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Engaging Science in the Life of Your Congregation

Engaging Science in the Life of Your Congregation

With so many issues to discuss, Christians can easily get the feeling that science is always attacking the faith. It is essential to balance such conversations with positive responses to God’s creation. After all, the primary response to the natural world in the Bible is to praise the God who made it.
May 14, 2013 
Deborah Haarsma 
Education, Worship & Arts
9
Psalm for the January Thaw

Psalm for the January Thaw

God shows himself not just in the orderliness of nature, but powerfully, joyously and always surprisingly in its beautiful "non-order" as well.
Jan 18, 2013 
Luci Shaw 
Worship & Arts
9
Frenetic Sequence

Frenetic Sequence

We tend to think of creativity in terms of flashes of insight and brilliance, of novelty, and especially of unexpected things bursting upon the scene. But creativity is no less creative and no less remarkable when it proceeds step by step, according to discipline, according to rule.
Oct 27, 2012 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
0
Stumble On

Stumble On

The song is built around the image of a river flowing through a canyon it has sculpted—an image that can easily be played out as a picture of the way that the Lord has been at work preparing a path for us in the material world, complete with signposts to his former and present activity.
Sep 16, 2012 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
4
<strong>Series:</strong> Beauty, Science and Theology

Series: Beauty, Science and Theology

It doesn't take a scientist to appreciate the beauty with which God has arrayed his creation. But scientists do have the opportunity (and training) to appreciate different kinds of beauty than do most non-scientists, whether they are ordinarily "hidden" in the extremes of scale, the elegant processes of an experiment, or in the abstraction of mathematics. Indeed the appreciation of various kinds of beauty has always played a critical role in motivating scientists to investigate the world, and in helping them decipher its workings. In the three-part essay, Ruth Bancewicz explores some of the ways beauty, science and theology intertwine.
Jul 25, 2012 
Ruth Bancewicz 
Worship & Arts
The Heavenly Declaration

The Heavenly Declaration

The universe that inspired the psalmist three thousand years ago grows grander as each new generation of astronomers adds yet another layer of understanding.
May 04, 2012 
Karl Giberson 
Worship & Arts, Astronomy & Physics
0
Wheat that Springeth Green

Wheat that Springeth Green

As we remember the narrative that takes us from Good Friday through Easter morning, the image of a buried grain of wheat invites us into the story rather than just describing what happens in it.
Apr 06, 2012 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
5
Jefferson’s Bible and the Tears of Christ

Jefferson’s Bible and the Tears of Christ

Predictably, "Jesus Wept" did not make into the Jefferson Bible. John 11 was cut out entirely, falling onto the floor of his Monticello home and discarded, along with Martha's confession.
Mar 31, 2012 
Makoto Fujimura 
Science & Worldviews, Worship & Arts
8
<strong>Series:</strong> Science as an Instrument of Worship

Series: Science as an Instrument of Worship

In this brief series (taken from a 2009 paper), Jennifer Wiseman uses an excerpt from the famous hymn “How Great Thou Art,” to explain why the study of God’s creation can lead Christ’s followers into meaningful worship and overcome the obstacles which impede true praise. Creation as encountered through our senses is pondered by our minds, which flows into wonder-filled songs from the soul. She further explains how knowledge of creation will help Christians to address the moral dilemmas of science, and she encourages all to see the process of scientific inquiry as a means to discover God’s truth.
Mar 19, 2012 
Jennifer Wiseman 
Worship & Arts, Science as Christian Calling, Astronomy & Physics, Creation Care
Knowing Your Context

Knowing Your Context

The Psalmist affirms that the created world speaks of its creator, and that everywhere we look or listen there are words, speech pouring forth in abundance. But are we prepared to hear that speech?
Mar 17, 2012 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
4
Vox Balaenae

Vox Balaenae

In 1967, biologists Roger Payne and Scott McVay discovered that humpback whales “sing” and published recordings of the whales’ complex vocalizations, after which “whale song” quickly entered the popular consciousness and helped propel the “save the whales” environmental movement forward.
Mar 04, 2012 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts, Creation Care
1
Making the Whale

Making the Whale

This week’s artistic treatment of the great whales takes as its subject a more-storied and decidedly less-gentle member of the family, but returns to our fascination with and desire to know about whatever is dramatically not us.
Feb 26, 2012 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
1
Humpback Whales

Humpback Whales

Of all the earth’s creatures, few deserve the description of “awesome” as do whales. Counting among their kin the largest creatures that have ever lived, whales exist in a world that remains mysterious and remote.
Feb 18, 2012 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
40
Oscillators for Singers

Oscillators for Singers

Dr. Heather Whitney’s double major in physics and performing and visual arts suggests that she lives—as well as understands—the connections between subjective and objective ways of engaging the creation. She is committed to communicating that experience with her students, too.
Feb 12, 2012 
Heather Whitney 
Worship & Arts
0
Gratitude

Gratitude

Of all the blessings to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, none of them surpasses the riches of the eternal blessings which the Lord has bestowed on his sons and daughters in Christ Jesus.
Nov 24, 2011 
Mark Swarner 
Worship & Arts, Sermons
1
Orb Weaver

Orb Weaver

Clearly, the orb weaver is a powerful symbol of both spiritual and creative truth for Suzanne Rhodes—something wonderful and beautiful. But my own experience with orb weavers was somewhat less poetic...
Nov 12, 2011 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
0
Oyster and Pearl

Oyster and Pearl

That something nourishing resides hidden away in the most unexpected and unglamorous of places speaks to the paradoxical hiddenness of God.
Nov 06, 2011 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
1
The Water Is Wide

The Water Is Wide

While in common parlance we tend to think of something being “co-opted” as a bad thing and a violation of original principles or intentions, the word itself does not imply a “hijacking” so much as a divergence with connection: co-operation between one use and another.
Oct 23, 2011 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
9
Art, Worship, Creation, and Imaginative Engagement

Art, Worship, Creation, and Imaginative Engagement

We should not be ashamed of the fact that our faith integrates spirit and body; our faith calls us to regard the stuff of creation in all of its materiality as good, and thus offers the best starting point for the practice and pleasure of art.
Oct 15, 2011 
Ken Myers 
Worship & Arts, Sermons
0
The Clever Trout

The Clever Trout

The Psalmists observed that both the starry heavens above and also “everything that hath breath” praises the Lord; but is this more than a flowery anthropomorphism, a poetic but ultimately meaningless trope?
Oct 09, 2011 
Mark Sprinkle 
Worship & Arts
1
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