sermons – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

trying too hard

Posted on May 23, 2009Leave a comment

wYesterday, I shot my best two rounds of disc golf ever. On both courses, I had back nines of 6 and my combined scores for the two courses was only 29!

Now, those aren’t great scores. But for me, they are fantastic scores. I did twice as good as I normally do. And do you want to know why? I stopped trying so hard.

The same thing happened last week with my sermon. I have been a manuscript preacher – although, if I’m honest with myself, my manuscript isn’t the polished manuscript of some, but I write it exactly how I would say it, stream of consciousness style. Only without the stress of a congregation in front of me when I do it. It’s a style that has helped my preaching be a bit more authentic and yet it also gives me the security blanket of those pieces of paper in the pulpit.

In two of my last three sermons however, I haven’t really used a manuscript that I prepared before hand. And you know what – they were pretty good!

I think that I have always been raised to believe that we have to put 110% into everything that we do. And while that is a good philosophy, it’s not sustainable in the long term. Because giving 110% means that you are giving more of yourself than you have. In otherwords, it’s terrible for self-care. If you are always giving and not taking the time to fill yourself back up 110% then you will burn out.

The other problem with that way of thinking is that it makes it all about you. It becomes about what you have put into it, rather than thinking about all of the other factors that come into play.

For example, in disc golf, if you throw the disc at 110%, your arms will tire out quite quickly, but you also are not using the discs properly. You aren’t factoring in for the wind, or the nature of the particular disc that you are throwing. In my case, backing off from the throwing power also has helped me to work on my form and I have far more accurate drives and putts than I did before.

In the case of my preaching, when I get out of the way a little bit, and leave just a little bit more up to God in the moment, I am ALWAYS amazed at how God takes what I have already done and makes it amazing. If it’s all about me and the way that I wrote it, then there is very little room for God in the moment – even though God was a part of the process.

I have always been a hard worker… and I firmly believe that we need ot love God with our whole selves – heart, mind, soul, strength. But sometimes that also means we need to understand that God is God and we are not and empty ourselves so that God can work through us, like empty vessels ready for the wine.

whew.

Posted on April 26, 20092 Comments

all of the distraction and wrestling and frustration yesterday with my sermon… and in the two weeks worth of conversations on membership and discipleship really paid off this morning.

I think my number one goal was to get us to admit as a congregation (and as the church) that our current journey of faith – the one through membership – right now isn’t transforming us into disciples of Jesus Christ… we aren’t quite there yet. The big problem isn’t that it’s a bad road to travel, it’s that we haven’t held one another accountable to prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. We haven’t fully accepted the path.

When I asked how many people feel equipped and empowered to transform the world as a disciple of Jesus Christ – no one raised their hand. When I asked how many wanted to be equipped and empowered to go out there right now and change the world… everyone looked a little bit uneasy.

Good!!!! We should. Because we aren’t there yet!!! But we are always moving on to perfection, and today – we put that out there in the light of Christ, we confessed our shortcomings and failures and over the next five weeks we will be prayerfully discerning how we can begin to live out our vows. Because we don’t have to be disciples in order to practice these things…. but we might just become disciples if we do.

distracted

Posted on April 25, 2009Leave a comment

This morning I have spent three and a half hours in front of my computer attempting to work on my sermon. So far I have nothing but a title, but I have accomplished such other things as:

found an excellent debt reduction calculator for excel as I think about whether or not I can manage a car payment right now (since I’m not sure if I will ever see my car again and I can’t drive my dad’s forever)

explored various contextual interpretations of the NT passages on “homosexuality” including Romans 1:18-32 and 1 Cor 6:9 in response to a discussion I had with a congregation member on Thursday night.

thought about a recent challenge to eat vegan until dinnertime but then thought about how much I like eggs or cereal and milk for breakfast… still thinking about soy milk and cereal and found some interesting recipies for french toast. Wondering if eating vegetarian before dinner might work too? Or trying just one meal a day to start with?

soil conservation

Posted on April 19, 2009Leave a comment

This morning, I preached a sermon on soil conservation.

Yah, it may seem like a strange topic – and definately not in line with any lectionary passages or a sermon series.

