Presby-Musings

Today is the Sixth Sunday of the Season of Easter, and it's also is the final installment of our sermon series on the New Testament book of 1 John entitled "Speak Now." Throughout this study, we'll be focusing on what it means to not only follow Jesus but also how to speak about our faith in life-giving ways. As we identified last week, the problem that we have in our culture right now is that when someone says "I am a Christian," it's hard to tell exactly what that means.  So many people in our culture have negative feelings about Christians and what they believe Christians stand for. And the reasons they have these negative feelings is because the people who are speaking the loudest in our culture about what it means to be a Christian have completely lost the plot.  My hope is that this series will help give us the tools and the empowerment we need to speak up in love about what Jesus has done for us. Last week Pastor Britta referenced a hym...

Today is the Fourth Sunday of the Season of Easter, and it's also is the third installment of our sermon series on the New Testament book of 1 John entitled "Speak Now." Throughout this study, we'll be focusing on what it means to not only follow Jesus but also how to speak about our faith in life-giving ways. As we identified last week, the problem that we have in our culture right now is that when someone says "I am a Christian," it's hard to tell exactly what that means.  So many people in our culture have negative feelings about Christians and what they believe Christians stand for.  And the reasons they have these negative feelings is because the people who are speaking the loudest in our culture about what it means to be a Christian have completely lost the plot.  My hope is that this series will help give us the tools and the empowerment we need to speak up in love about what Jesus has done for us.  Last week we learned that the definit...

Today is the third Sunday of the season of Easter.  Yes, you heard me right.  We are still celebrating Easter!  In the historic church calendar, the season of Easter lasts from Easter Sunday until Pentecost, which is still weeks away.  So, Happy Easter, Resurrection people!   This is also the second installment of our sermon series on the New Testament book of 1 John entitled "Speak Now." Throughout this study, we'll be focusing on what it means to not only follow Jesus but also how to speak about our faith in life-giving ways.  You see, the problem that we have in our culture right now is that when someone says "I am a Christian," it's hard to tell exactly what that means.  So many people in our culture have negative feelings about Christians and what they believe Christians stand for.   It would be easier to just have a way to figure all this out.  Maybe we should all have cards that we can carry to identify us...

Some years ago, I was asked to watch a video of a sermon by a pastor acquaintance of mine, who served a church in the same small town as me.   The pinnacle of the sermon came when my pastor friend began railing against preachers who had "watered down the Gospel" and preached too heavily on the grace and mercy of God.   His view of God was not of a God filled with infinite and never-changing love.  His view of God wasn't the view of God that Jesus shared of a loving, forgiving parent, who never gives up on us.    This pastor's view of God was of an angry deity, bent on wreaking vengeance upon all those who crossed Him, but mostly on people who didn't agree with this particular pastor.  Author and pastor Brian Zahnd recently wrote:  "Religious people generally like to be told that God is [angry, violent and retributive], as long as this divine disposition is primarily directed toward other people."  Truth be told, I have a lo...