Presby-Musings

In my years of being in and around churches, I've noticed that those of us who call ourselves Christians will say the darndest things.  For example, some of us have the bad habit of waxing all poetic when we pray in public--using flowery, archaic language like "Lord we thank thee for this thine abundant bounty, which thou hast provided for us--in thy mercy."   Translation: "Dear God, thank you for this food."   Others of us love to quote Bible verses for every occasion... Drive-thru Attendant: "Would you like fries with that burger, ma'am?"  Christian-y Person:  "'Man does not live by bread alone, missy!'"  But perhaps the most double-edged thing I have heard Christians say is this:   "I'm just going to 'speak the truth in love' to you now."   Typically, this phrase proceeds a criticism, nasty comment or a rebuke of some kind that is about as far from loving as you can get.  In fact,  ...

Years ago, I was facilitating a leadership retreat for an ecumenical group of students and adults when an argument started over whether Christians should have tattoos.   It didn't take long before the entire session we had planned was hijacked because of the debate.  The people who gathered for this retreat represented a number of North Florida church youth groups from different theological and denominational backgrounds--conservative, progressive, Baptists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Non-denominational, and the like.      There were a few of us in the room who actually had tattoos, and our ability to lead was being called into question by some of the participants.  Lines were quickly drawn and before we knew it, that one argument grew into several arguments, and the group began to devolve into factions.   It was at that point that a young woman stood up with her Bible in her hand.  Everyone got quiet as she r...

This week we are continuing 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 o...