But this spring, I auctioned off a sermon during our youth fundraiser. And the winning bidder got to choose the topic or scripture for an upcoming sermon. Hence, the topic.

What I was blessed with was the resources this congregation member passed along. I learned all about the National Association of Conservation Districts and recieved their amazing church resource packet.

Because of a series we are starting next week on what it means to belong to the body of Christ, this was the weekened I chose to preach on the topic – but Stewardship Week actually kicks off NEXT Sunday – so I want to pass along the site for any who might be interested! HERE

For our worship, I talked about what it is that makes good soil – both in the earth that surrounds us, but also in more metaphorical terms, what makes good soil for our faith to grow in. Using some of Gary Gunderson’s congregational strengths from “Deeply Woven Roots” I lifted up four necessities.

1) Good soil needs roots… both to protect the soil from erosion and also as the tradition and scriptures and stories that ground us in our past.

2) Good soil must be abundant and have a common purpose… a clump of dirt can’t grow the planet’s food and neither can individual Christians reach out and embody God’s will in the world – but together, we can bear fruit.

3) Good soil must be alive… filled with minerals and living organisms and water and soil and air – it is the diversity that makes life able to survive. And our body of Christ requires all of us working together, with our unique gifts to bring to life the word of God in our world.

4) Good soil must be nourished by nutrients and water… without these things, the soil would be dead and worthless, unable to produce abundance. And as people of faith, we need the refreshing power of the Holy Spirit, the waters of baptism, the bread of new life and to live in the Word of God in order to do God’s will.

celebrations and transitions

Posted on February 19, 2009Leave a comment

This Sunday is when we celebrate the Transfiguration and after five weeks of exploration on the Lord’s Prayer – I am more than ready for something new in worship.

I have been thinking a lot about what the Transfiguration symbolizes for the life of the church. Besides simply being a remembrance of the event witnessed by the disciples, besides being an affirmation that the law and the prophets were fully behind the ministry of the Son of God, the Transfiguration comes at an important juncture in Mark and in important juncture in the church year.

In Mark, Jesus is setting his face towards Jerusalem. Life as it was for the disciples would never be the same. And in many ways, we too are setting our faces towards Jerusalem as we enter the season of Lent.

But I think that the Transfiguration also serves as a transition point in which we need to remember where we have been and let that be seen in the light of God’s glory, but then set it behind us and move forward. The disciples got the glory part, but they wanted to enshrine the moment, build tabernacles, and stay in that moment. We need to take a moment to sit in the glory of what we have accomplished, but then let it go and realize that our journey has only just begun.

So that idea of celebrating a moment and then moving on is really in the back of my mind.

In our congregation, we have a lot to celebrate. We just had a hugely successful dinner to raise money for our youth ministry. We gave money to many valuable missions in the last year. We increased our involvement in worship and other activities. And the thing that amazed me, we paid our apportionments 100% for the first time in years.

But we can’t say – oh, well, we accomplished that, look how great we were, and be done. We have to keep working. We have to keep seeing what changes need to be made. We have to keep following the guidance of the spirit. And that means coming down off of the mountain top, rolling up our sleeves, and getting to work.

Falling Behind

Posted on February 5, 2009Leave a comment

I definately have not been blogging as frequently as I planned at the beginning of the year. If I’m completely honest with ya’ll it’s because I’ve been sucked into the vortex of trying to get “Loremaster” of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms in the game World of Warcraft. Basically, you have to do 700 quests on each continent in order to get the title. Last night, I completed 700 on Kalimdor and have only 100 left on Eastern Kingdoms. I’m a nerd. A complete nerd. And I don’t really care.

That has basically what I’ve been doing in my free time. Which means no time left to blog.

Church work has been very fruitful in the past few weeks. I was in a bit of a preaching rut, but I dug myself out of it on Sunday. We had a baptism, communion and an ad board meeting all in the span of the morning – and so I knew that my sermon needed to be much shorter than normal. And having to focus on being concise really helped the message. Our speaker system also was malfunctioning, so I preached without amplification, which also made me consciously enunciate more and put more emphasis and passion behind what I was saying. Not that I wouldn’t have meant it the same way before… but I really felt strongly about this sermon on forgiveness, felt like God was calling me to say some things, and not only did I say them, but the Holy Spirit helped them to make contact with a number of people. I actually felt energized by worship, instead of that feeling of just being absolutely spent when I got home.

