Rural Rev

Today’s sermon took the lectionary text (Luke 9:28-36) as its starting point. I felt good about the effort to connect the passage not only with timeless truths but also with considerations that are currently relevant to the life of my congregation. Character Studies in the Business of Transfiguration

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As too often happens, life has interrupted by intended schedule of regular blog posts. This time the delays were caused by a family vacation to Disneyworld, which was followed unexpectedly (and sorrowfully) by the death of a faithful leader in my church. As a result, I was out of the pulpit entirely one week and–the [...]

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Today was a wonderful day at my church. Aside from the fact that we were finally back together for worship (having missed last Sunday’s regular gathering because of inclement weather)…AND that we had a chance to celebrate the long and faithful ministry of some men in our congregation who have served in various ways for many years; [...]

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Today we started a new message series at my church. I’m calling it “It Does a Body Good: Nurturing Healthy Relationships in the Body of Christ and Elsewhere.” Hopefully, this particular series will end up being “the right thing” at “the right time.” Make no mistake, I’ve got a great congregation. But like almost any [...]

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This morning’s message wrapped up my New Year’s sermon series: Big Questions – Worthy Dreams. While I am always left to wonder how well particular messages connected with my congregation, my initial sense is that these key questions (What are you praying for that’s big? Who are you doing life with? How will you tell [...]

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Obviously, it has been awhile since my last post. Part of this lack of blogging activity stems from some ‘down-time’ that I took from my preaching responsibilities during the Christmas holiday. The rest can be traced to some computer upgrading that I’ve done in recent weeks…upgrading that made it impossible for me to access my files. In [...]

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Advent 2009 is looking to be a little unusual for me…at least from a preaching perspective. Because various children’s choirs at my church will be presenting their much-anticipated Christmas musicals in upcoming worship services, I will be sharing sermons on only the first and last Sundays of the season. I tend to think that this [...]

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I didn’t preach at my church last Sunday. We heard a report from a mission team, recently returned from Guatemala. However, I did get to preach at a Community Thanksgiving worship gathering that my congregation shares with the local Methodists, Presbyterians and another Baptist congregation. I was fairly pleased with the effort.
Treasures in Jars of [...]

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Last Sunday concluded my brief series on worship. This message had been intended from the outset to bring home the notion that worship is incomplete until it gets expressed through our lives. While that did get said, various dynamics that I encountered during the week (which are described in the sermon itself) let me in [...]

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My brief series of messages dealing with worship continued this Sunday with “How is God worshiped?” In this sermon, I’ve attempted to offer a biblical perspective on the question of ‘worship style’ that so frequently creates conflict in churches. I’m blessed to be in a church that is not in a conflict over these issues; [...]

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