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...

Do you know how many hairs are on your head?  How about your spouse’s head?  Your child’s head?  Your grandchild’s head?  I’ll be the first to say, I have no idea.  Imagine how much you would love someone and how well you would truly know them, to know how many hairs are on that person’s head!  Our Scripture reading from Luke this morning tells us that is exactly how much God loves us…that is exactly how intimate God’s knowledge is of each of us.  Now mind you, for some of us, that knowledge that God has is a pretty difficult task…for others…not so hard.  Of course, I have been told that God only made a few perfect heads, and on all the rest he put hair. For God to know the number of hairs on our head…that’s almost unimaginable.  We are not used to people knowing us that completely (though the advent of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media where many people offer what could be considered way too much information).  We are more...

How many of us know someone who is a workaholic?  Maybe we are the workaholic?  Just how many hours in the office, or on the job, does it take to qualify someone as a workaholic?  Is it 70 a week, 60 a week, 50 a week, 40 a week, more than that, less than that?  Do they work without taking a holiday, vacation day, or sick day (even though they might be running a 110 degree fever and bleeding profusely from  a missing limb)?  Just what constitutes a person being a workaholic?  How  much work is working too hard?  I surveyed several of my friends, and not counting the folks that are retired or working part-time, and definitely not counting the housewives who work 168 hours a week, the average fulltime employee is putting in around 49 ½ hours a week.  That’s almost ten hours more than what is considered to be a 40 hour work week (that in many places now is down to 37 ½ to 38 hours for fulltime employment).  How does that compare wi...

It happened in some places starting Friday, and will continue in many places through next weekend.  Folks around this country will gather together, family and friends, to celebrate our nation’s independence.  There will be picnics, trips to the pool, the lake, or the beach.  Some will watch fireworks or set off their own.  Some communities will have parades, while others will have concerts, military drills, or BBQ cook-offs.  We do all of this as we celebrate as our nations celebrates its freedom from England’s tyranny.  With that in mind, I spent two days this past week asking the question, “When you hear or read the word “Freedom,” what is the first thing that comes to mind?”. Some of the responses I received were: ·         Fourth of July ·         Soldiers ·         War ·         Military ·  ...