I was asked to offer the Prayers of the People this Pentecost Sunday. At my former church I regularly gave the Pastoral Prayer in the worship service. As a matter of course a pastoral staff member led in that prayer during Sunday worship, and on occasion, a church member would. The practice is opposite at my current church, where the norm is to have the Prayers of the People led by a church member, and on occasion, a pastoral staff member leads it. Here is the prayer for Pentecost Sunday:

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Here are a couple of interesting and worth-reading bible background articles from sources you likely would not expect to find such. I think they are both worth the read:

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We’ve just added a link to the School of Christian Ministry at BTSR on our Organizational links listing. The School of Christian ministry provides quality continuing education courses, programs, and events for clergy and lay church leaders. Many convenient online learning opportunities here! Check out their offerings, there’s probably one you need. You can register online.

Every once is a while (like last month, in fact) I get a call from a church leaders wanting guidance and ideas about creating a mini-seminary in their congregations. While that idea is driven by a desire to make Christian education more meaningful and effective in their congregations I am always suspect of that approach. I believe that any congregation will be well-served by taking Christian education more seriously, and, by go about its practice in more intentional ways. But I also believe that a seminary is one thing and a church another—and when it comes to educating in faith, the two should not be confused.

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One of the things my wife asked for Christmas was the missing volumes to her series of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, that outrageously (and refreshingly) “dark” children’s books. While many adults enjoy the wry humor in Snicket’s prose, the more significant aspect is children’s response to a cycle of stories that have no happy ending and exploits children’s worst fears (the children in the story are orphaned in the first book, and then it gets worse from there). Kids are eating up this series of stories.

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I observe that more congregations are offering “healing services” as part of their ministries. We offered such at my former congregation and every now and then people ask me about it. On those opportunities I stress that it wasn’t a “healing service,” but rather, a “Service of Prayer for Healing and Wholeness.” The emphasis was on the prayers of the Church, not on any notion about our ability to miraculously “heal” people of broken bones or spirits.

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The following is from the book Myths: Fact and Fiction about Teaching and Learning by Israel Galindo. How well do you know fact from fiction?

FICTION: The place where the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 is marked by the actual Plymouth Rock on which they stepped onto the New World.

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Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I think I heard more voices than ever this year suggesting that we consider toning down the cultural excesses of Christmas gift-giving.  We’ve certainly not eliminated gift-giving in my world of family and friends, but it has become more modest in recent years.  Counterintuitively, Christmas has not become less important to us; if anything, the opposite is true, because it offers us time as family to be together.

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Americans love good fiction, says pollster George Barna, which seems to be a peculiar opening sentence for a report on his recent survey of what Americans believe about some familiar Bible stories – - including the virgin birth.  It’s not clear what Barna regards as fiction, but the subjects of his survey believe the story of the virgin birth to be literally true .  In fact, of the six stories included in his survey, this one was accepted as an accurate depiction of an historical event by three out of four adults.

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Peace – it sounds like such a nice word, but what does it really mean? What does peace really look like? How do we preach peace – especially every year at Advent?

These are just a few questions that went through my head as I was preparing to preach last week.

Below is the sermon I preached last week, Dec 9th, on the second Sunday of Advent.

Title – Yeah Right!
Texts – Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12
Focus – Peace takes work
Function – To challenge

Other information:
Size/style of congregation – average 150 in attendance on a Sunday, Pastoral Style
Spirituality – Head
Advent themes – Hope, peace, joy, and love (some churches focus on peace first and then hope).
My position – Associate Pastor – preaching as a “second chair”
Technique – I like to “weave” the text with present and real life issues and situations, even if it is a line or two here and there.
Other – Some of the organizations listed are particuar to my congregation and surrounding city

Enjoy:

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