Sermon Archives

The Spirit
August 16, 2015

The Uncontrollable Spirit

For a long time Jenny and I have had this anxious little game we play when we come back home from being away on vacation. As we turn into our neighborhood we ask each other: “Will our house still be there? What if it burned down while we were gone, or a windstorm blew a […]

August 9, 2015

The Spirit and the Eunuch

Today I continue with our series on the Holy Spirit. So far we’ve noted the Spirit’s work in the grand sweep of nature and in the grand sweep of the world. We’ve seen that the Holy Spirit works in big picture arenas. But today I want to zoom in on the little picture, on the […]

August 2, 2015

Finding the Spirit Outside the Church

The (old) Mennonite church that I grew up in was deeply suspicious of the broader world. To keep North American society away, the church of my childhood tried to erect visible markers of difference. Women were to wear prayer coverings. Men were to dress plainly. Youth were to stay away from rock music because that […]

July 26, 2015

Bent Over the World

Today I begin a series of sermons on the Holy Spirit. For many of us in this congregation, the Holy Spirit is probably the person of the Trinity we think about, talk about, and pray to the least often. For four years I was a member of a Mennonite church in another state where the […]

July 19, 2015

Practicing Patience

This text from Galatians comes as a hard word to us Mennonites in this time and place. For the last few years, we in the Mennonite Church USA have been biting and devouring each other—precisely what verse 15 admonishes us not to do. I refer, of course, to our fights over gay and lesbian issues. […]