Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: take action, take steps, take measures, take the initiative, move, make a move, react, do something, proceed, go ahead, behave, function, perform, operate, work, take effect, serve, be efficacious, play, play a part, take part, be an actor, be an actress, be one of the cast, appear, pretend, play-act, sham, fake, feign, put it on, bluff, pose, posture, masquerade, dissemble, dissimulate, deed, action, gesture, feat, exploit, performance, undertaking, maneuver, stunt, operation, venture, effort, enterprise, achievement, accomplishment, law, decree, statute, bill, Act of Parliament, edict, fiat, dictum, dictate, enactment, resolution, ruling, rule, judgement, canon, ordinance, proclamation, command, commandment, mandate, measure, stipulation, direction, requirement, division, section, subsection, portion, part, segment, component, bit, turn, routine, number, item, piece, sketch, skit, playlet, dance, song, pretense, false display, show, front, facade, charade, guise, affectation, appearance

Antonyms: do nothing

Showing 1 to 25 of 161 results

1. Grace Under Pressure

Luke 4:1-13

Sermon

King Duncan

... within a few weeks of Hill’s due date. The online bar exam is administered in four 90-minute segments over two days. Hill’s water broke during the first 90-minute segment. She completed the segment, then called her husband, her mother and a midwife. The midwife assured her that she could finish the second 90-minute segment even while undergoing early labor pains. So Hill finished her second test segment and headed to the hospital to give birth to a precious baby boy. The next day, she completed the ...

2. Six Nails of the Cross VI: The Nail of Cruelty

Isaiah 52:13--53:12

Sermon

Wesley T. Runk

... indeed of our life together in this place. Can a community that has built into its very essence the idea of being an elite group really accept the assertion that it is subhuman except it be reconciled with the rest of society, the non-elite segments of humankind. Can a group of people that is in nearly every sense privileged both financially and intellectually, beyond the dream of most of our society, really identify its destiny, its very humanity, with the less privileged? Or must we always look upon those ...

3. It Isn’t Fair!

Matthew 20:1-16

Sermon

... should a Robert Redford or Rock Hudson or John Kennedy be born with singular good looks, while so many men are doomed to be short, fat, bald and not a bit good looking? Is that fair? Alistair Cooke introduced one segment of the "America" television series on Public Television one week (the segment about money barons in America) by suggesting that some people simply seem to be born with the innate ability to accumulate a lot of money and then to make it generate still more. Many of us, who have not inherited ...

4. The Lord Is My Shepherd

Psalm 23:1-6

Sermon

Robert Allen

... I counsel with a half-dozen different people, all struggling with the same issue. They have low self-esteem; they have a low opinion of themselves; they have no sense of their inherent worth or value as people. Remember a news segment from the presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson. In one segment, they showed him speaking to a high school assembly of teenage boys and girls. He was not talking to them about politics. Instead, he was talking to them about the need for an education and the danger of drugs. He ...

5. Old Favorite

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon

Harold Warlick

... small-town innkeepers and tax collectors. Paul’s letter to Corinth is an important one for us to consider. Direct production workers — bricklayers, farmers, and machinists — are a steadily declining segment of the workforce in our developed economy. They certainly are a declining segment in most churches. The fastest growing group in our society are knowledge workers — accountants, engineers, teachers, nurses, social workers, lawyers, salesmen, and managers. People who are paid for putting knowledge ...

6. A Fresh Start

Joel 2:28-32, Joel 2:18-27

Sermon

Mark Ellingsen

... everything is new. Paul says that in 2 Corinthians (5:17). How does the Holy Spirit figure in this? Those of us who have been crippled by the past, with no viable alternatives, have been in bondage to our past, trapped by who and what we are. The impoverished segments of society have been enslaved by the past. But the Good News of Joel and his message about the End Time is that we are no longer chained by our pasts. The Holy Spirit is the agent of the new possibilities, by giving us the faith that throws ...

