Sermon and Worship Resources

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Acts 16:6-10

Sermon

Douglas J. Deuel

... teach her to bark." The father then went upstairs. He came back a little later and discovered his son on the floor with Jiggles and now he was mooing at her. The dad is now worried that he will end up with the only Chinese shar-pei that moos. Communication is something we long for at our deepest level. It is how we make connection. When we seek that type of connection with God it can be frustrating. God rarely speaks to God's people anymore through a burning bush or an audible voice or some other tangible ...

2. Marked For Community

Sermon

George Bass

... they count themselves better Christians (and every family on the street, 16 in all, is active in a church, all sorts of churches) than the rest of us. Exclusivism comes from spiritual pride, which is one of the worst sins of which we can be guilty. It reduces the community of the hopeful into people who may despise others, who may even begin to wonder about the reality of God’s love. When there is no hope or love, can the cross still be there? At the head of this street on which I live there is a sign ...

3. What We Have Is A Communication Problem

Luke 9:28-36

Sermon

King Duncan

... , "No, but I do have a wife and 15 kids in Louisiana." She asked, "Is that a record?" He said, "I don't know if it is a record or not, but it sure is above average." (1) One of the favorite devices of comedians is that of garbled communication. An Italian gentleman was trying to learn English. He asked an American friend, "What is a polar bear?" His friend replied that a polar bear lived up North. The Italian asked, "But what does this polar bear do?" "Well," replied the American, "He sits on a cake of ice ...

4. Messiah’s Community

John 20:19-31

Sermon

Wayne Brouwer

... can happen to and for those who cling to it, hope, and pray. This beautiful outcome is the church, the Body of Christ, the family of faith, the people of God, the year of jubilee in all of its fullness. Messiah’s Community One of my favorite stories about community comes from eastern Europe. In a small town on the edge of a large forest, the main worship center was a Jewish synagogue. Just outside the town stood a monastery, old and run-down, with only five brothers still puttering around grounds ...

5. "Is It Community Today?"

1 Peter 2:4-12

Sermon

Alex Gondola

... together into a temple (vv. 4-5). Second, there's the reminder that we have gone from being "not a people" to being "God's people"; that the Church is the "New Israel, the new people of God" (v. 10). God calls us out of our separateness into community. Why? For one thing, we each need to feel that connection with others. From 1986 to 1990, Frank Reed was one of the hostages held in Lebanon. For months, Reed was blindfolded, beaten, made ill, and tormented by his captors. But what was most painful for Reed ...

6. A Failure To Communicate

Hebrews 1:1-4, Hebrews 2:5-18

Sermon

King Duncan

... and the heart of the Almighty? [Today is Worldwide Communion Sunday. Churches all over the world will be breaking the bread and sharing the cup of Christ. The basic meaning of it all? God is love. That's it. That's the message that God is seeking so desperately to communicate to your heart and mine. We are loved. The writer of John put it this way. In this is love--not that we loved God, but that God loved us and gave His Son to be the expiation for our sins, but not ours only, but also the sins of ...

7. Wind -- Word -- Spirit -- Community

Acts 2:1-13

Sermon

Arthur H. Kolsti

... also in Luke's account. Wind, spirit, and speech are woven into the artistry of Luke. How else do you express a reality that grabs us in a way we cannot define but can affirm? And what is the bottom line in both accounts? Just this -- the recreation of community. Relationship is what it is all about, life in relationship to the Living God and to one another, to the Living God as made known to us in the Living Word, our crucified and risen Lord. I can never read chapter 37 of Ezekiel without thinking of the ...

8. A Community of Practice, Not a Community of Perfection

Romans 7:7-25

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... it was still so hard to give in and give all. They failed. Until Pentecost gave them the spiritual infusion they needed. Should our twenty-first century church be any less patient, any less prepared for a life of practice, than that first century community of first followers? Than Jesus himself? Everyone who walks in the doors of the church is a person who is learning to “play” their life, their faith, their love. Playing is the right metaphor. You don’t “work” a violin. You “play” a violin ...

