I’ve had an intense and fun weekend getting the Fruit of the Spirit retreat books and materials put together. What I thought would be a one-hour editing/copying job yesterday turned into three hours. And the question is, when will I learn that those types of one-hour jobs always take three hours? It’s not like I’ve…
Here at Peace Mennonite we’re starting a series on the disciples that will take us through to Advent. This week’s disciple is Judas–who is fun to begin with, plus his story works well with communion Sunday. Call to Worship As Jesus requested, the table has been prepared, and all are welcome at the meal.…
So here’s the part of yesterday’s sermon that is most compelling for me. The texts are Matthew 4:18-22 and 9:9; you can read the whole thing here. * * * * * * * Peter and Andrew, James and John and Matthew don’t just leave behind stuff, they leave behind their most comfortable identities–the work…
This coming Sunday, we are beginning a worship series on Jesus’ disciples–so I’m starting it off with the call stories in Matthew 4:18-22 and 9:9. The idea in the first responsive line in the call to worship is to have each person say his or her own name. This will take some prior explanation by…
This call to worship is based on Matthew 14:25-33, the story of Peter walking to Jesus on the water. Such a beautiful story. Holy Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, Even now after the sermons, the healings, the miraculous feeding Even now in the ghostly pre-dawn glow Even now as the wind riles the waves and this…
Just ran across some interesting excerpts from an interview with Todd Akin and Bryan Fischer’s doctor: You have to understand that people cannot break their ankles from a legitimate fall. When someone falls legitimately, the body produces hormones that inflate airbags around the ankles. Any fall that results in a broken ankle is clearly an…
(So my creative Monday post is showing up on Tuesday this week due to general laziness and technical difficulties.) As part of my rule of life, we’ve started having family prayer time several evenings a week. I have a prayer bead bracelet that I made a few months ago, and my children have been intrigued…
Well, it happened again. I had a lovely thought for my sermon that I just cannot justify putting in my sermon. It really has nothing to do with anything else I’m talking about. Plus, I’m already pushing 20 minutes which, for me, is a long sermon. So, because I cannot bear to delete it, here…
Here is the call to worship we are using this week. I wrote it to go along with our reading from Mark 8:27-33, but it is not at all specific to that scripture. We come as seekers, Unsure of what we seek. We come as followers, Not understanding the One we follow. We come…
I came across a bit of validation for this little blog series the other day. In Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson writes, “We cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.” All of this thinking about how to talk to…
Spacious Faith 