Ironically, it was a message that really came true in my life later that day. God has a way of hitting us upside the head sometimes and more often than not, I find out that the message I’m preparing is as much for myself as for the congregation. We really are all on this human journey together.

Yesterday I got a great surprise when I recieved an email from someone who is in the local hospital. They were in need of some conversation and faith wrestling and found my email and our church through our website. It was the first time I’ve heard about our website having an impact on others, being a vehicle for invitation, and all of the time I spent on the site really has paid off, just in the one conversation I got to have with her today. If the site was shut down tomorrow, I know that it has served it’s purpose. Hopefully, it will continue to be a place for connection.

ka-clunk

Posted on January 25, 2009Leave a comment

My ghetto cruiser decided to fall apart on Saturday morning. I was stopped at an intersection about three blocks from my house (after driving to Des Moines and back on Friday and to my parents and back right before this incident) when I began to turn the corner. And heard a big clunk and felt the front right side of my car drop to the ground.

My stupid ball joint broke on the tire, which caused the suspension to fall to the ground and the tire to tilt periously within the wheel well. And then I got to sit there, in the frigid cold waiting for my husband to bring the phone book and then wait with him in his car while we waited for the tow truck and guarded my car – which was in the middle of the intersection.

I was secretly praying that it would be a major repair. if it was $1500 or more – I was going to say screw it and just get rid of the car. But alas, the ball joint costs only $50 and my dad is coming over Saturday to fix it with my little brother. I so desperately want a newer, more fuel efficient, potentially hybrid, vehicle. I’m the type of person who should be driving around in a cute little VW beetle or a Prius. Maybe that’s a bit yuppy of me, but it just suits my personality so much more than this big black Lincoln Towncar with the chrome side panels. *sigh*

In other news, church went pretty well this morning. I had a pretty long teaching sermon on the Lord’s Prayer that I think got kind of wordy and long. I would definately do it differently next time. We are doing a six week study on the Lord’s Prayer based on “Becoming Jesus’ Prayer” and this week was all about what the prayer teaches us about what it means to be faithful. Perhaps I could have broken the sermon into two sections, but then it wouldn’t fit nicely into my Epiphany Season series. Oh well.

I did find a great children’s sermon where we made a prayer sandwich – putting five themes of the prayer: praise, hope,depend, forgive, goodness – between two slices of bread. The kids really liked the silliness of it all.

Lazy.

Posted on January 18, 20093 Comments

Today has been a lazy day. I’ve spent much of it on the couch playing games and watching movies. It’s been a lazy week, really, and I’m not to proud to admit it.

I feel like I’m kind of in a funk right now – like I have been working too hard and I just don’t want to anymore. And mostly, I know that’s not true – I really haven’t been working all that hard, and compared to some people, who labor very hard all day long, I’m hardly working at all. There is a guy in my church who works two jobs and is a lay preacher for another congregation. And there is my dad who works a bazillion hours a week and farms. I don’t know how they do it. And in some ways, they really shouldn’t be doing it – they are driving their bodies crazy with all that really hard work. (See Thursday’s post)

But I’m in a funk, and I need to get out of it. I need to get off my bum and hop to it.

One of my brilliant ideas this evening (late, late this evening) is to go back and post my sermons from the past year. I’ve started a new blogsite to do so and you can find the link at the top of this blog’s page.

As far as what I’m currently preaching on, I’m working on a sermon series that is largely and heavily borrowed from a wonderful little devotional book “Becoming Jesus’ Prayer” – so i’m not sure how comfortable I feel posting the texts… I’ve put my own spin on it of course, but I’m also using large quoted sections in the preached word. Anyone have ideas of how I can gracefully navigate around that one? Do I post it anyways and give the appropriate citation? Do I include only the sections that I have put in my own words, or the pieces where I have taken the chapter in new directions? Do I ask for permission to include their text?