Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: touch, feel, sense of touch, tactile sense, tactility, contact, using one's hands, sensation, sense, suspicion, sneaking suspicion, notion, inkling, hunch, fancy, apprehension, presentiment, premonition, foreboding, love, care, affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, warmness, emotion, sentiment, emotional state, compassion, sympathy, empathy, fellow feeling, understanding, concern, solicitude, solicitousness, tender-heartedness, brotherly love, sensibilities, sensitivities, self-esteem, ego, pride, opinion, belief, view, impression, intuition, instinct, estimation, guess, theory, hypothesis, thought, way of thinking, point of view, atmosphere, ambience, aura, air, mood, climate, character, overtone, undertone, tenor, spirit, quality, flavour, colour, aptitude, knack, flair, bent, talent, gift, skill, art, trick, faculty, ability, propensity, inclination, sensitive, warm, warm-hearted, tender, tender-hearted, caring, soft-hearted, sympathetic, compassionate, empathetic, responsive, receptive, intuitive, thoughtful

Antonyms: bad feeling, acrimony, animosity, animus, antagonism, antipathy, aversion, bitterness, detestation, disgust, dislike, disrelish, enmity, friction, grievances, grudges, hatred, hostility, loathing, malevolence, malice

Showing 3101 to 3125 of 4340 results

3101. The Living Advent Wreath (The Manger: White Candle of Peace)

Luke 2:1-7

Drama

Frank Ramirez

... the moon on it Love wears a pink robe or shirt with stars on it Trust (three people) wears purple robes or shirts with the magi symbols on them Pilgrim, Guide, and Attendant wear appropriate clothing Mary, Joseph, and Infant should be as characters in the nativity Christmas Eve (Pilgrim and Guide enter together, followed by Faith, Hope, Love, Trust, and Attendant, who is carrying a candlelighter. Pilgrim still carries his empty bag. The curtain is closed and behind it is the manger with Mary, Joseph, and ...

3102. Grand Opening

Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... like Epiphany is that, like the traveling stargazers from Matthew's gospel, we may enter the whole drama of Christ's birth now, really for the first time. At Epiphany, the drama of the nativity ceases to be a show with an entirely Jewish cast of characters. We may sometimes have felt empathy with the clumsy poet whose little bit of humorous verse went: "How odd of God, to choose the Jews.1 This provoked an equally good-natured response: "Not odd of God, Goyim annoy 'im."2 Yet, because of the story ...

3103. Skin Game

Mark 1:40-45

Sermon

Robert J. Elder

... many old manuscripts, has the leper responding to Jesus' healing by saying, "Lord Jesus, you who walk with the lepers and eat with them in the inn...." This is most certainly not part of the story that Mark handed down, but it is entirely in character. Jesus' healing was not so much of a disfiguring disease as it was a healing of an intolerable social situation: a religious law that protected the health of the community at the cost of overruling human compassion. Most certainly the significant part of Jesus ...

3104. The Elephant in The Living Room

Mark 8:31-38

Sermon

John Smylie

There are times when we do everything we can to avoid the obvious. Some realities that we face are so difficult that we will make every effort to deny their presence. Once again, Peter, a bold and wonderful character full of humanity, so much like us, is the fall guy for this gospel text. He is the one who gives voice to the disciples' concerns about Jesus teaching that, "the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, ...

3105. We Wish to See Jesus

John 12:20-33

Sermon

John Smylie

... they had missed Jesus' "Palm Sunday" entrance on a donkey with the crowds and the children shouting "Hosannas." They had come into Jerusalem just in time to make preparations for their Passover meal — for the Seder — and they found the whole city buzzing about this Jesus character and they wanted to see him for themselves. It appears that Philip wasn't sure what to do with their request. There didn't seem to be a set of rules or a precedent of how to deal with Gentiles in the disciples' training manual ...

3106. For the Life of Betsy D. I. Smylie

John 12:20-36

Sermon

John Smylie

3107. The Great Inescapable Question of Eternity

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Robert Leslie Holmes

... morning, is our elder brother, and the brother of Jesus."3 The Journal of Discourses, a 26-volume Mormon publication presenting public sermons by many early Mormon leaders, includes such statements as this: "Jesus, our elder brother was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our father in Heaven." The same volumes assert, "Jesus was married at Cana of Galilee and had many wives ... he also had many children."4 From these writings, it is clear that the Mormons ...