7. Driven To Serve

Mark 9:33-37

Sermon

King Duncan

... about the hazards of tanning and the benefits of sunscreens, and to all on the importance of self-examination and the changes to look for in moles. Australia's "60 Minutes" profiled Mark's courageous campaign in 1988. The producers introduced the segment by stating that too much sun on sensitive skin had turned Australia's beautiful sandy shores into "...beaches every bit as dangerous as a war zone." Mark's moving story stunned the nation, motivating thousands to visit their dermatologists to check out ...

8. Tongue-tied By Three Zeros

2 Corinthians 13:11-14

Sermon

Siegfried S. Johnson

... zeros. I point this out to introduce you to the fact that theologians have a nomenclature problem of their own when it comes to the threefold nature of God, "The Three Holies." Generally, when speaking of the nature of God, theologians use easily defined segments of thought. God is Holy. God is Just. God is Omnipotent. God is Merciful. God is Love. Think of these as the theological equivalent of The Fifties, The Sixties, The Seventies, etc. But when it comes to God's tripersonality, theologians are tongue ...

9. Put To Death The Old; Put On The New

Colossians 3:1-17

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... of conscience. A good time to practice it is at the close of the day -- before you go to bed – or before you go to sleep -- maybe even while you are in bed. Look back over the day, comb through that day with a small tooth comb -- moving through every segment of the day -- looking at what you have done, or what you failed to do, how you have related to others -- what you have said, or what you failed to say. The way you looked at another -- the way you failed to respond to the looks and the needs of ...

10. Generic Christianity Is Not Enough

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Maxie Dunnam

... ways of life and there is the way: Jesus, “the way, the truth, and the life.” There are those who would say that it’s too exclusive to claim Jesus as the way. There are all sorts of ways, they say. Did you see the TV segment about the orphanage in Albania? A young man, Mark Nyberg, is the director. Burning, looting, and wild tirades of killing forced our government to evacuate American citizens from Albania -- but Nyberg would not leave. He moved into the orphanage and is staying with the children. He ...

11. The Things That Make for Peace

Luke 19:28-44

Sermon

Mark Trotter

... , especially in the movies, as if it were some litany. It is justified by saying, that's the way the real world is. People really talk that way. And that's true. The violent segments of our society have always talked that way. But what kind of a society is it that lets the most alienated, and angry, and violent segment of society set the standards for society? Claude Brown, who wrote Manchild in the Promised Land, in an article, said that people under forty in our society have never lived in America where ...

12. Generations

John 4:1-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... this generation a hand. Will those of you who were born between 1930 and 1945 remain standing? You are known by sociologists as "The Ikes," or the Eisenhower Generation aka War Babies, Depression Babies, Silent Generation, etc.). You constitute a very special segment of the booster population. Born during the Depression and World War II, you now comprise 14 percent of the US population. The 1990 census found thirty-seven million of you. So many of you share characteristics with boomers you are called the ...

13. UpTime

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... and preparing for tomorrow's onslaught, that we struggle to "find time" for God. At best, we schedule a half-hour of Bible study here, a half-hour of prayer there, and a scant hour of "worship" once a week. The problem with this attitude is that we can't segment life into "God times" vs. "god-less times." Christians don't find time for God. We find God's time in all our time. If we are truly "in Christ," then Christ's Spirit fills us at every moment of our day. In everything we do, we must be finding ...

14. Grow Old Grace-fully

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... age, that they are scared of or uninterested in new ideas or new ways of doing things, that sexuality and sensuality are no longer part of their lives, that illness and infirmity are typical of their age group. The truth is that the fastest growing segment of our population is those over 65. People are living longer and healthier lives. In less than one century, there has been an astonishing 50 percent plus increase in longevity (from 49 in 1900 to almost 80 in 2000). Centenarians are the fastest growing ...

15. Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!

Matthew 17:1-13

Sermon

Dean Feldmeyer

... mean I can’t go see my current doctor, but my $4,500 out-of-pocket, is going to turn into a minimum of $26,000 out-of-pocket to see the doctor that I’ve been seeing the last seven years.” That local Phoenix news segment went viral. It was highlighted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank; cited in an ad from Americans for Prosperity, as the announcer says “Arizonans are losing the health care plans they love, the doctors they know”; and featured on many other conservative websites ...

