Presby-Musings

This week we are concluding the sermon series "At The Movies" for the month of July--and if it sounds a bit familiar, you would be correct in assuming we've done something like this before.  I say like this, because this is actually the second year in a row that we have scheduled the sermon series "At The Movies" during the month of July.  We did this for a couple of good reasons:  First, July typically is the worst month of the year for church attendance and so most churches just fold it up for the entire month.  But not us.  We decided to ramp up this month for the most interactive, creative sermon series of the year.  The second reason why we are doing At The Movies again, is because as Christians we need to learn a powerful lesson about the universe:  Everything is Spiritual.  We need to be able to look at the world around us, at culture, at art, at theater, music and even movies and be able to find the spiritual core at the center of i...

This week I am continuing the sermon series that we started a few weeks ago entitled, "Samuel: A Study in Character," which will take us through the some of the most fascinating stories from the life of the great prophet and judge, Samuel. Samuel's birth narratives and the story of his prophetic calling have definitely set the stage for what comes next.  It's evident that when it comes to Samuel, we are not dealing with just your every day run of the mill prophet.  Samuel was  on a whole other level, but even this great man of God had some low moments.  We'll be skipping a couple of chapters in the book of 1 Samuel, but I want to highlight two things that stand out to me in the passages we are leapfrogging to get where we are going today: First, there is this moment when the people of Israel are freaking out because the Philistines are about to descend on them and give them an old fashioned Ancient Near Eastern butt whooping.  They come to Samuel becaus...