What's Happening at St. Mary's?

This Sunday, all are welcome to join us for a morning of worship and fellowship. Whether you are with us in the sanctuary or joining from afar, your presence strengthens our community. Our services are at 8:30 & 10:00 a.m. We warmly welcome those who cannot attend in person to join us via our live stream for the 10:00 a.m. service. 

It's not every year that our Pub Theo conversations fall on April Fools Day, but here we are. In fact, near as I can tell, the last time this happened was in 2019, you know, those glorious pre-pandemic days before everything started to fall apart and we all lost our senses of humor. It is sometimes suggested that worship is holy and serious stuff, and that church is no place for jokes. What's your take? How serious, or how lighthearted can we be or should we be? Is there a place for humor in church? Better yet, let's take our questions right to top. In short, does God have a sense of humor? What would you point to as evidence for your answer? And does that tell you anything broader about how you think about God and your relationship with the divine? There is a long debate about the role of humor in the Christian faith. Seriously, people argue over whether Jesus laughed or not. (For what it's worth, the Bible doesn't offer us any examples of Jesus laughing, let alone smiling, but that doesn't mean he didn't.) Over at the website Patheos, there's an interesting article about irreverence, faith, and what we want our relationship with God to be like. This line from the article resonates: "But we only get a cardboard cutout Jesus in scripture—to see him as a human being, I think some irreverent thoughts. Given that we human beings are flawed, imperfect, and funny to our toes but have perfectionist delusions, irreverence is a universal humanizer." So in our discussion this evening, we're going to talk about humor and the place of irreverence in our religious and non-religious lives. This conversation will be no joking matter! Join us this evening starting at 7pm at Casa Real in downtown Oxford.

This Sunday, all are welcome to join us for a morning of worship and fellowship. Whether you are with us in the sanctuary or joining from afar, your presence strengthens our community. Our services are at 8:30 & 10:00 a.m. We warmly welcome those who cannot attend in person to join us via our live stream for the 10:00 a.m. service. 

From an early age we're taught that honesty is the best policy. But is it? From a social and psychological perspective, the benefits of honesty seem pretty straightforward . Honesty builds trust. This can in turn lead to stronger relationships with family, friends, coworkers, and so on. Likewise, when we are honest with ourselves, we build trust in ourselves which can lead to better mental health and helping you lead a more authentic and more fulfilling life. But are there circumstances where holding back, or scaling back the honesty, as the XKCD comic above puts it, is the better way forward? In short, is it sometimes better to be less honest, both with others and with ourselves? For example, in a review of a new novel by Emily St. James, Atlantic writer Emma Sarappo reminds us that "Many LGBTQ people face a lifetime of moments that require them to weigh honesty against safety," a dilemma that is particularly acute and dangerous for trans people in this very moment. We're going to talk about all of this in our conversation this week. What is your relationship with honesty? Are there times in your life where you feel like you've been too honest? More importantly, what does it mean to you to be honest and to live honestly? And how do we do it? What gets in the way? Join us for the discussion tomorrow evening, Tuesday March 25. The conversation starts at 7pm at Casa Real in downtown Oxford.