A quick glance at other posts will reveal that I’ve skipped a week. That’s because Sunday the 20th of September was “Homecoming Sunday” at my church. In addition to a guest preacher, we had a great turnout of former members and friends–possibly because this may be the last Homecoming that we’ll celebrate in our current facility. My congregation is in the midst of building a new church home, and the process is really moving along (visit our website for a slideshow of the building’s progress).
In any case, on Sunday the 27th of September, I was back in the pulpit and was wrapping up a collection of sermons (I wouldn’t say a ‘series,’ since no particular effort was made to connect over-arching themes) from the book of James. This message grew out of James 5:13-20, which deals with prayer–a topic about which I care deeply and yet, about which I also feel like a continual neophyte, in spite of my many years as a Christ-follower.
I certainly made no Herculean effort to answer all the very difficult personal and theological questions that this passage (and others like it) create. But we did make an effort to ‘be obedient’ to this text, inviting members of our congregation to come to the altar and be ‘prayed over’ by leaders of our congregation. In the end, it seemed like a powerful experience for everyone in attendance.
