace it fully— be present now—be in the Holy Presence, and expect the best!
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
Church on Sunday 11/1/20, is a virtual service with Rev. Ron Brugler, from Florida! Join us at 10:30 am for fellowship and 11:00 am for the service. The title of the sermon is, “Practice, Practice, Practice.”
Oct. 18th, 2020, Guest Minister Kit Billings’ Zoom worship theme will be: “When Tragedy Strikes, Love Attends and Never Loses Sight of Life’s Goal” No matter who we are, what our background may be, and how fortunate we’ve been in life, at various times in life tragic things happen to us or to someone we love. Why does a divinely loving and wise God allow or permit bad things to happen in life (such as a worldwide pandemic)? How would you answer this vital question? Could it be because out of purest love and wisdom, the Lord’s great, complex system of gradual salvation must protect our freedom to believe in His divine presence and support…or, to not believe? How is your faith journey going lately, when tragedy strikes?
Please join us this Sunday, at 11 am, for virtual church in Cincinnati, with Guest Minister Rev. Julie Conaron. Details to be announced. Please contact church email to receive zoom log on info.
New Church of Montgomery, in Glendale 