Summer reading
Our Sunday morning Bible Study will break for the summer. Here are some book recommendations from Pastor Julia for your continuing Christian education.
Spring Study 2025
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Sundays beginning April 27 9:00 AM Solomon's UCC Social Room |
What should modern readers make of the wildly fantastical Revelation to John? New Testament scholar Greg Carey offers an accessible guide to the biblical book of Revelation, inviting us not to decode every symbol (or tame every dragon) but rather to engage in the urgent questions of power and loyalty.
lenten study 2025
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Sundays beginning March 9 9:00 AM Solomon’s UCC Social Room |
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Most Christians know the Lord’s Prayer by heart. We pray it often, at different times and in different settings. We remember it as the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples. But do we really understand and appreciate the meaning and power of its words, what we ask of God each time we pray it?
When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, Jesus gave them this prayer. He likely taught it to his followers often, not just one time. He never intended the Lord’s Prayer to be a museum piece, framed and placed on a mantel or in a display case. It was Jesus teaching God’s people, through his disciples, how to pray.
In The Lord’s Prayer: The Meaning and Power of the Prayer Jesus Taught, pastor and bestselling author Adam Hamilton guides us to really know―and really pray―the Lord’s Prayer. He explores each of its rich lines and their meaning in the Bible, illuminating what we ask of God and what we ask of ourselves through its words. And he teaches us how to use it as a pattern for our own prayer life.
When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, Jesus gave them this prayer. He likely taught it to his followers often, not just one time. He never intended the Lord’s Prayer to be a museum piece, framed and placed on a mantel or in a display case. It was Jesus teaching God’s people, through his disciples, how to pray.
In The Lord’s Prayer: The Meaning and Power of the Prayer Jesus Taught, pastor and bestselling author Adam Hamilton guides us to really know―and really pray―the Lord’s Prayer. He explores each of its rich lines and their meaning in the Bible, illuminating what we ask of God and what we ask of ourselves through its words. And he teaches us how to use it as a pattern for our own prayer life.
Winter STUDY 2024-2025
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Sundays beginning December 1 9:00 AM Solomon’s UCC Social Room |
Here is a story that begins with an elderly couple (beyond child-bearing years), then quickly continues to an adolescent girl (not ready, by her own testimony, for child-bearing). Here in the Gospel is John the Baptist, who engages people from a wide variety of social groups. Here in the Gospel is Jesus, who breaks social boundaries, embraces the outcasts, questions the status quo, and defines his ministry simply: "to let the oppressed go free."
Luke stresses issues of social and political significance: the plight of the poor, the prejudices of ethnicity, and the power structures of social mores. In both structure and content, Luke sounds the call to liberation louder than any of the other Gospels. And that call asks all of us to get in on the action.
Our study of Luke will follow the Advent lectionary and then move chronologically through the gospel.
Luke stresses issues of social and political significance: the plight of the poor, the prejudices of ethnicity, and the power structures of social mores. In both structure and content, Luke sounds the call to liberation louder than any of the other Gospels. And that call asks all of us to get in on the action.
Our study of Luke will follow the Advent lectionary and then move chronologically through the gospel.
Summer study 2024
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Sundays | 9:00 AM Solomon’s UCC Social Room |
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Pastor Julia will use Short Stories By Jesus by Amy-Jill Levine to provide new insight into and to facilitate discussions of some of Jesus’ most famous parables. Participants are not required to read the book, but that is encouraged!
Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi
By Amy-Jill Levine
The renowned biblical scholar, author of The Misunderstood Jew, and general editor for The Jewish Annotated New Testament interweaves history and spiritual analysis to explore Jesus’ most popular teaching parables, exposing their misinterpretations and making them lively and relevant for modern readers.
Jesus was a skilled storyteller and perceptive teacher who used parables from everyday life to effectively convey his message and meaning. Life in first-century Palestine was very different from our world today, and many traditional interpretations of Jesus’ stories ignore this disparity and have often allowed anti-Semitism and misogyny to color their perspectives.
In this wise, entertaining, and educational book, Amy-Jill Levine offers a fresh, timely reinterpretation of Jesus’ narratives. In Short Stories by Jesus, she analyzes these “problems with parables,” taking readers back in time to understand how their original Jewish audience understood them. Levine reveals the parables’ connections to first-century economic and agricultural life, social customs and morality, Jewish scriptures and Roman culture. With this revitalized understanding, she interprets these moving stories for the contemporary reader, showing how the parables are not just about Jesus, but are also about us—and when read rightly, still challenge and provoke us two thousand years later.
Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi
By Amy-Jill Levine
The renowned biblical scholar, author of The Misunderstood Jew, and general editor for The Jewish Annotated New Testament interweaves history and spiritual analysis to explore Jesus’ most popular teaching parables, exposing their misinterpretations and making them lively and relevant for modern readers.
