Hopegateway

Less consumption, more compassion. Richard Foster writes, "Fasting helps us keep our balance in life. How easily we begin to allow nonessentials to take precedence in our lives. How quickly we crave things we do not need until we are enslaved by them.” What non-essentials have taken precedence in your life? What things have crowded their way to the center, until you feel like you’re enslaved by them? How can you set these things aside through the practice of fasting? Where can you cut back on consumption so you make space for compassion?

What if we really had the wisdom to accept the things we cannot change and the courage to change the things we can. How would our lives be different? We might move into a whole new reality, or we might be able to accept the reality we have for what it is. Acceptance brings us peace. Jesus embodied acceptance even as he worked for change.

Over and over in the Gospels we see an ebb and flow – Jesus is attracting great crowds, he’s teaching and healing, and everywhere he goes, people are following him. Over and over, in at least eight places recorded in the Gospels, Jesus leaves the crowds behind, he sneaks away to a deserted place, all by himself, to pray, to seek the comfort of solitude, to invite God to renew his spirit. For Jesus there was a back-and-forth rhythm, between action and contemplation. How about you? How might you draw closer to God through solitude and silence? Less noise, more listening...

We all need to make a space for grace in our hearts, in our lives, for ourselves. We need to confess so that we can be open the forgiveness we long for. We need to make space for grace all around us. We need to share grace with others.

Hope.Gate.Way. has tried to live by a series of Core Values. The first of which is Community. True community is something rare and wonderful, but is a reality among us. What makes community? How can we each contribute to community? The message this week also includes some great sharings from various people in the community.

During this week when violence ripped through the peace in our country, we come seeking peace. What does it mean that Jesus is the Prince of Peace? There was no end to violence when Jesus was born, nor when he died, nor when he was resurrected. The peace of Jesus means something beyond the lack of violence, and something deeper and more profound. Peace is an internal reality and an external longing. We need to make space for peace both internally and in our world. We need peace.

We live in a google age. We believe there is an immediate answer to every question. We let this expectation flood over into our faith. Mary ask few questions when the angel told her she would have a baby and he would be God's Son. We need to make space in our lives for mystery, because sometimes the questions are better than the answers.

The voice of Jeremiah echoes down across 2600 years: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord…” A message of hope. The hope is that God is with us in whatever wasteland we find ourselves, and God invites us to be part of God’s work of restoring all things. This is the hope of Advent. Not that God waits for everything to be perfect – for all the details to come together in just the right configuration -- but that Jesus came in the messiness... in the midst of loose ends and unfinished business... in the midst of pain and suffering. And God invites us to embody that hope for others. So – with one candle lit on our Advent wreath, we begin this journey through the Season of Advent, and today we’re making space for hope.

As we reflect on how to draw the circle wider still at Hope.Gate.Way. We want to focus on the importance of community. There is a deep sense of community at Hope.Gate.Way. and it's something that we want to grow even deeper in.

The first week of our series Draw the Circle Wide. Gratitude is the place where stewardship starts. When we draw our circle of gratitude wider we are thankful for more parts of our lives. When we exchange resentment for gratitude, we find the peace and hope that God gives.

As we continue this worship series, "God's Politics," we're attempting to cut through the rhetoric to explore some of the issues at stake as we seek the heart of God. Today's message focuses on the issue of same-sex marriage, with two of our retired pastors, Rev. Sam Johnson and Rev. Charlotte Hendee sharing a dialogue. Until his retirement in 2011, Sam Johnson served as the Director of Contextual Education at Boston University School of Theology. An ordained elder in the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church, he served 27 years in local churches, most recently at Christ Church, United Methodist, in Wellesley, MA. Sam is a graduate of DePauw University and Harvard Divinity School.Charlotte Hendee has recently retired to Maine after serving churches in the Baltimore/Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church. Prior to her ordination, Charlottee worked in the United States Senate and on Capitol Hill for the General Board of Church & Society of The United Methodist Church. She i

Jesus said turn the other cheak, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. How are we to let these teachings guide us, while we live in the most militarized country in the world. Today we are talking about how to follow our faith as we vote and communicate with our federal representatives as it relates to U.S. Military Spending.videos can be seen at:http://www.truemajority.com/oreos/&http://youtu.be/8y06NSBBRtY

God is not a Republican. God is not a Democrat. God is not even an American. But for people who wish to wish to put their faith into action, politics do matter. In the words of Oscar Romero, “The Christian faith does not cut us off from the world but immerses us in it.” Over the next several weeks, as the election cycle gathers steam, debates rage, and the rancor intensifies, we’ll attempt to cut through the rhetoric to explore some of the issues at stake as we seek the heart of God. Wherever you stand on the issues, we hope you’ll join us for the conversation.

Why is it so easy to see the mistakes others make and so hard to see our own? It's easy to judge others, but the challenge Jesus gives us is to see the pieces in us that need changing rather than focusing on the parts of others that need changing. Grace is the gift God gives to us all. We can have the blessing of giving it to each other.

Sometimes we think we can ask God for whatever we want. We want to be someone else. We want to have something else. We want to do something else. But what we ultimately want is to be satisfied. God wants us to accept who we are, and most of all God wants to give us God's Spirit, God's very self.

Jesus asks, "Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? Aren’t you worth much more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? And why do you worry about your clothes?"And then the promise: "If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you, you people of weak faith?"Where do you place your hope and trust? What do you want your life to count for?