Tag Archives: friendship

Friendship Prayer (Sirach 6.14-17)

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prayer group handsSirach 6:14-17
Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter:
Whoever finds one has found a treasure.
Faithful friends are beyond price;
No amount can balance their worth.
Faithful friends are life-saving medicine;
and those who fear the Lord will find them.
Those who fear the Lord direct their friendship aright,
for as they are, so are their neighbors also.

Holy One, come
Help me to be this kind of friend
Faith-full
Sheltering
A Treasure Beyond Price
Life-saving Blessing and Balm

Let people find this in me
Because you are within me
Because you are this for me

Let me find this in others
For you are with and within them as well
You are this for us all

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Friendship Prayer © 2019 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
Leave a comment for information and permission to publish this work in any form.

Sermon Recording- If I Only Had a… Friend (Ephesians 4)

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finding-god-in-oz

Sermon Series – Finding God in Oz
The Wizard of Oz is a powerful allegory for so many of our foundational Christian beliefs. Walk with us as we Find God in Oz.

Message: If I Only Had A…. Friend
Scriptures: Ephesians 4:11-16
Offered 11/6/16 at Trinity United Methodist Church, Sarasota Florida

The Wizard of Oz characters lament, “If I only had a brain, a heart, a home, the nerve.” What “If I only had a” is really “If I only were a”? It’s not a question of having a thing or a circumstance. It’s a longing of being. The Scarecrow wants a brain, but really means he longs to be a smarter person. The Tin Man wants a heart, a desire to be an emotionally whole person. Dorothy wants to go home. Could this be her way of saying she wants to be a person who is less impulsive or a person who makes better decisions or thinks through the consequences of choices? Lion wants nerve, to be a courageous person who is ready to be who he was created to be.

They think the wizard is going to give them these things and then they’ll live happily ever after. Instead, the wizard places them in danger and then merely points out the obvious. They’ve already found what they were looking for. Where? In each other. In caring for each other, supporting one another, seeing each other through trials, mentoring, and inspiring one another they have become what they longed for. What they really needed was a friend.
– Lisa Degrenia <><

John 15:15 NRSV
Jesus said, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant[b] does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”

From The Way of Transforming Discipleship by Trevor Hudson and Stephen D. Bryant
I have a hunch that if Jesus were to walk down the streets of your town or city today, he would look around at all those who are isolated and disconnected and say something like this:

“Come to me, all you who want to belong, and I will give you a table to sit around.
Come to me, all you who feel disconnected.
Come to me, all you who are lonely, cut off, rejected, and marginalized.
Come to me. Come home. Come be part of the family that I want to share with you.”

Additional Resources

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I’m excited to now offer mp3’s of my Sunday messages. A huge thank you to Leon and my brothers and sisters at Trinity United Methodist Church, Sarasota for all their help in making this possible. If you’re ever in Sarasota, please drop by for worship Sundays at 9am or 10:30am, or drop by during the week for a chat or small group. You and those you love are always welcome.

sermon © 2016 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
Contact Lisa for posting and publication considerations.

Quotes: Friendship

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Friendship by Jiaur Rahman

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”  – Henri Nouwen

I used to want to fix people, but now  just want to be with them. – Bob Goff, Love Does

Proverbs 17:17 (NRSV)
A friend loves at all times, and kinsfolk are born to share adversity.

A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.
– Arnold H. Glasow

She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind. – Toni Morrison

Proverbs 18:24 (NRSV)
Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin.

The sincere friends of this world are as ship lights in the stormiest of nights.
– Giotto di Bondone

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice.
– Samuel Johnston

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. – C. S. Lewis

John 15:15 (NRSV)
Jesus said, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.”

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For more information on the scripture translation, art and the use of this devotional in other settings, please refer to the copyright information page.