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Connecting With The Faith | 
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Connecting With The Faith Here is where sermons are posted -- as heard by worshipers at The Connecting Place: Christ Presbyterian Church (a center of faith for abundant living) in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania -- a close-in suburb of Philadelphia.
We see our church as The Connecting Place -- hoping to connect with folks who are tired of "bowling alone" and now seek more connection in their lives.
Here folks connect with one another, connect with the world around them, and connect with God.
By intention, all who seek to connect with a community of faith are welcome here.
Our services are traditional in underlying design but progressive in content.
Sacred texts are read in easy to understand translations.
Congregational singing enhances the message of the day.
Language descriptive of the Deity is carefully chosen to avoid anthropomorphization and ascribing gender.
The sermons are designed and crafted to bring God's Word to bear on identified felt needs and are informed by the latest scholarship being published by The Jesus Seminar and others who seek to uncover the essence of the texts that have been passed on to us.
The Reverend Clyde Griffith serves as minister.
Comments by the pastor of The Connecting Place -- Christ Presbyterian Church -- a center of faith for living abundantly in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA.
We call this church The Connecting Place because that's what happens here: people connect with one another, with the world around them, and with God.
Sooner or later most folks get tired of bowling alone and seek opportunities to connect with the world around them. We are here.
Studies show that folks who participate regularly in a faith community actually live better, live healthier, and live longer than those who don't.
Of course, we believers have known this to be true for far longer than the scientists have been studying the issue.
It is no accident to see so many gray heads in our Presbyterian churches.
In fact, we are told that Jesus said his primary purpose was to show how to live more abundantly.
Worshiping together, social networking, stimulating the mind, delving into writings and beliefs of our faith, and passing on our faith to new generations drives what we do at Christ Presbyterian Church and what we try do here on this blog.
Over eight years of the ordained life, I have returned again and again to this chapter in 1 Kings, so fraught with evocative imagery and poignancy, and found echoes of my own spiritual journey. I have read it and found myself in the clinically depressed prophet who "sat down under a solitary broom tree" and asked that he might die. I have read it and found myself in the prophet of God on the run from those who would take his life. I have read it and found myself in the prophet who is unable to discern God's will in all the calamitous noise of the world, but finds it in the "sound of sheer silence."
Most importantly, though, I have read it and found myself in the prophet who, despite depression, threats and distraction, hears God's voice saying, "What are you doing here? Go, return on your way, and do the work to which I still call you."
Because it is my sacred calling from God to speak his Word and share the living water of his love with parched human souls, I have created this blog -- with the utmost humility -- to share God's Word with anyone who would set a spell beneath this tree with me and listen.
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