9. The Need for A Community of Healing

Mark 1:29-34

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... will stand by us in our weakness. They often have enjoyed the pleasure we have brought them, but now we worry if they will love us when we bring them the burden of pain. Like the sick of Jesus' day, and like my desperately sick friend, we all need a community of friends to surround us, to support us, and to bring us to the good physicians. We need to be assured we will not be rejected or abandoned or forgotten. We need someone to plead our case during our weakness, someone to hold up our cause. We need a ...

10. Invitation To Community

Mark 10:1-12

Sermon

William G. Carter

... What they have they have in common, and so, to them, helping each other does not seem merely to damage their ability to compete against each other. To them, "mine" is not so powerful or necessary a pronoun as "ours."3 What does it mean to live like a community --- in our homes, in our church, and in our world? That's a good question to ask a church that gathers around the Lord's table. No matter how alienated we feel elsewhere, God welcomes every person here. Regardless of how broken we may be, God's table ...

11. The Healing Community

Mark 5:21-43

Sermon

Ron Lavin

... through a week. The touch of tenderness and caring from this congregation gives me such a warm feeling. Someone really cares through a smile and a handshake." And a hug! Remember we all need ten hugs per day, just for maintenance. The church, a healing community? Yes, not all it should be; not all it ought to be for everyone, but a nuance of the kingdom here on earth because God is working through his people. Here is what Dr. Granger Westberg, while lecturing at the University of Arizona School of Medicine ...

12. Church As Redemptive Community

Acts 4:32-37

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

... . But then there's the church, the local church, together with the denominational heirarchy which supports it. That's a different matter. Anyone associated with a congregation soon becomes aware of that problem of sin. At the outbreak of World War II, a community of westerners living and working in China was interned by the Japanese. Since they were civilians, the Japanese didn't put them in prison camps or mistreat them in the way they would do with military prisoners. But they did place several hundred ...

13. Life in the Community of Believers

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

... I have not been in worship since I was a teenager and I am beginning to feel I need to get back to worship. I would like to get to know God if I am ever going to be a whole person." That is what worship is about. In a community of believers, preacher and choir are not performers for an audience. God is the only audience of worship; you and I are ministers one to another. Ministers pray for the congregation, but need the congregation to pray for them. They sing, but want you to sing. They read scripture, but ...

14. God Communicates in Humanly Understandable Terms

Luke 2:41-52

Sermon

Richard D. Campbell

... you treated us so? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety" (v. 48). Mary and Joseph could not have been more ordinary and human than when they revealed themselves in those words. This, too, is the greatness of God. He communicated to us in the humanly understandable terms of a very ordinary home -- perhaps much like our own. What is most precious about God coping with life on our human terms is that God did it his way! And, he did it successfully, victoriously, happily. Jesus ...

15. A Cubed Community

Matthew 18:15-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... 's there among them. There will never be just TWO when Christians gather. There will always be three. The risen Christ's final words reassure us again, "I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Mathew 28:20). The church is a cubed community, a place where all relationships, all interactions, all prayers, and all decisions are carried out with the power of three. Jesus didn't tie his promised presence only to the experience of worship or the study of the Scriptures. He declared that simply to "gather in ...

16. Called to be a Christian Community: Cracked Pots and Clay Jars

2 Corinthians 4: 1-18

Sermon

John E. Harnish

... singers witnessed to it when they sang: When we all get to heaven What a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus We'll sing and shout the victory. I have a hunch we aren't going to complete the journey solo. It's only in community that we discover what God has in mind for us. So we gather....we welcome, we include, we receive all persons into the inclusive, life-giving, joy-filled Body of Christ. Let me give you another example from the animal world. In Compass, we have been talking about the ...