16. A New Kingdom Coming

Luke 9:57-62

Sermon

Maurice A. Fetty

... of fading temporal power. Note first of all, the new kingdom coming is out of the future, not the past. Many Americans are amused at the quaintness of the Amish people. These descendants of Germanic pietism attempt to stop the clock, to idealize a segment of time as the kingdom of God. Almost wholly agricultural, they ride about their farms and towns in horse-drawn vehicles, avoid the modern conveniences of electricity, and disdain any instruction other than that of their own schools. For them, the ideal of ...

17. What Money Can't Buy

2 Kings 5:1-27

Sermon

Carlyle Fielding Stewart

... . Lepers were colonized or quarantined in certain areas of a city or town. Taboos against prolonged contact with lepers were very strong. That Naaman enjoyed his status as a great warrior is perhaps unusual for lepers, since they were often isolated from other segments of the community. Thus we can surmise that Naaman, like other lepers of his time, was desperately in search of a cure for his malady. After hearing about the prophet, he travels to him, taking large amounts of money to pay him for services ...

18. You Can Be Less Worried

Matthew 6:25-34

Sermon

Michael B. Brown

It occurred to me to title this segment of the series "You Can Be Worry Free," but I realized no one would believe it. The truth is, I don't believe it, either. To desire a life that is "worry free" is in all likelihood to dream the impossible dream. Between 20 and 30 percent of all Americans ...

19. To Bow The Knee

Philippians 2:5-11

Sermon

Sandra Hefter Herrma

... to hire. There are families who split because to do so will qualify the mother and children for welfare, while dad struggles to keep a roof over his own head. There are women and children who have exhausted every resource, and who now constitute the fastest growing segment of the impoverished and homeless. And when those things are happening, you and I and others like us tend to start looking over our shoulders, fearful of what the future may bring, because we know that a job at McDonald's will by no means ...

20. Sermons

Sermon

John R. Bodo

... she did change, which gives us hope that we, too, can change. The message is designed primarily for the active ten percent or maximum one-third of a suburban Protestant church, but it is just as likely to apply to the activist, workhorse segment of any American congregation, because activism is the hallmark of American church life, regardless of doctrine or ritual. I believe that wrapping the message around the character of Martha makes it more interesting and memorable as well as a great deal less preachy ...

21. You Can Be Forever Young

Genesis 25:1-11

Sermon

Michael B. Brown

... because "it's time"? Bah! Humbug! As much as anything else I suppose it was the trip to the ophthalmologist that got me to thinking seriously about aging. It seems that everyone is thinking seriously about aging and how to avoid or deny it. A segment of 60 Minutes in 1993 was about a spa in France operated by Dr. Christiaan Barnard (the South African physician famous for performing the world's first heart transplant surgery). Today he is treating people at the French spa, at an astronomical sum (which they ...

22. Followership

Matthew 4:18-22, Matthew 4:12-17

Sermon

Mark Radecke

... to others. Why is it, then, that we are so averse to teaching and learning the skills of good followership? In large part I think because it means giving up control. And most of us have a dreadful fear -- a deathly fear -- of relinquishing control of any segment of our lives. Indeed, we do not give up control willingly; and God will not take control from us by force or false promise. So what's the answer? How does God make disciples -- followers -- of the likes of us? The only power I know that enables ...

23. The Persecuted

Sermon

John A. Terry

... executive from Kansas City, Missouri, has suggested new marketing techniques which can help to tap the appeal to popular blessings. Beginning with the Roman Catholic Church (24 percent of the U.S. market), he suggests a strategy of market segmentation, a clear positioning of the church identifying specific subgroups within the brand name. For the contemporary branch of the Roman Catholic Church, "the one that features hip priests, guitar playing, hand shaking, hugging, and other manifestations of universal ...

24. The Persecuted

John 15:18-27

Sermon

John A. Terry

25. We All Sin So What?

Genesis 3:1-24

Sermon

John R. Brokhoff

... of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) John says to those who deny that they are sinners, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8) Today’s society is marinated with sin, for it pervades every segment and level of society. It is human to err and we are all humans. So, why get concerned or excited about sin? Why is it so important that God would leave his throne to come to earth and discuss the problem with sinners? The Bad News of Sin When God ...

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