2025-06-29 REMOTE SERVICE

David Brooks, book author and political and cultural commentator, reflects on how the educated elite—including figures like himself—helped build a meritocratic system that ultimately rigged society in their favor, destroying equality, moral clarity, and institutional trust along the way. The elite privatized morality, replacing shared values with individual feelings of right and wrong, leading to a loss of meaning and community. Yet, there’s hope in rupture and repair: cultural renewal happens when small groups live in a better, more communal way that others feel drawn to follow. This renewal, he suggests, requires a return to our spiritual roots—recovering a sense of sacred moral order, such as the belief that every person is made in the image of God, as a foundation for dignity, justice, and shared purpose.

Christians and our communities often carry positive associations, such as love, grace, and forgiveness, as witness in the life of Jesus. But being around faith-filled people or identifying as Christian doesn't guarantee that we're being shaped by Christ. True discipleship demands a deeper, honest heart check. Though grace is freely given, it carries a nagging urgency—there's a limit to how long we can drift before missing what God wants to do in us. Real love and grace comes with friction, correction, and wake-up calls that move us toward living out the greatest commandment: to love and honor God and others with our lives, not just our labels.

Scripture:

Matt 25: 1-13

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

25 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4 The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5 The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

2025-06-15 Remote Service

In this installment of his series on resilience, John Eldredge expands on the primary purpose for taking a pause with God: to heal and strengthen our union with Him. Just as the Holy Trinity of the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are in perfect union with one another, God invites us to partake in union with Him. The core of Christian faith is in relationship with Jesus, and in our increasingly chaotic world, it becomes all the more necessary to experience intimacy with a God who knows and loves us completely.

John 17: 20-23

Jesus Prays For All Believers

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.