3108. Ollie, Ollie, All In Free!

John 8:31-36

Sermon

Steven Molin

... joy come when someone finds you. It seems to me that our lives on this earth bear a strange resemblance to those childhood games, because many of us spend our days hiding. We have secrets about our lives that we reveal to no one. We have certain habits, or character flaws, or certain events in our past that are shameful or embarrassing, so we keep those things hidden. We have private thoughts that must never see the light of day, so we do whatever we can to deny them, or run away from them, or cover them up ...

3109. Agony and Ecstasy

John 11:17-37

Sermon

Steven Molin

... invitation suggests that if Jesus were to come, Lazarus would be okay. But Jesus doesn't come; not right away anyway. He waits two days, and he takes another couple of days to walk the two miles to Bethany. The whole incident is very strange and very out of character for the man who would stop to heal a hemorrhaging woman; the man who would stoop to comfort a sick child. Because now, when his good friend needs him badly, Jesus is too busy to come? No wonder Martha (of course it's Martha!) meets Jesus in the ...

3110. Maybe Today

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

Amelia Bedelia is a favorite literary children's character. This poor, dim-witted maid is a literalist. You tell her to dust the tables, and she sprinkles talc everywhere. You tell her to dress the turkey, and she gets out a little lime green pantsuit. You tell her to draw the curtains and she gets out her sketch pad. ...

3111. Who Will Vouch for Me?

2 Corinthians 3:1-6

Sermon

Scott Suskovic

... was a common practice in the ancient world of sending letters of commendations with a person when he traveled into strange and foreign communities. To insure his reputation or even safety, these letters written by a trusted friend would testify to his character. It was sometimes difficult, however, to determine whether a recommendation was sincere or merely flattery or, worse, forgery. The same is true today, isn't it? If we don't know someone, we look for a recommendation. There is a true story recorded ...

3112. The Story That Shapes Us

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Nancy Kraft

... comes from outside the community. The villain is purely evil, beyond redemption. Because of this, the hero must act decisively through violent means to eradicate the evil. We can see this master story played out in the movies constantly, not only in westerns, but in characters like Rambo and James Bond. From watching and listening to President Bush, I think it's safe to say that this story has greatly influenced how he sees the world. Now, these aren't the only master stories that are a part of our culture ...

3113. Be Careful How You Live

Ephesians 5:15-20

Sermon

Thomas Lentz

... for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. — Ephesians 5:19-20 Be very careful, then, how you live. In these verses of Ephesians that we have been reading the last few weeks, there is eternal wisdom for improving the quality of your character, the lust for life, the satiety of your soul. To put it out there in straight terms, if you follow this advice from Saint Paul, your life will become everything it is intended to be. You will realize your potential; you will accomplish your purpose. You ...

3114. Heavenly Wisdom

James 3:13—4:8

Sermon

Thomas Lentz

... in teaching him how to walk again, but there was no one to teach him where to walk." This is what happens when we teach our children that competition is more important than compassion; that charisma produces more influence than character. Long gone is the teaching of virtue from our public school classrooms. The only place our children are going to hear about the values of honesty, sincerity, kindness, peacemaking, and forgiveness is in Sunday school, or from you — parents, grandparents, aunts ...

3115. Antidote for Bad Times

James 5:13-20

Sermon

Thomas Lentz

... has long recognized that repressed and unadmitted guilt leads to deeper and deeper trouble and despair. When an alcoholic keeps certain facts hidden, it feeds the compulsion to get drunk. Recovery involves an honest self-evaluation and a public confession of character defects and shortcomings. With that confession comes relief, forgiveness, healing. It's not easy to confess our weaknesses. It is not easy to say, "I was wrong." There is something in each of us that insists on being right and believing ...

3116. The Eternal Sanctuary

Hebrews 9:11-14

Sermon

Patrick J. Rooney

... worship in this or any other holy place, we enter into place that is far grander than anything human hands can make. It is a place that holds within itself no physical limitations and a worship where time simply ceases to be a defining and limiting character. For here, now, at this very moment, Christ, having entered into the heavens, now stands before the throne of God offering his own blood in an eternal sacrifice to the Father for our salvation. The author of the book of Hebrews understood so well that ...

