Galileo Church

We seek and shelter spiritual refugees, rally health for all who come, and fortify every tender soul with the strength to follow Jesus into a life of world-changing service.

5860 I-20 service road Fort Worth, TX 76119 USA

(682) 760-1274

OUR MISSIONAL PRIORITIES:

1. We do justice for LGBTQ+ humans, and support the people who love them.

2. We do kindness for people with mental illness and in emotional distress, and celebrate neurodiversity.

3. We do beauty for our God-Who-Is-Beautiful.

4. We do real relationship, no bullshit, ever.

5. We do whatever it takes to share this good news with the world God still loves.

Trying to find us IRL?
Mail here: P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060
Worship here: 5 pm CT Sundays; 5860 I-20 service road, Fort Worth 76119

Trying to find our Sunday worship livestream?
click here!

Advent 2017: Resist the [fill in the blank]

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The season of anticipating and celebrating Christ’s coming prompts us to ask what it actually means for the world. Not sentimentality, not giddy excitement, not material wish lists… but a new world order that turns us upside down, and to which we are invited to commit, again.

Resist Sentimentality. Here Jesus sounds more like John the Baptist – his voice raised, his mind racing. It’s far from “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens” – it’s harsh, and hard, what he’s promising for the renovation of the cosmos. “Woe to those who are pregnant.” Who says that? Who puts that on a Christmas card?

Resist Parking in Your Privilege, or Your Oppression. John prepares his (religious) neighbors for Jesus by calling for demolition – a road cut through the Rockies with explosives, toppling of peaks and filling in of valleys. Don’t get invested in the tippy-top (or the intermediate ledge) where you sit. It’s coming down. Don’t feel despair if you reside in the valley; it’s coming up.

Resist the Ambition to Wealth and Power. But let’s be honest – any of us would take more, if we could get it. Mary sings a lullaby to her child that prepares him to resist the pull; we sing to each other the same song, and encourage each other into ridiculous life paths. Vocation!

Resist the Seduction of Impossibility. The “virginity” of Mary may not be literal, but the point remains: God seeks those who will say “Sure” to what any reasonable person would scoff at. Truly, isn’t any baby an impossibility? Aren’t our very lives built on an impossible premise in the first place, that life flourishes in the darkness of a womb?

Resist the Wholesale Rejection of Religion. Jesus grows up in a deeply religious home, among deeply religious people, and though he resists the self-righteous rigor it promotes, he argues for reformation rather than rejection. (Doesn’t he?) At its best, religion produces people like Simeon and Anna, who are waiting, looking, for something to happen on the fringes of the religious hegemony. Does our religion serve us similarly? Are we growing into Simeons and Annas?