Sermon and Worship Resources

Showing 326 to 350 of 1089 results

John 3:1-21

Bulletin Aid

RobertT D. Ingram

... the dance. Consider what type of music could be woven into the dancer's movements to enhance the piece. What musical instrument should be played, and does anyone in the congregation know someone who could play such an instrument? Visuals Have a congregational artist create a banner depicting "born from above." This person can do this with a shadowy (spiritual) hand reaching down from the top of the banner. The hand cradles an adult figure drawn into the fetal position. Does the congregation have someone who ...

327. What Triggers Your Panic Button?

Matthew 14:22-36

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

... ways to turn her negative situation into a positive one. She began to study the language of the neighbors and to make friends with them. She shut off the panic buttons and got her life back on track. And then there is that wonderful music artist, Beethoven, once deep in despair over his deafness. He wrote, “What a sorrowful life I must now live. How happy would I be if my hearing were completely restored ... but as it is I must draw back from everything ...” Something inside Beethoven turned him around ...

328. Bread for the Party (Bread of Life I)

John 6:1-15

Sermon

Charles R. Leary

... into substantial amounts of food so all could eat. Another view says, enough food was in the crowd that once it was uncovered it fed the people all they could eat and still had leftovers. This second view is illustrated by the mosaic an early artist made on the walls of a third century church in Israel, the Church of Multiplication. The logic is something like this: you wouldn’t expect all these people to come out unprepared! There must have been other loaves of bread and pickled fish wrapped up ...

329. Come Out!

John 11:38-44

Sermon

Thomas Peterson

... the death of his son it went from bad to worse. At last he knew he had to take control of his life. He picked the object at hand, a knife, which he knew how to use, and began carving from bone and horn. At fifty-one he became an artist. I’ll tell you what I’ve found out over the years. Between the brain and the hand there is no limit to what a man can do.... I’m just doing something I like to do, something that seems to fit me. Sure I believe in myself, my ability ...

330. Read the Directions

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... satisfied that judgment when he died on the cross for us. His death spared us from our deaths, spiritually and eternally. His resurrection raises us to renewal of life here and now, as well as to the assurance of everlasting life with Christ in glory. As the famous artist Turner asked to be lashed to the mast of a ship and taken sailing through the most ferocious storms so that he could be precisely in the middle of the gale and thunder, so God’s Son consented to be nailed to the cross so that in the ...

331. Can We Love Too Much?

Deuteronomy 6:1-25

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... finish grade school and never learned to read music. In an interview he was asked for the secret of his success. He said it was due to “work, work, WORK.” To accomplish anything worthwhile demands hard and long work. It is true of athletes as well as artists. It is the case in the world as in the church. It applies to an individual as well to a group. Often we may wonder why our Protestant churches are declining in membership or why our congregation is not growing. The answer is in not loving God with ...

332. Solomon's Song Of Love

Sermon

Sue Anne Steffey Morrow

... us has sung at times in our lives, I hope, when we are filled with the beauty of the world and the wonder of the pattern of nature. The goodness of creation is reflected on an autumn afternoon, when the trees are dripping with color, like an artist's autumn palette all crimson and orange and gold, and the world itself seems an abundant place. The goodness of creation is reflected when you rise on a winter morning and the new moon is hanging in the winter sky, two planets shine brightly beside the crescent ...

333. They Also Serve Who Wait

Luke 2:21-40

Sermon

Thomas Long

... as he had said, "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation," he added the warning, "This child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel." Every coming of God meets our needs, but also violates our expectations and demands our lives. When the master artist Giotto expressed this story in paint, he, too, saw the fulfillment and the demand, the joy and the hope, in the coming of God. His "Presentation in the Temple" is, according to art critic John W. Dixon, Jr., "one of the few genuinely witty paintings in ...

334. Proper 11

Ephesians 2:11-22, 2 Samuel 7:1-17, Mark 6:45-56, Mark 6:30-44

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... of God, without God and without hope. After Christ they are brought into the family of faith. Formerly there was a wall of hostility, but after Christ, peace and unity. Only Christ can reconcile hostile groups. Outline: 1. Weight loss groups and make-over artists like to contrast before and after pictures. 2. Our lives should look much better after Christ. 3. Christ also can break down the walls of hostility between groups. 4. How might Christ lead us to break down walls between hostile groups? 2. Sermon ...

