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The podcast from yesterday’s Pentecost sermon and spoken word is on our website.  Listen here. Thomas Long writes, Augustine said, in the very first homiletical [preaching] textbook in the history of the church…that the purpose of a sermon is “to teach, to delight, and to persuade.”  When Augustine preached, what he wanted to hear at the door of the church was not, “Thank you for your little talk,” but “I learned something this morning, I was moved by what you…

Thomas Troeger writes, I recall hearing in a chapel one day a slightly nasal, reedy organ stop, the kind of sound that intrigues the ear.  The tonal quality was so rich and distinctive that I felt if I reached out, I would touch the sound with my hands, as if it were a substance suffusing the air.  I saw others around me perk up their ears.  This was a far different experience from each of us listening to our tunes…

The Low Road (an excerpt) Two people can keep each other sane, can give support, conviction, love, massage, hope… Three people are a delegation, a committee, a wedge  With four you can play bridge and start an organization.  With six you can rent a whole house, eat pie for dinner with no seconds, and hold a fund raising party. A dozen make a demonstration. A hundred fill a hall. A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter; then thousands, power…

What is Confirmation? Let’s recall how John Wesley uses God’s House to describe the ways that grace works in our lives. The porch, the doorway and the house… God’s grace that goes before us is like the front porch of a house, we call this prevenient Grace which “wakes us up” to God.  Once we have “woken up to God” , God’s grace works to get us in the front door.  Through this justifying grace, we are enabled to have…

John Ortberg tells the story of a friend who made his first trip south of the Mason-Dixon Line from Chicago to Georgia. On his first morning in the South he went into a restaurant to order breakfast, and it seemed that every dish included something called grits… Not being familiar with this southern delicacy, he asked the waitress, “Could you tell me, exactly what is a grit?” Looking down on him with a mixture of compassion and condescension, she said,…

Thomas H. Troeger writes, Who would ever have picked Peter, that wavering and unreliable disciple, to deliver the first major sermon after the ascension of Christ?  Yet there he stands before a crowd enlightening and expanding the landscape of the heart:  “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall…

We will celebrate Pentecost and confirmation in worship this Sunday.  Our worship service will be rooted in the story of Pentecost in Acts 2.  Read the full text here. Reflect on a time when you have traveled where you did not speak the language of those you encountered.  What was it like?  In the Acts story, those gathered were able to hear the others speaking in their own language.  Have you ever experienced anything like this? In comparison to how…

We will move in our worship series from baptism to confirmation and Pentecost this Sunday. As we transition, we pause to offer time in prayer: For wedding celebrations near and far, for the persistence of folks celebrating Gay Pride in the rain, for graduating seniors and their families, for new employment opportunities, for the celebration of the lives of our loved ones who have passed away, for the dreams of new ministries…Gracious God, we give thanks. For families who grieve…

In his Treatise on Baptism, John Wesley writes: Baptism is performed by “washing,” “dipping,” or “sprinkling” the person….[It] is not determined in Scripture in which of these ways it shall be done, neither by any express precept nor by any such example as clearly proves it; nor by the force of meaning of the word “baptize.” Following Wesley, Methodists have generally been quite open in terms of the form, or mode, of how baptism is administered.  What, if any, difference…

Gayle Carlton Felton writes, Baptism, then is not so much event as it is process.  Like the Christian life for which it is both empowerment and metaphor, baptism is dynamic, not static; a journey, not a destination; a quest, not an acquisition.  Baptism is promise, the fulfilling of which requires a lifetime and beyond.  It is prolepsis-representing in the now that which will be accomplished in the future, but representing that anticipated fruition so powerfully as to make it real…

Paragraph 23 of By Water and the Spirit: A United Methodist Understanding of Baptism states: In both the Old and New Testament, God enters into covenant relationship with God’s people. A covenant involves promises and responsibilities of both parties; it is instituted through a special ceremony and expressed by a distinguishing sign. By covenant God constituted a servant community of the people of Israel, promising to be their God and giving them the Law to make clear how they were to live. The circumcision of…

We begin a new three-week worship series called Ekklesia this Sunday at The Table.  Our worship will be rooted in Galatians 3.23-29.  Here is a link to the text. Do you remember your own Baptism?  Who was there?  What happened?  What, if any, is the significance of Baptism in your own life today? In turning to the text for this week, what does it mean to be “baptized into Christ”?  What is the significance to you?  In your understanding, what…