Sermon Summary

We have all these great people around us as examples. Their lives tell us what faith means. So we, too, should run the race that is before us and never quit. We should remove from our lives anything that would slow us down and the sin that so often makes us fall (Hebrews 12:1-2 ERV).

My mother-in-law died on Mother’s Day (tough day), which also happens to be the day before my husband’s birthday, and this past month we have experienced a wide spectrum of emotions. In pondering the text for this Father’s Day sermon, the phrase “living legacy” kept running through my mind. [Read more…]

Sermon Summary

Genesis 1:1-2:4; 2 Corinthians 13:11-3

This Sunday is the first Sunday of Ordinary Time in the Church year. So, after the season of Lent, when we had purple drapes in the sanctuary; and Easter, when we had white and gold drapes; and Pentecost, when we had red; now we have green.

“Ordinary Time” does not mean unimportant or insignificant, which might be what many people think of—but it what it means to those of us who follow in the steps of all the saints before us is that we follow a pattern. The pattern by which we ORDER our days. Order our lives. [Read more…]

Sermon Summary

Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39

During the season of Lent, we focused on preparing the community of the faithful to receive the waters of baptismal covenant on Easter morning. Over these last Great Fifty Days of Easter, we have been talking about living into that covenant made by water and the Spirit. And now, today, we hear God speaking to us strongly in our scriptures about water.
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Sermon Summary

Acts 1:4-11; Psalm 68:1-10; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; John 17:1-11

Have you ever been without power? If you have lived through a summer storm, mostly likely you have experienced that feeling of fear/helplessness/worry/anxiety . . . dark . . . no air conditioning . . . you don’t realize how dark it can be until the electricity goes out and there are no lights at all—no refrigerator hum, no ceiling fans.
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Sermon Summary

John 14:15-21; Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22

Just a few days ago we celebrated a wedding here in our family of faith—two people became husband and wife. A new unit. A new family. Two formerly single people became one single entity. A familiar event in our culture, but when we stop to think about it, there is a deep and profound mystery involved. Two separate, individual entities with distinct personalities and quirks and strengths and weaknesses and preferences and dislikes become joined in a way that is unique and wonderful. In God’s plan, this new joining will be a completion of something that was formerly incomplete. By committing to one another, they are now separate from the rest of humankind by their new oneness. This is what God spoke in Genesis 2:24 and Paul was using as an allegory for God’s Bride, the Church, in Ephesians 5:29-33.
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