17. What Did The Turkey Say? (Or Contentious Communities)

Isaiah 58:3-9a (9b-12)

Sermon

Tony Everett

Here is a story that has been told for many years. Some of you may have heard it. Jenny had been living alone since her husband died several years earlier. One particular evening, Pastor Alice had scheduled a visit to Jenny's home. Jenny still had a parrot that was her husband's pride and joy. Knowing that the parrot was prone to repeat the profanity it heard form her husband's retired Navy buddies, Jenny cautioned the parrot to be silent during the pastor's visit. "I promise you, that if you start cursing ...

18. The TV Revolution

Sermon

Michael Rogness

... , simply reading a well-crafted essay doesn't work in the pulpit anymore. Maybe it never did work as well as we would like to think! The problem is that the standards of good writing are quite different from the norms of oral communication or television communication. A sermon might look splendid on paper, and it may be a superb sermon when one reads it silently, but it may not work at all from the pulpit. Too many fine sermons from a theological or pastoral viewpoint fall flat from the pulpit. It ...

19. Stand Together or Fall Apart

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... and forgiveness. In Acts the post-resurrection, post-ascension band of believers is shown trying to discern the non-violent glue that will establish and maintain their identity. Before his death Jesus spoke often about what should be the true nature of this new community. In Mark 10:42-44 he responded to the petty but disruptive rivalry among the disciples by proclaiming that "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over ...

20. Jacob's Sheep

Matthew 28:16-20

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... so unique, so different, so extraordinary that people can’t help but say, “I need to find out what makes this people so joyful! So healthy! So kind! So deeply loving! So full of life and potential for growth!” “I want to be part of a community like that!” Being on top of the world is not being elevated or better than anyone else, but it’s being able to see the vista God is showing us –to see the “Big Picture” of what it means to be an “outlier” people in an ordinary world. Being ...

21. Let's Get Together

Acts 2:1-21 · Genesis 11:1-11

Sermon

Will Willimon

... of this old story of the Tower of Babel. Here is a story about ill-gotten human unity as opposed to the unity which God wills. God told them to scatter. But they don't want to scatter. They want to stay where they are, in their own little community of common language, common race, common place. If we can just get everybody to talk with the same accent, wear the same clothes, believe the same slogans, and work on the same projects we can make a name for ourselves -- we can all get together and be as great ...

22. What Is Our City?

Acts 4:32-35

Sermon

Ken Lentz

... new members be taken in." The embryo church of Acts 4 took to heart the new command of Jesus, "that you love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35). There are Christian communities who place the greatest emphasis on saving souls, and rightly so. But the decision of the penitent to accept Jesus as one's Lord and Savior is a decision to accept his call to discipleship. Step one: Accept Jesus as Savior. Step two: Go forth to serve in ...

23. The Good Catch

Matthew 17:24-27

Sermon

Lori Wagner

... give the Temple what isn’t good, or to give the leftover bones after he’s eaten the best. He doesn’t tell him to cheat the Temple, or to give the best to ourselves. He tells him to do what’s required to be a part of that community. That means giving from your means --the turkey you would eat, the gift you would cherish, the money you would use for your own family, fulfilling the baptism promise that you have made. Peter is a fisherman, and his “means” are his fish. His temple tax comes from the ...

24. K.I.S.S.

1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5

Sermon

King Duncan

... to all.If you think that the K.I.S.S. approach to preaching is a little too unsophisticated for a learned church like ours, let me hasten to say to you that the idea is not my own. Listen as the Apostle Paul describes his own efforts at communicating the Gospel. He says to the Corinthians, “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified ...

25. Together In Christ

Acts 2:42-47

Sermon

Erskine White

... loaves and fishes, to hear Him teach. And at the end of His earthly ministry, when He is risen from the dead, why do you think He only appears when groups of people are gathered together and never to individuals by themselves? Because He is building a church, a community of people, the Body of Christ in this world! As the gospel of John tells it, this is why Jesus came into the world in the first place: to "gather in one the children of God who were scattered abroad" (John 11:52). Even when they asked Jesus ...

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