Sermon Archives

April 14, 2019

The March of the Kingdoms

With a high school band or soldiers in basic training, one of the first things taught is how to march.  And that’s not an easy task.  Learning how to march takes practice, hours and hours of practice.  Hours and hours spent paying attention to even the slightest details.  The length of the stride.  The pace […]

April 7, 2019

The Extravagant Disciple

This is a story of extravagance, of a woman named Mary who dumped very expensive perfume on someone’s dirty feet and then promptly wiped it off. You might call this action absurd, wasteful, or outrageous. Jesus, however, calls it discipleship. To understand why Mary was extravagant, look back to chapter 11. Lazarus, the brother of […]

March 31, 2019

Crossing the Chasm

A friend of mine was recently asked to speak at a major denominational meeting. For his talk, he chose a topic he was passionate about. It was a topic he knew really, really well because he had been thinking about it for at least 10 years. So when he sat down to write his speech, […]

March 24, 2019

Repent

Most news reports focus on sad, evil events. “Three People Die in Weekend Crash” says the headline on the front page of the paper. Listen to the news on your car radio and you might hear something like, “Today in western Kansas, a tornado ripped through several towns. As emergency workers rushed to the scene, […]

March 17, 2019

A Hen in the Foxhouse

I was talking with a friend a while ago.  He was telling me how it feels to have an empty nest after nearly twenty years raising two children, both sons.  And he told me of the ache he feels to see his oldest son make choices that go against what he’d been taught, how he’d […]

March 10, 2019

Saving God

I remember exactly where this book was located on our family bookshelf while I was growing up.  It was the bottom shelf, because this book was too big and too thick for the other shelves.  As a child, I would often use this book for non-reading purposes.  As a hard backing to draw on.  As […]

March 3, 2019

A Whole and Holy Mind

I almost called this sermon “yet another mental health sermon” because I feel that either I preach on this subject often or I hear others doing so. And these sermons vary. I’ve heard sermons that would have people “delivered” from the “demon” of mental illness, I’ve heard sermons that promote the power of positive thinking. […]

February 24, 2019

A Noble and Generous Spirit

What is the nastiest thing that ever happened to you? What events in your life caused you the most suffering, the most pain, the most misery? What grand injustice came to you, stirring up enormous frustration and intense anger inside you?

February 17, 2019

For This Reason

For this reason. Those are the first three words of our scripture text this morning. For this reason, Paul writes, he prays to God for the church in Ephesus. Tomorrow, I’ll be traveling to Laurelville Mennonite Church Center in Pennsylvania for a meeting of the Values-Based Leadership Program. This has been helpful for me to […]

February 10, 2019

In Deep

To all who are loved by God and called to be saints, there is grace and peace for you – in abundance — through our Lord Jesus Christ. Discombobulated. Befuddled. Flabbergasted. Flummoxed.  If there are ever words that sound like their meaning, it’s those.  And that’s kind of how I’ve been feeling lately, in dire […]

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