Weekly Messages
Enneagram Personality Type 4 – The Individualist – Robin Camu
by Robin Camu | Jan 24, 2013
by Robin Camu This is a summary of the characteristics of the Enneagram Type 4 personality (The Individualist) from our Wednesday night discussions. Join us for the next one!
"A Hoary Head:" Navigating the Announcements at NRCC
by Doug Hammack | Jan 20, 2013
When I was a kid, I got rewards for memorizing the ancient proverbs. Here's one that is still stuck in my head... A hoary head is a crown of glory, if it is found on a man or woman who has walked the way of righteousness. I didn't know what "hoary" meant. (That...
Enneagram Personality Type 3 – The Achiever – Robin Camu
by Robin Camu | Jan 17, 2013
by Robin Camu This is a summary of the characteristics of the Enneagram Type 3 personality (The Achiever) from our Wednesday night discussions. Join us for the next one!
Enneagram Workshop: Part 2 – Robin Camu
by Robin Camu | Jan 13, 2013
by Robin Camu Following up on last week's lesson, how can we use the Enneagram for spiritual and emotional healing? John 5:1-18 gives us background on the 4 criteria Jesus employed for healing: being willing to own our own brokenness being willing to give up our...
Enneagram Personality Type 2 – The Helper – Robin Camu
by Robin Camu | Jan 9, 2013
by Robin Camu This is a summary of the characteristics of the Enneagram Type 2 personality (The Helper/Giver) from our Wednesday night discussions. Join us for the next one! Type Two in Brief (from http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/typetwo.asp) Twos are empathetic,...
Enneagram Workshop: Part 1 – Robin Camu
by Robin Camu | Jan 6, 2013
by Robin Camu The Enneagram is a scholarly study of personality types across time and cultures. There are 9 basic personality types, each with ts own virtues, vices, motivations, interaction styles and challenges. We each carry all of these 9 personality types, but we...
New Year 2013
by Doug Hammack | Dec 30, 2012
Today we prepare ourselves for a new year. Have a listen, Doug
Advent 2012 – Week 4
by Doug Hammack | Dec 23, 2012
The Psalms tell us to lift up our eyes... to see with an elevated vision. This is exactly what Advent invites us to do. In this lesson, I'll recognize that it's tough in our culture, to make December a month of vision-elevating. But, I'll suggest some ways to be...
Advent 2012 – Week 3
by Doug Hammack | Dec 16, 2012
On Friday, 20 children were murdered in their school and 6 adults who tried to protect them. Can we celebrate this season's focus on "hope" when something like that happens? We'll see. I have a few remarks to make, but most of this morning's lesson will be...
Advent 2012 – Week 2
by Doug Hammack | Dec 9, 2012
So sure, hope is a great thing. Sure, prophets speak and angels sing... "Comfort... comfort my people." That's all well and good. But brass-tacks reality insists we at least mention the high price exacted of those who bring hope into the earth. Look at how our...
Advent 2012 – week 1
by Doug Hammack | Dec 2, 2012
When we think of "prophesy" we think of predicting the future. That's not what the ancients thought. They thought of prophets as "seers," seeing what the rest of us miss - and in particular, seeing the things of the Divine. Today, we read one of our ancient prophets...
When the Going Gets Tough… (and it does)
by Doug Hammack | Nov 25, 2012
Perseverance is easy to say... difficult to maintain. Today we look at what perseverance does for us, and what in the world might motivate us to do it. Have a listen, Doug
Thanksgiving 2012 (2)
by Doug Hammack | Nov 18, 2012
Again... Sometimes we make gratitude a perfunctory practice. Let it not be so! This is big! Transformative! Big! Have a listen, Doug
Thanksgiving 2012 (1)
by Doug Hammack | Nov 11, 2012
Sometimes we make gratitude a perfunctory practice. Let it not be so! This is big! Transformative! Big! Have a listen, Doug
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (6b)
by Doug Hammack | Nov 4, 2012
Continuing our look at how language informs meaning, and in particular how the future perfect tense helps us think about... - the spiritual journey before us... - how we live in spiritual community. Have a listen, Doug
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (6a)
by Doug Hammack | Oct 28, 2012
Living in the Future-Perfect Tense. Yet another skill necessary if we would reweave the spiritual community so necessary for our souls to thrive. Here's how it works. We live in Time-X. But the great hope of our tradition is a state of redemption and soul-health. We...
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (5b)
by Doug Hammack | Oct 22, 2012
"Service." We continue looking at how service wears down and wears out the false-self beliefs we build our lives on. It's a hassle, to be sure. However, it is a hassle the way eating salad is a hassle. We may prefer nachos and beer, but two things: 1) salads can...
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (5a)
by Doug Hammack | Oct 14, 2012
"Service." One of the ancient skills necessary to live well in the environment in which our souls thrive. One of the ancient skills necessary to live in authentic spiritual community. But perhaps not for the reasons you might think. We come to the ancient Christian...
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (4)
by Doug Hammack | Oct 7, 2012
"Confession." That's a word I hate to use because of the images I know it conjures up. If we grew up Catholic, we see images of boxes and priests telling us to say "hail-Mary's." If we grew up Protestant, we see ourselves telling our dark sins to the preacher or the...
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (3)
by Doug Hammack | Sep 30, 2012
It's tough to put a name on skill #3 in this lesson... maybe "developing a tougher skin?" Maybe "being able to receive criticism?" No, neither of those are right. In fact, in this lesson I never give this skill a name. Probably closest would be "putting personal...
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (2)
by Doug Hammack | Sep 22, 2012
Humility. As we saw earlier this year, humility is often misunderstood. It smacks of servility or insecurity. Not so. Humility starts with a profound understanding that we carry the image of God, and a settled understanding of what it means to be human - growing....
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (1)
by Doug Hammack | Sep 16, 2012
Skill #1: Growth. Stands to reason doesn't it? If we don't have a learning and growing posture, we don't grow into the skills, competencies, and emotional framework to do spiritual friendships well. Look around if you don't believe me. As a society, we feel deeply...
Spiritual Community in a Mid-Size Church (3)
by Doug Hammack | Sep 9, 2012
Before the holiday break we were talking about how we, as we are becoming a mid-size church, can keep alive one of our core values - authentic spiritual community. Continuing that lesson today, we're talking about several related themes; today, some stories relating...
Labor Day Sunday 2012 (Listening to Fenalon)
by Doug Hammack | Sep 2, 2012
We're in the middle of a lesson on authentic spiritual community, but it's Labor Day Sunday and many of us are traveling. So, rather than continue the lesson that's building one week on the next, I thought I'd just do a stand-alone, kind-of-related lesson. It's really...