Sermon Notes (Page 15)

In the fourth week of our sermon series on how we read our Bibles, we are jumping into the New Testament with the letters and epistles from Paul and other authors. The reason we are starting the New Testament here instead of with the Gospels is that many of these letters actually pre-date the Gospels in terms of their authorship. You can find resources on reading and studying the Bible here. I’m not very good at writing letters. If I’m…

In the third week of our sermon series on how we read our Bibles, we are taking a look at the prophets and Wisdom Literature in the Hebrew Bible (often called the Old Testament). In the past couple of weeks, we have dived into “Epiphany & Creation” and “History & Law,” and invited our community to try reading the Bible in intentional and perhaps new ways. You can find resources on reading and studying the Bible here. The prophets, from…

This week we continue our new sermon series on how we read our Bibles. If you missed it last week, we published a list of resources to plan a regular time of reading the Bible. Find it here. This week we move beyond the creation stories and into the story of Moses as the leader of the Exodus and the bringer of the Law. These narratives are told in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, sometimes known as…

This past Sunday’s worship began our new sermon series on how we read our Bibles. Because of the holiday, this Sermon Note is more of a follow-up to the Worship experience. We also published a list of resources to plan a regular time of reading the Bible. Find it here. In beginning this series, we first discussed the primary—and opposing—ways that people generally seem to read sacred text. Those who would identify as Fundamentalist or Conservative Evangelical generally affirm a…

This week’s worship from our advent series gets into the good stuff! This week we really get into the familiar and exciting parts of the story! It’s almost Christmas and there’s just a little more online shopping to finish up!! To be honest, I really want to be that excited and have almost nothing left to do. But if you’ve worked in a church or a church office, you know that the last week or so before Christmas Eve is…

This week’s text jumps a bit from previous texts in this series. We started with Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians and Ephesians and then moved to Mark for two weeks. This week we jump to the Gospel of John with a text that seems to almost duplicate last week’s from Mark. Why would those who established the Lectionary do this? I don’t have an answer to this. In comparing the Markan description of John the Baptist with that of John,…

A couple of weeks ago, I got to teach some of our Scouts about land navigation or orienteering–things like how to use a compass and read a map, and use those tools to find one’s way across terrain. Another assistant scoutmaster set up a course for the girls to navigate down in Marian Bear Memorial Park, and she and I taught some basics and sent the girls (and their parents) to find their way.  As we set up the course,…

I’ve never been one for waiting. Of course if there’s good news coming, I want it right away!! And even if there’s something less-than-ideal on the horizon, I’d rather know and deal with it head-on than wait in that sense of horrible anticipation. Once again in our Extended Advent, our scripture is about end-times. It is interesting that our lectionary authors included such thematically-connected texts in these weeks before celebrating angels and shepherds and new life. Even so, these eschatological…

This Sunday is Christ the King Sunday and our third week of our Extended Advent series. It may seem as though all of our scriptures so far have been focused on eschatology (the theology of the last days). This is a fair assessment. Even when we follow the shorter four-week Advent schedule, the first of these is always an eschatological selection. This is because our preparations for the arrival of the Christ child parallel our preparations for the second coming…

I have never been pregnant, but my husband and I are in the final weeks of becoming certified resource (foster) parents, and find ourselves preparing our home for children in much the same way we would if I were having a biological child. Part of the difference for us–aside from not taking Lamaze classes–is that the child or children coming to our home could be any age between birth and five years old. With that knowledge, we are preparing for…

This Sunday we begin our Extended Advent celebration! A project recommended by The Very Reverend Wm H. Petersen, PhD, this extended time is intended to remain faithful to our spiritual traditions understanding that our culture has appropriated the pre-Christmas season as a time of shopping and movie-watching. While the giving of gifts and creative inspiration are worthy efforts, these things must take place through the lens of spiritual preparation for the presence of Christ in our lives. During this time,…