3117. Oops! I Did It Again

Matthew 16:21-28

Sermon

King Duncan

... go from being the rock upon which Christ will build his church to being the voice of Satan tempting Christ to avoid the cross. That is one of the reasons I love the Bible. There is no effort to sanitize these stories. There is no attempt to make biblical characters more holy than they were. One moment Peter proclaims Christ as the Messiah and the next moment he is telling Christ how to go about his work. One moment he is in the garden defending Christ with a sword against a Roman legion, and the next he is ...

3118. A Four Word Memoir

Philippians 1:12-30

Sermon

King Duncan

... there are many people with good jobs, nice families and fun hobbies, who when they come to the end of the day realize that none of it is enough to satisfy their deepest hunger. Maybe you remember the scene in the movie City Slickers in which the character played by comedian Billy Crystal is visiting his son’s school to tell about his work. He’s a salesman, but obviously he doesn’t find any fulfillment in it or in his life in general. Listen as he unloads on the bewildered students: “Value this time ...

3119. At the Banquet...In Your Pajamas

Matthew 22:1-14

Sermon

King Duncan

... their personal lives show none of the signs of actually being Christian? As someone has said, grace is free, but there are standards. It is expected if you accept Christ’s free gift of eternal life, that from that day forward, you will seek to adopt Christ’s character as well. Or, to put it another way, you are invited to be a guest at Christ’s banquet table, but you are not allowed to spit in his face with unacceptable behavior after you are there. We’re not talking about legalism here or what is ...

3120. Whose Birthday Is It Anyway?

Matthew 24:36-51

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

Theme: An alternative way to celebrate Christmas Characters: Narrator Jason Children (nonspeaking) Father Son Daughter Mother Player 1 Player 2 Mr. Brown Grandmother Mrs. Brown Letter Carrier Props: Basket Ball Table and chairs Eating utensils A-1 Sauce bottle Door Cake Packages Mail bag Cards Unicycle or bicycle Megaphone (Music plays in the background.) Narrator: This is a ...

3121. Philippe

Matthew 24:36-51

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

Theme: Better to be awake and alert than apathetic and asleep Characters: Philippe (lazy) Mother (concerned) Father (disciplinarian) Wolf White Cross rescue workers Tone: Cynical, instructive Setting/Props: “Philippe” may be read with or without actors. The congregation may be invited to be a part of a children’s time as this play sets up the context for effective preaching in the ...

3122. Gummy Old Men

Matthew 3:1-12

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

Theme: Reflection, remorse, repentance, renewal Characters: Norb (older man) Earl (older man) Tone: Humorous, serious, sad, hopeful Setting/Props: Bench in a city park near the retirement home Approximate time: 5-7 minutes (Musical introduction) Norb: Well, for goodness sake, if it isn’t me ole friend, Earl. When did they let you out? Earl: Hiya, ...

3123. The Water Witcher

Matthew 11:1-19

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

Theme: Difficulty of believing and the possiblity of doubt turned into faith Characters: Grandfather Willard Adamson Grandson Joey (eleven years old or younger) Slick (skeptic neighbor) Tone: Nurturing relationship, encouragement Setting/Props: Imaginary tool shed Paintbrushes Paint Imaginary old-fashioned well pump Cup Y-shaped stick One option that may enhance the scene would be an actual old-fashioned well pump. There are ...

3124. No Clues?

Matthew 1:18-25

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

Theme: See the signs — they’re very clear Characters: Detective Joe Clue Damis (Joe’s pregnant wife) Tone: Humorous Setting/Props: Kitchen table Flowers in a vase Two or three chairs Coffee pot Radio Knitting needles Yarn Couch Baby clothes Approximate time: 5 minutes Damis: (talking to herself) Ooooh. Morning comes too soon. I’ll fix myself some coffee. ...

3125. Looking for the Child of Bethlehem

Luke 2:1-7

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

Theme: Searching for the newborn babe Characters: Leader Asher Innkeeper (nonspeaking) Innkeeper’s Wife (nonspeaking) Innkeeper’s Child (nonspeaking) Joseph (nonspeaking) Mary (nonspeaking) Shepherds (two or three, nonspeaking) Shopper 1 Shopper 2 Carolers (six to eight) Child Reader 1 Reader 2 Tone: Devotional, thoughtful, joyful ending Setting/Props: Appropriate biblical costumes Simple stable scene Papers Shopping bags ...

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