Sermons

It’s All One

As this Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, we will be moving backwards in the narrative to Acts 2, which begins “When the day of Pentecost had come…” That is my continual reminder that what we know as Pentecost is not what the disciples in the story knew as Pentecost. It was an already existing holiday celebrating the first fruit of the harvest and the receiving of the Torah, called Shavuot, and “Pentecost” is merely the Greek form of the Hebrew “Shavuot”.…

The Power to Empower

We are almost at the end of this season in the Narrative Lectionary. Just two Sundays left! This Sunday we will look into Philippians 2 and the Apostle Paul’s famous “Christ Hymn”. It’s a beautiful peace of poetry, and has massive implications on the world we live in today to the degree that I will also be “assigning” some homework! What!?!? Then next week is Pentecost Sunday and we can call this season a wrap. After Pentecost, I’m excited to…

We Are a Resurrection People

This week in worship we are in the first of two weeks in what one scholar describes as The Apostle Paul’s “happiest letter”, his letter to the Philippians. As some of you know, I’m not a huge fan of Paul’s letters, due to my own spiritual baggage. So while I resist him, it’s good that the lectionary makes me deal with him, if only for two weeks! Also, the discussions in our weekly Bible Study (Wednesdays at 4:30 in my…

The Unknown God

This Sunday in worship, we hit one of my all time favorite passages. There’s a lot about the Apostle Paul with which I struggle, but I really like Paul in this story. I’m looking forward to diving into his philosophical conversation with folks in the little town of Athens. -Pastor Paul

Don’t Stop Singing.

Y’all, I am SO excited about this Sunday. We have a big, somewhat complicated, but powerful story from the Book of Acts, and we’re gonna shake things up a little. -Pastor Paul

Better Caul Saul

This week we turn the page to the book Acts, which is a collection of stories about the Disciples after Jesus has ascended and sent to the Holy Spirit on them in a new fresh way. That movement of the Spirit starts in Acts 2, on the Day of Pentecost (the Jewish holiday Shavuot), which isn’t for another few weeks. So this week we skip over that story and we move into the beginnings of the ministry of the Apostle…

Unleashed

This week we wrap up the Gospel of John with a passage that has two significant stories: One is essentially John’s Pentecost story, and the other is Thomas and his need to see and touch the resurrected Christ before he can believe (personally, I think he gets a bad rap around this). -Pastor Paul

Finding Life

This Sunday is Palm Sunday so we will be moving backwards in the Gospel of John to accommodate for that. As with so much of John, the Palm Sunday passage is pretty different in that what surrounds it is not Jesus turning over tables in the temple (that was in John 2) but the raising of Lazarus. We’ll dig into it all and how it all connects to one of John’s primary themes: Life! -Pastor Paul