Intersections

  Have you ever seen evangelism done poorly? Like… you witnessed maybe a street preacher on the corner with a bullhorn, or … less and less now, but the people with the sandwich board signs with the big letters “THE END IS NIGH”? Well - evangelism may not be one of my gifts but I do have a story for you of it going horribly bad. There  So I was in my later teens (you know, back in the late 1900s), and I had been talking to a friend online for a while and I wanted to share my faith. My friend didn’t have much of a background, and having grown up in a different area, it wasn’t really culturally relevant either. She knew I came from a Christian influence, but I hadn’t been really forthcoming about it. I knew it was something that I should do, because - you know, it’s exciting and I want more people to know about Jesus and the faith that helps sustain me.  Let me tell you: it did not go well. I don’t remember the specifics of it, but all I remember is that I thought it was goi...

Normally, you think of having words with someone, there is generally a conflict. Those words may not be the most uplifting, but sometimes we need to authentically communicate our feelings. If there’s someone who can handle it, it’s Jesus. Our scripture for this series is out of the Gospel of Luke, bits of chapters 14, 15, & 16.  Sometimes we find the words of Jesus to be more difficult to hear than things that are more common. This can be confusing, discouraging, or even seemingly contradictory. We really need to work hard to see what Jesus is actually saying. We need to take those hard verses and really digest them better. Maybe sit with the verses and meditate on it, letting the Holy Spirit work through you to gain perspective. We want to understand, we want to soak up the wisdom and live as close to Jesus as we can.  So maybe we need to have words with Jesus - through the difficulty, through the uncomfortable. In that tension is where we can find a deeper faith. The wor...

  Last week, the scripture was out of 2nd Kings, and the story about Elisha and Naaman. Naaman had been struck with leprosy and wanted to get healed. His wife’s servant knew of a man who could do just that. He had to listen to the Spirit and go into his enemy’s land to get healed. At any point, he could have refused but he also knew that his goal of healing wouldn’t happen.  But if last week was about listening to the Spirit and follow as you’re lead, our scripture today is all about looking around and seeing who may be prophets around us. We are switching from a narrative story told more from the kings perspective to individual prophets. Before we dive too deep in, let’s zoom out for a second. This book takes place about the same time period as the stories from last week. We are talking about 8 centuries before Christ. The Israelite nation are still split into a northern kingdom (known as Israel) and the southernmost kingdom (known as Judah). Amos was from the southern kingdo...

  This morning we are celebrating Trinity Sunday - that may not mean a whole lot to each of you, but it’s a celebration of the triune nature of God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the celebration of these three - in some pastors, there’s a desire to try to explain the relationship between these, and so this might be a really quick sermon or much more than anyone bargained for today. To help out - let’s take a twenty minute meditation as I have my children come in here with blown up photos of puppies and kittens.   Ok - they’re not coming. But this is one of the most difficult concepts in the whole Bible to try to explain. And any of my words will not do it any justice, even if I was an expert on the topic, but I am not. What do you think of when you think of wisdom? Your teeth? - all four of my wisdom teeth are out. Do you think of the term “collective wisdom” - wisdom seems to be more than just one individual thing, right? Like - let’s put our brains together...

The Bible is full of big stories, and how they can get done through what God can do. From Noah and the ark, Joseph and his ability to decipher dreams, to Daniel in the lions' den; God is capable of doing amazing things.  Pentecost is one of these stories. Let me set up the scene, Jesus had just died and before his ascension to heaven, told the disciples - stay in Jerusalem until they receive "the gift that the Father promised", and that soon they will be "baptized with the Holy Spirit", in chapter 1 of Acts.  Since they were followers of Jesus, they decided to wait. It may have been like hunkering down at the beginning of our pandemic. They knew something awesome was going to happen, they just couldn't know WHEN it would. We don't know what time of year it is when Jesus tells them to wait, but we know now that is the time of Pentecost.  Pentecost is also known as "the Festival of Weeks" because it happens fifty days, or approximately seven week...

School’s out! My kids just finished up their last in their respective classes, and I’m sure they are excited to be out for a couple months. I know especially that the teachers are ready for a break. My favorite memories of summertime were being able to ride my bike through my neighborhood and playing games with my friends - whether it was baseball, basketball, street hockey, or whatever - we’d take advantage of all of the daylight that we could. There’s something about this time about this time of year that everything feels a little looser, like our spirit gets reinvigorated. Not sure if it’s the sunshine, the warm weather, or more things to do, but I’ll take it, especially since the COVID restrictions have been lifted most places. We feel like we can travel if we want, even if it’s to a state park or lake for some camping.  This aliveness reminds me of Pentecost, which we will be celebrating on  June  5th - the day when the Holy Spirit came down to live in the hearts of ...

  The last few weeks since Easter, we've been considering what it's like to be a witness to Jesus' resurrection, and what the early church did as written in the book of Acts. We are shifting away from the well-known stories of Peter and Paul to this lesser known story of Tabitha this morning. Now, this is kind of a strange story, and one that almost doesn't seem appropriate for Mother's Day. Even though there's a resurrection in our story today, there's no mention of Jesus. The witnesses were even sent out of the room, so what's he trying to pull... There's really no explanation for this other than Peter trying to toot his own horn.  But here's the spoiler - this story isn't about Peter. This story is about the impact that Tabitha has made on her community. She saw the others among her, especially the poor, the first says in the Living Bible translation. She was a seamstress and so she did what she could with what she had.  When she die...

     Last week, we were with Peter while he and some other disciples are in court for preaching and teaching the Gospel. The Sanhedrin wanted to quash this new movement that has started with Jesus, so they are trying to root them out and silence them.       We come this week to a familiar passage, the conversion of Saul. The whole story continues from our passage today until verse 20, and I encourage for you to read the rest of it some time this week. It’s only another… fifteen verses or so, pretty easy.       Now, our main character this week is Saul. He’s what some may call a pretty bad hombre. He was a Pharisee, and was introduced in chapter 8 as the one who approved of the apostle Stephen’s killing, which he also witnessed. That’s kind of his background right now at the beginning when it says “STILL threatening and plotting against the disciples”, like a bull in a china shop, or a rabid animal after its prey. His story continues...

  A little background on this week’s reading: The apostles, starting in verse 12 of this chapter, are teaching and doing “signs and wonders” in the temple. Peter is getting to be known, almost as a celebrity for teaching and preaching on the Gospel, so the religious authorities have them put in jail. The priests want to question the apostles about what they are doing, and find that they have escaped (via an angel of the Lord) to continue preaching and teaching about the Good News. They are “non-violently” re-arrested, and they are currently standing trial as our scripture begins.  Our story this morning is part of a bigger story, which goes clear through verse 42, which I’ll let you read at your own time, because this is the part I’d like to focus on today. We have a quick back-and-forth with the priests and the apostles because they each kind of have their own agendas. Imagine being one of these apostles. They were given the task of preaching the Gospel, but now they end up i...