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Anabaptist Values 6: The Lord’s Supper
By coming to the table, each member of the community is expressing her or his commitment to all other members of the community. And we celebrate the unity that we have together. We are testifying together that we are the body of Christ. The name communion represents this, this communion or shared life that we…
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Anabaptist Values 5: Community and the Holy Spirit
Pentecost has arrived right in the middle of our Anabaptist Values series, which is perfect because the Holy Spirit was such an integral part of the life and faith of the early Anabaptists. Our reading for this Sunday focused on the beginning of the Pentecost event (Acts 2:1-21), and we discussed how the Holy Spirit…
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Anabaptist Values 4: Two Kingdoms
There was a certain anarchy to this. Anabaptists had a high suspicion of hierarchic power structures, the economic practices of the world, and the violent means used to enforce these. Most Anabaptists, thus, never sought to enforce their own cultural expression, no matter how just they thought it was, but strove to be a prophetic…
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Anabaptist Values 3: Jesus Saves
The phrase “Jesus saves” can come with a lot of baggage, and for many it could signal an overly individualistic and restricted spiritual, inner reality. In fact, we are probably all too familiar with John 3:16 sign waving, and you may have been turned off by a street preacher or two telling you to believe…
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Anabaptist Values 2: Jesus Is Lord
There are many lords in our world today whose only aim is to exploit resources, exploit people, accumulate stuff, money, power, control and they do this by sacrificing others in the name of freedom and national security.,, Paul tells the community that their unity and action is defined by the Lord who empties himself and…
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Anabaptist Values 1: Jesus and Discipleship
This summer, we at Pasadena Mennonite Church will be going on a journey through some values that we have identified as “Anabaptist Values.” The goal of this series of sermons is to be spend some time reflecting on our tradition so that we might know ourselves better. Where have we come from? What tradition do…
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Introducing … Sue Park-Hur
Many of us know the inimitable Sue Park Hur, friend and sister of PMC. Ahead of her visit to us this Sunday, I wanted to write a more detailed introduction for those of us that haven’t had the honor to get to know her yet. She and her husband Hyun Hur have been on the…
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Learn & Try; Share & Listen
For the past ten weeks I have been auditing the course Practices of Community at Fuller Theological Seminary. When I first approached the professor to ask if I could join as an auditor, I was met with a warm smile, but also a sense of concern. He said something to the effect of “Well, I’d…
Pasadena Mennonite Church 