Last Sunday, November 5th, was my 39th birthday. As I sat around a table with my family and a few friends, the news of the Sutherland Springs massacre started to come in on our phones. When we were cleaning up the plates of cake and ice cream I glanced at my phone. Tags on […]
Sutherland Springs, One Week Later // Moving Beyond Thoughts and Prayers Read More »
Today begins a sermon series on the book More than Enough: Living Abundantly in a Culture of Excess by Lee Hull Moses. We’re doing an online book study (through a closed Facebook group) and I’m using the free worship planning guide to give sermon starters and some interactive station ideas. Today’s theme is abundance. As folks walked
Sermon Remix: Abundance and the Feeding of the 5,000 Read More »
Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! This morning’s message is not one I want to reprint or excerpt. Instead I’ll give a summary of some of the things discussed and link to some things I found interesting as I prepared the sermon. I started out by borrowing a little bit of the intrigue from
Sermon Remix: Resurrection || Easter 2017 Read More »
This is the week when we come face to face with the dark details of crucifixion. I have to admit how incredibly uncomfortable I am with this story. I think most people are, if we stop long enough to think about it. It’s incredibly violent. Senseless. Painful. We are confronted not just with what happened,
Sermon Remix: Why did Christ Die on the Cross? Read More »
A few weeks ago I was talking to my sons Clayton and Samuel about baptism. “It’s when you put water on the baby’s head and the baby officially becomes part of God’s family,” I said. Clayton furrowed his brow and said “But the baby is always a part of God’s family, even before you put the
Sermon Remix : Some Thoughts about Baptism and the Book of Order Read More »
Sermon Text: 1 Kings 18:20-39 The Hebrew Scriptures of our Bible, what we call the “Old Testament” are full of what I like to call “flashy” stories. Sure, the New Testament has some pretty flashy stuff as well and Jesus being raised from the dead is the flashiest of them all, but when it comes
Sermon Remix: Elijah and the Prophets of Ba’al Read More »
Happy Birthday, church! Today is Pentecost, the day when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit coming to the early church. To me, it’s one of the most exciting days of the church year, right up there with Easter and Christmas. It’s a huge celebration, a party. There is much to be thankful for
The Age of the Spirit Read More »
We are finishing our two-part series on “Spiritual Spring Cleaning” this week. Last week we talked about how our material possessions can weigh us down and we considered how “living lighter” might affect is spiritually. This week we are going to continue with that, but instead of thinking about the possessions that weigh is down, we
Sermon Remix: Spiritual Spring Cleaning II Read More »
If a flood came and washed away everything you owned, or a fire burned every single possession in your home to the ground, what would you miss the most? I remember about 6 years ago Elias and I were on a short term Presbyterian Disaster Assistance work project to help some folks in Iowa who
Sermon Remix: Spring Cleaning Part 1 Read More »
How do people answer the question “How are you?” “Fine”, or “good,” Am I right? After that, what do you think the next most popular answer is? I think it’s busy. It’s almost like a reflex. How are you? Busy. The thing about busy as an answer (and I’m just as guilty of this as
Sermon Remix: Sabbath as Relinquishing Control Read More »
