Intersections

     Destruction. That’s what awaited Jonah as he walked into the town of Nineveh. Nobody wants to be the bearer of that news! But he’d recently been through a rather traumatic event, and so there was no turning back from the task that he was told to do by God. I don’t want to get too deep into it, but how many times in the last ten-odd years have we heard that “The end of the world is coming!” The biggest of which I remember happened in 2012 because of the Mayan calendars, along with other conspiracy theories that there would be a collision of Earth with another planet, aliens arriving, and a bunch of other nonsense. But people were caught up in it! We don’t want to be the last ones at the end of the world, do we? Just because someone has personal convictions doesn’t mean that they have proof to back them up, right - I mean - there were movies made about this, and it just added to the anxieties people feel toward ancient prophecies. We’ve lived through the Y2K sca...

  Continuing our series this month on “Making Change” and where our stewardship and financial health coexist, we will be talking about how STRESS IS BAD. This again is a no-brainer, like our other topics in this series - Less Is More, Giving is Good, and Tomorrow Matters.  This morning, we will be talking about debt. I'm sure there are few things many people want their pastor to talk about more. Maybe if I had a series on sex, that would bring less interest, but here we are, talking about the taboo of debt.  You know, I haven’t met anyone who’s said, “I just got a new credit card, and now that I’ve maxed it out, my marriage has gotten so much better.” Or, “My marriage has gotten so good because I have a huge mortgage. Now that interest rates have gone up, it’s made date nights more thrilling!”; or even “Every night, I thank God for my debt. I used to be debt free but now I’m over my head and it’s amazing!”  As Christians though, we love to give. We want to help peopl...

  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...

      I know we’ve been in dealing with the Corinthian church for the last month or so, and there was a possibility of continuing that through Paul’s second letter, but… given that we are pushing into Lent later this week, maybe it’s time to get back to the gospels. I set the theme of “Love Never Ends” and this is the last week for that series, and it may seem that this is a strange scripture to end on, but hopefully I can tie it up nicely. The theme throughout our scriptures in the series has been about how community matters - people matter - and that we individuals are part of a whole. Even last week with Willie preaching, his focus was on how the scouts (Boy, Girl & Cub) were another venue, like church, for teaching our young ones how to live in a community, and what kind of rules we should follow. It might even be fitting that the last sermon in our series would be something about how love is consistent and unchanging; that God’s love is the same yesterday, t...

  You ARE the Body... YOU are the body... you are the BODY... this sentence can be read in many different ways and mean other things. Some of my initial thoughts about this reading today sent me to a place I hadn't thought of in a long time - One of my guilty pleasures in my early twenties during college was watching Maury Povich. He was a talk show host whose topics were typically around family dysfunction running the whole spectrum. My favorite type of show was around contested paternity... and the guests would agree to paternity tests, and the results would be released live on television. This was NOT my finest hour of television. ANYWAY - Maury, the host, when reading the results, always said... "You ARE the father" or "You are NOT the father!!" depending on the situation. Don't get me wrong - it makes for theatrical television, but this is not something I should be watching these days. Although, given my former employment in family court, it reveals a...

       Good morning again, We are only three weeks into our new year here, and it's dark and cold out. I thank each and every one of you for coming out this morning.  Today we will be continuing our series on “Love Never Ends: Being the Body of Christ.” Over the next few weeks, we will be taking a deep dive into the book of First Corinthians, chapters 12-15. Let’s take a step back, though, and talk about this book in the larger scheme of the Bible.  This book was written by the apostle Paul, writing many New Testament letters. Paul’s story is also written in Acts, chapter 18; Paul has traveled to a city in south-central Greece called Corinth. It was established before 3000 BC, and amazingly, it still exists today - although it’s not quite the same city it once was.  Ancient Corinth was a major city in Greece - with a population of 90,000 some four hundred years before the time of Christ. Unfortunately, in 1858, a major earthquake destroyed the ruin...

  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I'm glad you didn't get too lost last week, because it seems as most of you have found your way back here. I appreciate that! Welcome to the last Sunday of Christmas this year, and this is day seven for those who are counting. Watch out for any swans you come across, hopefully they’re all swimming.  Speaking of swimming, I know these days it’s too cold to go swimming, but just know that out of the darkness, the light is increasing and spring and summer days will be here soon! Did you know that Indiana has lighthouses? Two of them, in fact. You really don’t think Indiana as much of a state that would have any lighthouses, but yeah - two of them, both on Lake Michigan. I’ve seen one of them - the one in Michigan City. The other one is closer to Chicago near Gary. But aren’t lighthouses kind of incredible? Someone had the idea that to keep the ships safe, even in the waters of Lake Michigan, that there needed to be big lights to help direct...

  I trust that everyone had a good Christmas. It seems strange that we are back here again so quickly, but I hear preachers only work on Sundays. Thank you for being here. I know the week after Christmas is considered a “low Sunday” whether that’s attendance, or maybe my preparation, so thanks for joining me.  You may have seen that our topic today is Lost at Home, which I understand can be kind of confusing. As we’ve travelled through Advent, we’ve been on our journey to discover where our homes are, the places we can be ourselves, no matter who we are around or what’s going on. The places where we can let our guard down and just… be real.  I hope over the last month or so you’ve never felt lost, but Advent is a season where we can easily lose ourselves in busy-ness, lose ourselves in decorations and preparations for parties, lose ourselves in trivial things that now that the holiday is over, you may feel a little more empty.  I get that. We had such a high a f...