Apr 07

Two Conversions for an Open and Affirming Church

Acts 9 tells the dramatic story of Saul’s conversion, but tucked inside it is a second, quieter transformation—one just as essential for an Open and Affirming church.

Saul’s conversion is obvious. He is stopped in his tracks, confronted by the Christ he has been persecuting, and led into a new way of seeing. His blindness becomes a doorway into humility, vulnerability, and change. Saul reminds us that God can upend even our most certain convictions and lead us toward a wider, more generous truth.

But Ananias undergoes a conversion too. When God sends him to welcome Saul, he resists—naming the harm Saul has done. Still, he goes. He lays hands on the man he fears and calls him “Brother.” Ananias models the courage every ONA church needs: the willingness to trust that God is already at work in those we misunderstand, fear, or have been taught to exclude.

An Open and Affirming church lives at the intersection of these two conversions—Saul’s openness to being changed, and Ananias’s openness to welcoming the one who is changing. Together they form the heart of our calling: to be transformed, and to be transforming, in love.

Pastor Greg

Mar 31

Go as People of the Morning

Easter Newsletter Reflection

Easter always begins in the dark. John tells us that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb “while it was still early, while it was still dark.” She carried grief, confusion, and the heavy weight of everything that felt unfinished. Most of us know that kind of darkness—moments when hope feels thin and the future uncertain.

But Easter is God’s quiet insistence that darkness is never the final word.

In the half-light of morning, Mary hears her name spoken by the risen Christ. And suddenly the world tilts. Tears become recognition. Grief becomes purpose. The garden becomes a place of commissioning. “Go to my brothers,” Jesus says. Go. Carry the news. Carry the hope. Carry the dawn.

To be Easter people is to live as people of the morning—those who step into the world with the light of resurrection still fresh on our faces. Morning people don’t deny the night; they simply refuse to believe it is permanent. They look for signs of life where others see only endings. They practice mercy in a world accustomed to judgment. They speak peace into places shaped by fear. They choose courage when cynicism feels easier.

This Easter, may we go as people of the morning.
People who rise.
People who hope.
People who carry good news into weary places.

Christ is alive, and because of that, the world is already turning toward light. Let’s step into that light together—one act of compassion, one word of courage, one morning at a time.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Have a blessed Easter!

Pastor Greg

Mar 26

Palm Sunday: From Triumph to Surrender

John 12:12–27 and Psalm 118:19–29

Palm Sunday invites us into one of the most dramatic turns in the Gospel story. Crowds gather with palm branches, shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!” as Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey. It is a moment filled with excitement, hope, and the expectation of triumph.

But Jesus knows that triumph is not the end of the journey. As the cheers fade, he speaks of a grain of wheat that must fall into the earth and die in order to bear fruit. He admits that his soul is troubled, yet he chooses to walk forward in faithful surrender, saying, “It is for this reason that I have come to this hour”

Psalm 118 helps us understand this holy reversal. The psalmist proclaims that “the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” and that this surprising work is “the Lord’s doing”. God builds life not on the stones the world celebrates, but on the ones it overlooks.

Palm Sunday reminds us that God’s way is not the way of force or spectacle, but the way of humble love. It invites us to consider where we may be clinging to our own versions of triumph—control, certainty, or comfort—and where Christ may be calling us instead to the deeper freedom of surrender.

As we enter Holy Week, may we walk with Jesus from triumph to surrender, trusting that what falls into the earth in us can, by God’s grace, bear much fruit.

Pastor Greg

Mar 12

Making a Good Confession

Lent 4 Newsletter Reflection

In this week’s scriptures, we overhear two very different “confessions.”
In John 18, Jesus stands before Pilate and speaks a quiet, steady truth: “For this I was born… to testify to the truth.” His confession is not a list of wrongs but a revelation of who he is—one whose kingdom is shaped not by force, but by truth, mercy, and self‑giving love.

Then in 1 Timothy 6, Paul reminds the church of their calling: “Fight the good fight of the faith… take hold of the eternal life… for which you made the good confession.” A good confession, Paul suggests, is not merely admitting where we’ve fallen short. It is courageously naming the One we belong to and the life we are striving to live.

During Lent, confession often gets reduced to guilt management. But the scriptures invite something deeper and more life‑giving. A good confession is an act of alignment. It is the moment we stop pretending, stop performing, and speak honestly—about our failures, yes, but also about our hopes, our commitments, and the truth we want to shape us.

To make a good confession is to stand, like Jesus, in the light of God’s presence and say:
This is who I am. This is who I long to become. And this is the One I trust to lead me there.

Lent gives us space to practice this kind of honesty. Not to shame us, but to free us. Not to weigh us down, but to help us “take hold of the life that really is life.”

May this season teach us the courage of a good confession—spoken with humility, grounded in truth, and held in the mercy of God.

Pastor Greg

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