St. Patrick Presbyterian Church, Epc

Eugene Peterson, surveying the religious landscape of his day came to this conclusion: "The word 'christian' means different things to different people. To one person it means a stiff, upright, inflexible way of life, colorless and unbending. To another it means a risky, surprised-filled adventure, lived tiptoe at the edge of expectation...If we get our information from the biblical material, there is no doubt that the Christian life is a dancing, leaping, daring life.” (Eugene Peterson, Traveling Light). I suspect most of us have seen this same thing. We have seen religious communities that reflect a joyless existence mainly committed to what they are against. Those communities have little draw to them and certainly are not telling a better story. Yet, sometimes we see people and communities that don’t take themselves so seriously and dare to risk, entering the fray of life in all its complexities and pitfalls. It takes a lot more courage to do the later. Paul writes about living in the power of the resurrec