335. Proper 28

Mk 13:1-32 · Heb 10:11-25 · 1 Sam 1:4-20 · Ps 16

Sermon Aid

Russell F. Anderson

... Jewish psyche. The destruction of the temple by the Romans was the sacrilege that Jesus referred to. It seems that we live in a sacrilegious age but the sacrileges seem to offend only a few. Yes, a few people were offended by an image created by a New York artist of a crucifix in a bottle of urine but that's the exception. Sacrilege no longer offends because we have lost our sense of the Holy. Christ and crisis. This entire lection lists a host of crises that are to presage Christ's rule in power and glory ...

336. Getting The Face We Deserve

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

Richard A. Wing

... good in the name of religion. Sometimes in moments when we get discouraged, we ask ourselves, "Well, where else can we go to serve God in a better way?" Madeleine L'Engle was asked that question one time. She was working in a church in New York City as the artist and writer in residence. Someone came to her and said, "What do you think of the church?" She said, "Oh, the church! It's awful, but it's all we've got." Some days people will tell you, "If we could go any other place to serve God in a ...

337. God Doesn't Ask A Fig Tree To Produce Bananas

Luke 13:1-9

Sermon

Lee Griess

... tree to grow tall as an oak or be fragrant as a cedar. He is only asking it to be what it is, to do what it ought: produce figs. You and I have differing gifts. Some have wonderful singing voices. Others have graceful bodies. Some are artists, others are good with numbers, and others still are good with people. Each of us has our own unique gifts. And the miracle that happens is that through repentance and forgiveness, those gifts are released for the good of God and others around us. When we acknowledge ...

338. Same Old, Same Old

John 8:31-41

Drama

Arley K. Fadness

... up) North Shore's fine. September 5th. Alma: (Warms up) Oooh, it'll be soooo romantic -- you and I -- just like 23 years ago. Gooseberry Falls, a walk along the shore, skipping stones in the lake, watching the freighters, the sea gulls, climbing Artist's Look Out, sketching a sunset ... George: Twenty-three years? (Rolls eyes. Telephone rings. George answers.) H'lo. George. George Blankly, Oh, it's you, Tom. Fine. How are you? Trip? With you and Gladys? Bill and Mary? Fishing, eh? Alma: (Looking concerned ...

339. A Woman Of Substance · Mary Magdalene

Lk 8:1-3

Sermon

Gordon Pratt Baker

... contributed to the support of Jesus' ministry may very well have stemmed from her own labors. Lending credence to this conjecture is the fact that Mary appears to have been a middle-aged woman when she joined the Master's coterie. To be sure, artists have never tired of portraying her as a lithe, auburn-haired young woman. But nothing in the gospels supports such a concept while first-century practices offer strong evidence against it. To begin with, Israel's stern code governing women would have required a ...

340. Surprised By Joy

Matthew 13:31-35, Matthew 13:44-46, Matthew 13:47-52

Sermon

Donald Dotterer

... as Lord and Savior is God's gift to us in this resurrection age in which we live. Gallia K. MacKinney writes in an article titled, "What I Discovered in Prison" about her conversion to Christianity. Her father was an operatic singer, her mother an artist. They lived on the French Riviera where they enjoyed the finer things of life -- beautiful homes, servants, everything that money could buy. Ms. MacKinney says that she took it for granted that she deserved all this. The family motto was "All is ours. We ...

341. The March Of Death

John 14:1-4

Eulogy

Merlin L. Conrad

When I was in seminary there was a picture hanging in our library that I will never forget. I have long since forgotten who the artist might have been, but the message was indelible. It was titled "The March of Death" and pictured death marching through the throngs of humanity calling, at will, whom he chose. He called the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the well and the infirmed. There was something ...

342. Words As Images

Sermon

Michael Rogness

... for the renewal of preaching is that we become "poets that speak against a prose world." The task and possibility of preaching is to open out the good news of the gospel with alternative modes of speech -- speech that is dramatic, artistic, capable of inviting persons to join in another conversation, free of the reason of technique, encumbered by ontologies that grow abstract, unembarrassed about concreteness.19 Richard Jensen goes a step further and argues for a "paradigm shift" in preaching from "thinking ...

