Intersections

       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...

  Good morning again - last week, we talked through the first chapter of the Book of John, how the light of Christmas was lit and that lighthouses can help guide those in danger away from it.  This week, we’ve looped back around a couple of weeks because we are back talking about John the Baptist, continuing the story from… three weeks ago, I think? Hopefully, you’re not sick of John yet, although this is the last week we will be in the gospels for a while. Anyway - as you can see outside, the seasons are changing. Winter is here! Oh… no … not those seasons. Our season of Christmas has finished, and now we are in the season after Epiphany. We are back to those so-called “ordinary weeks” or numbered weeks because since we’ve celebrated Christmas and Epiphany, these are kind of the meat and bones weeks for Jesus’ actual ministry. Today we’ll be starting with his baptism, and over the next couple of months, we’ll be discovering being the body of Christ: how we can show that LOVE...

  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...

How should we live? You don't ask yourself that question, right? Oh, you don't? I guess I'm the weirdo here then. There are so many shoulds in our lives, especially now during Advent. Should we send Christmas cards, should we visit our estranged extended families? We should be living with joy. The candle that was lit this morning is a representation of that joy. Although it doesn’t come across as such, this scripture is about joy. Last week, we began this set of scripture with John the Baptist, and he was brought to focus on the Messiah - whose time has not come yet. He was sent to prepare the world for the arrival. Screaming at the crowds who come to you, doesn’t seem like the right vibe? Let’s go through the text slowly to set the scene…  Luke sets up John like this… the crowds came to him to be baptized. Again - still in the wilderness, so these are wanderers, sojourners, disconnected people who wanted to belong. They were looking for something, even something that co...

  Here we are, one week closer to Christmas. Hope you are starting your preparations well. Who is done with their shopping? For the first time in a long time, I think we are done, if not very close to being totally done with our preparations in our own home. Our tree is up, and decorated, even if our cat likes to nibble at the branches at the bottom. The outside lights are up, and we even have a spotlight for our garage that has various snowflake shapes in it. We were gifted it from my mother-in-law last year, and it ended up in the garage, but somehow got moved (let’s be honest, I was probably the culprit of that) and so it fell BEHIND some of the shelving, and behind a piece of plywood on the floor. Thankfully, Tadjena is amazingly thorough and relentless, so she was able to find it after looking for what feels like two weeks. So - yeah - we’ve gone through our to do list, and making sure it’s getting done, and with that comes a sense of peace. Are you one who really likes being ...