The strange and frustrating thing about the lectionary – the three year cycle of readings that is used in many churches in the world – including ours… the strange and frustrating thing about the lectionary is that sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. Each week we have a reading from the Old Testament, the New…
Kenotic Words
worship, sermons, lectionary
Proclaiming the Word
In our passage from Ephesians this morning, we hear two very important, complimentary lessons. First – God is One. There is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One Spirit, One Hope, One Body, ONE! A few weeks ago, as I first introduced these elements of worship, we looked at the very simple message that Isaiah…
Passion Sunday – a Reader’s Theater for Worship
<> The Lord be with you! And also with you. Let us lift up our hearts! We lift them up to the Lord! Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise! It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give…
Blessed
Texts: Genesis 9, Mark 1 This week, we enter the holy and sacred time of Lent. This time of Lent is really a time of blessing – a gift from God that pulls us out of our normal, everyday lives and thrusts us into God’s life. The very idea of being blessed means being set…
Lectionary Leanings – All Will Be Well
December 14Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11, Psalm 126 or Luke 1:47-55, I Thess. 5:16-24 , John 1:6-8, 19-28 A few summers ago in seminary, I participated in a course called “Church in the City.” We traveled around Nashville exploring many diverse neighborhoods and heard many powerful stories of how churches were impacting the communities that they lived…
ABC’s of …
I spent a lot of time in the car last week – having to drive to the hospital in another city and then traveling yet again to meet with my clergy mentor. And as I did so, I kept thinking about how we can really ramp up energy for the fall and then sustain it.…
Priorities
This morning’s gospel passage is not one of those that tend to make us all warm and fuzzy inside. On the surface, it appears to offer no real “good news” at all. But that is because the gospels have this fantastic ability to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable all at the same time.…
A Different Light
A Different Light… There is a strange paradox in the church these days. While we often use words like repentence and transformation – all words for radical change in our lives, the truth is, the church is often the LAST place that change occurs. A friend of mine often reminds me that people come…