Sermon Blog

How often ate we challenged by the gifts of another? We often think of children as being selfish, of being self-focused, our self-absorbed, and there may be a few spoiled children out there who are like that. However,  given the chance, I think that many children would surprise and challenge us. I remember back in 2009, Davey had been saving up his money to buy his own iPod Touch.  Many off his friends had one, and he really wanted one. He had saved birthday money and Christmas money, and was slowly but surely making progress towards his goal.  I don't remember exactly what the call went out for but I remember that we were responding to something that had happened. I am figuring that Davey heard my appeals in church for giving in response to the disaster.  After worship one of those Sundays where an appeal was made for UMCOR, Davey asked me how much money he had saved up.  " Why," I asked him. His response was not that he wanted to go to the store that...

You have heard it said, “Children are meant to be seen and not heard.”  I mean that is why they invented pacifiers isn’t it.  We like looking at little babies, but when they start crying or just babbling incessantly when we want some peace and quiet, we have pacifiers to stick in their mouths and get them quiet.  Nowadays doctors (or at least dentists) want toddlers off of their pacifiers by the time they are six months old, no later than a year old.  Some of us parents, though, probably wish that wasn’t the case, because there comes a time some 12 to 15 years later, where we wish there was a pacifier for teenagers when they begin to try and assert their independence which almost always leads to occasions of non-stop arguing, begging, and pleading.  Those are the days where we wish that pacy was still in place that we could just stick in their mouths and get them to be quiet.  Well, actually maybe we do have a pacifier for our teenagers, but it is not the...