Over the past couple of weeks, I've spent a lot of time planning the Celebrating Grace Communion Dinner. It's going to be over the top with great food, delicious wine, good music and fancy clothes. In other words, it's going to be a feast. We can think of big parties and big dinners as distractions from reality. And, truth be told, we sometimes approach them this way. But the reality is, feasts are supposed to point us to God. God is creative and generous and shares his good gifts with us. And He is often depicted in Scripture as the One ...

I am currently reading The Social Animal by New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks. Tracing the fictional lives of characters Harold and Erica, Brooks draws on scientific findings to answer the question of how human beings flourish. Last night I was reading about why Harold and Erica had a difficult marriage. Renowned therapist John Gottman suggests that a clear sign of a healthy marriage is that in communication, for every negative comment a spouse makes 5 positive comments. I have never done the research myself, but I totally buy ...

Today, guest contributor Chef John Perkins writes about food and theology. John will be cooking at Celebrating Grace on October 2. Enjoy! One would expect an essay on food and theology to begin with a discussion of at least one or the other. That would be reasonable. But such discussions are really third and fourth course fare. If I were serving you a meal we would begin with an amuse (a small bite intended to wet the appetite) or perhaps an anti-pasto platter (a savory selection of cured meat and aged cheese, crusty bread and perhaps a few ...

(Note: Today's post is by Gabriel St. John) You may have recently heard on the Grace Seattle grapevine whisperings of a new Artists and Writers Guild. If this is the case, then I’m most delighted you already know something about it, but I’d like to take this opportunity to give a definite and audible voice to those hushed mutterings. And if this isn’t the case, then I’d love to introduce you to this very nascent and exciting project. Below are some questions about the Guild you may have; questions I have attempted to answer, almost all I ...

A month after I moved to Seattle, I read an article on the social culture of the city, entitled “Our Social Disease.” In it, Seattle University sociology department chair Jodi O’Brien said that “Seattleites are often seen as having this veneer of pleasantness but being hard to come to know”— a helpful insight to one who just moved to an unfamiliar place. I’ve had only seven years to test O’Brien’s hypothesis, so I am no expert. But Seattle does seem to have a unique culture that makes forming relationship difficult. Theories abound on how w ...

Our vision is bigger than our congregation. Our dream isn’t to create a nice, safe, cozy place for ourselves. Instead, we want to be a church that is for Seattle. Among other things, this means that we want people who do not know Jesus to come to know him. This means evangelism has to be happening. This fall, we are doing two things to help make that happen. First, this Sunday we are beginning a year-long congregational immersion in the Gospel of John. John wrote his gospel so that people who don’t know Jesus would come to know him (see ...

I remember being told to never swim alone and understandably so. Swimming puts you in a vulnerable position (not to mention most things are just more fun when enjoyed with other people). In any case, no matter how competent, talented or able you are, things out of your control can happen when dealing with water and, as a result, an uneventful situation can turn quickly dire. The Christian life is very similar to swimming. We should not go about it alone. Everyday life puts us in a vulnerable position and we need people around us to support ...

(Note: Today's guest blogger is Sam Wheatley. Sam is the Pastor of New Song Presbyterian Church in Salt Lake City.) As a pastor of a church that has a clear liturgical structure to its public worship. I often get questions from people who are unfamiliar with such an approach. Contemporary people, whether experienced with Christian worship or not, haven’t thought much about the role that liturgy and ritual play in our lives. A key insight when beginning to understand liturgical worship is to see that all people are powerfully shaped by ...