Jesus was a skilled storyteller and perceptive teacher who used parables from everyday life to effectively convey his message and meaning. Life in first-century Palestine was very different from our world today, and many traditional interpretations of Jesus’ stories ignore this disparity and have often allowed anti-Semitism and misogyny to color their perspectives.
In this wise, entertaining, and educational book, Amy-Jill Levine offers a fresh, timely reinterpretation of Jesus’ narratives. In Short Stories by Jesus, she analyzes these “problems with parables,” taking readers back in time to understand how their original Jewish audience understood them. Levine reveals the parables’ connections to first-century economic and agricultural life, social customs and morality, Jewish scriptures and Roman culture. With this revitalized understanding, she interprets these moving stories for the contemporary reader, showing how the parables are not just about Jesus, but are also about us—and when read rightly, still challenge and provoke us two thousand years later.
Lenten study 2024
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Wednesdays: Feb. 21, Feb. 28, March 6, March 13, March 20 8:00 PM | via Zoom Please email [email protected] to sign up so that you receive the Zoom link each week |
Pastor Julia will use the book Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition to facilitate discussion on the topic of creation care as a Christian practice. Participants do NOT need to read the book, but that is encouraged.
Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition: Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant Wisdom on the Environment
By Acton Institute
A fair and honest debate about religious responses to environmental issues should always distinguish theological principles from prudential judgments. The Cornwall Declaration and the accompanying essays in this volume were written to do just that. They were not written to provide theological rationale for current environmentalist fashion. Rather, they seek to articulate the broad Judeo-Christian theological principles concerning the environment, and to distinguish those principles from contrary ideas popular in the environmental movement.
Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition: Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant Wisdom on the Environment
By Acton Institute
A fair and honest debate about religious responses to environmental issues should always distinguish theological principles from prudential judgments. The Cornwall Declaration and the accompanying essays in this volume were written to do just that. They were not written to provide theological rationale for current environmentalist fashion. Rather, they seek to articulate the broad Judeo-Christian theological principles concerning the environment, and to distinguish those principles from contrary ideas popular in the environmental movement.
Lent Resource - Creation Justice Ministries
advent resources (winter 2023)
You are welcome and encouraged to take advantage of these free Advent study and devotional resources:
Pastor Julia's Advent Book Recommendations:
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summer 2023
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Sundays starting June 11 9:00 AM | Solomon's UCC Pavilion This will be part of an alternative worship. |
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Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home
by Pope Francis
In his second encyclical, Laudato Si : On Care of Our Common Home, Pope Francis draws all Christians into a dialogue with every person on the planet about our common home. We as human beings are united by the concern for our planet, and every living thing that dwells on it, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. Pope Francis letter joins the body of the Church's social and moral teaching, draws on the best scientific research, providing the foundation for the ethical and spiritual itinerary that follows. Laudato Si outlines:
by Pope Francis
In his second encyclical, Laudato Si : On Care of Our Common Home, Pope Francis draws all Christians into a dialogue with every person on the planet about our common home. We as human beings are united by the concern for our planet, and every living thing that dwells on it, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. Pope Francis letter joins the body of the Church's social and moral teaching, draws on the best scientific research, providing the foundation for the ethical and spiritual itinerary that follows. Laudato Si outlines:
- The current state of our common home
- The Gospel message as seen through creation
- The human causes of the ecological crisis
- Ecology and the common good
- Pope Francis' call to action for each of us
fall 2022
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Tuesdays Starting November 1 9:00 AM | In-Person at SUCC |
CATHEDRAL ON FIRE | A CHURCH HANDBOOK FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS
By Brooks Berndt
The urgency of the climate crisis requires that we act as if our cathedrals and churches are on fire. Indeed, God’s creation can be seen as one grand cathedral on fire with burning forests and rising temperatures. Amid this dire situation, Brooks Berndt focuses our attention on the unique and vitally needed gifts that churches can offer. He writes with poetic passion but also with an eye toward the practical as every chapter ends with suggested, field-tested actions.
Chapters in the book explore the following areas in which churches possess immense potential:
By Brooks Berndt
The urgency of the climate crisis requires that we act as if our cathedrals and churches are on fire. Indeed, God’s creation can be seen as one grand cathedral on fire with burning forests and rising temperatures. Amid this dire situation, Brooks Berndt focuses our attention on the unique and vitally needed gifts that churches can offer. He writes with poetic passion but also with an eye toward the practical as every chapter ends with suggested, field-tested actions.
Chapters in the book explore the following areas in which churches possess immense potential:
- a commitment to care for God’s creation as our first calling
- a scriptural basis in pursuing justice for a planet and its people
- a moral foundation for understanding the climate crisis as an inequality crisis
- a powerful, sacred language for articulating what fundamentally motivates people to act
- a hope-giving history found in the faith leaders who launched the environmental justice movement
- a rich tradition of theology in times of crisis
- a countercultural ethic of generational justice found in the Bible
- a recognition of youth as the climate prophets of today