343. Creative Preaching

Sermon

Michael Rogness

... Christian church has been in the forefront of new communication forms -- from the sermons and letters of Paul, the four gospels, the dauntless missionary monks of medieval Europe, the mystery dramas performing Bible stories all over Europe, the stained glass artists and sculptors who portrayed the gospel through their art, musicians who wrote music for the church, the courageous preachers of the Reformation era, the frontier tent preachers of this country, and the missionaries who have fanned out around the ...

344. Elements Of Devotion

Acts 17:16-34

Sermon

Clement E. Lewis

... aid in the devotional, is utilized, and prayers are read or offered from the heart, and may be expressed privately or in groups. In order to deepen the atmosphere of spiritual devotion, many people have Bibles, crosses or crucifixes, or pictures of artists' concepts of the Christ in their homes, as reminders of what they believe and feel in relation to God. There is also the devotion that is self-giving, expressing itself in filial love, acts of kindness and goodness, and unswerving responsibility. Within ...

345. Proper 10

Ephesians 1:1-14, Psalm 24:1-10

Bulletin Aid

B. David Hostetter

... our sins are forgiven through the shedding of his blood. Friends, believe the Good News! In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. EXHORTATION Live for the praise of God's glory. PRAYER OF THE DAY Lord of all being, we would offer all our artistic gifts to you rather than to any human authority, giving praise to you for all the beauty of creation by our own creativity however modest in comparison to yours; through Jesus Christ our redeemer. Amen. PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING Parenting God, Adopter of children, Unifying ...

346. More Important Than We Thought

Luke 20:17

Children's Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... rid of it and did not think it was very special either. After I bought it, took it home, and cleaned it up, I found that it was really very special. A lot of people would really like to have this picture, because it is painted by a very famous artist and is quite valuable. Here I have something that no one thought was important, and now I find it is very important. That is the way that it is with Jesus. When Jesus was alive and teaching, there were some people who thought that he was just another man and ...

347. His Suffering Servant

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

George Paul Mocko

... Plan. A declining population eked out an existence in the ruins. Most all were what would later be called "D.P.'s" - displaced persons. And there in their devastated and prostrate land, they asked I their questions of the heavens, just as so many playwrights, novelists and artists asked those questions out of the ruins of the Second World War. "Why? Why in a world ruled, they try to tell us, by a good God, why? Why this? Why this death and pain and suffering? Why have we had to bear this holocaust at the ...

348. The S & L That Didn't Fail!

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Barbara Brokhoff

... . It reminds me that I have been died for." Each time we see a cross, we recollect the red-blood of Christ that was shed for us. We have been died for! We have hanging in our home a marvelously hand-carved cross which was made by an artist in Oberammergau. It is nearly four feet high, and while the cross-wood is lovely, the captivating feature is the exquisitely carved figure of the suffering Lord portrayed in the clarity and pain of his torturous, crucified death. That Christ as Victim has won my heart, my ...

349. Sight And Insight

John 9:1-12, John 9:13-34, John 9:35-41

Sermon Aid

John R. Brokhoff

... day walked across it. His dream, vision and goal became a reality. Seeing the face of Jesus. A friend of Leonardo da Vinci looked at his painting of the Last Supper. He was entranced by the two silver cups on the table in front of Jesus. He exclaimed at the artistic skill of their design. Leonardo responded by taking a brush and painting them out. He explained, "It is not that I want you to see. It is that Face!"

350. What's a Good God Doing In a World Like This?

John 16:5-16

Sermon

James Weekley

... present, the drama of God's goodness must be acted out in our limbs. His goodness in that lubricant which gets us moving toward human need. Jesus specialized in those difficult, radical needs no one else would touch ... street people ... lepers ... rip-off artists. He cared. He cared because his Good News became more then an antiseptic editorial. On our scene he cuts into our pain and aloneness. That is all the encouragement we need to deal with unexpected pain. Once the Soviet KGB raided a home conducting ...

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