Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song And Praise

As we begin to delve into today’s readings, I invite you to look at the beginning words in your bulletin.  There we read: Open a newspaper, turn on the TV, read online – everywhere we look, the world is crumbling about us.  War, violence, natural disasters, hateful words, anger, and hostility litter our cultural landscape like so much garbage along a highway.  Even within our own homes, sin, death, and the devil seem to have the upper hand.  Anger, betrayal, mistrust, and manipulation hang rotting on the vine, rather than the lush, sweet grapes of love, care and forgiveness we expect and desire.  And if we take but a moment for self-reflection, we notice that it is our own selfishness and hard-heartedness that contribute to this state of affairs.  We are indeed “captive to sin and cannot free ourselves” as we confess in worship.            These words were not written this past week.  They were written almost two years ago for this Sunday by a handful of leaders in our denomination as they formed and created