Rural Rev

Today my church family held a service of dedication for our new church home in conjunction with our annual homecoming celebration. It was a great day–with  excitement in the air and a full sanctuary…AND an overflowing potluck luncheon after worship. There’s no way to say “thank you” enough to the people whose time and effort [...]

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Today, my congregation celebrated its first Sunday in our new church facility. It was a great day — full of good feelings, high hopes…and more than a little stress for those of us who were trying to make sure all the details were in order. I’m not sure that any message I prepared could really [...]

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This Sunday was my congregation’s last Sunday in the sanctuary that we have occupied since the late 1920′s. We commemorated that history with a special time of worship last Sunday, so today’s gathering felt a little anti-climactic. And yet, there was still that unique feeling in the air – a combination of wistful longing for [...]

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Today was a special day in the life of our church. We commemorated our last Sunday in the historic sanctuary where our congregation has worshiped since the mid 1920′s. It was a beautiful gathering, with several testimonies from members and a video montage featuring scenes from our life together over the years. Thankfully, the last [...]

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After a two-week hiatus (one for vacation and one for Youth Sunday), I returned to the pulpit today with the next installment of my summer message series on Colossians. This sermon focused on Colossians 3:18 to 4:1 and attempted to do justice to a portion of Paul’s writings–that at first glance, at least–seems to be out-of-step [...]

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Today, my congregation’s summer journey through the book of Colossians continued with a look at Chapter 3:1-17. Our attendance was rather light today, attributable (at least in part, I think) to several of our families taking some vacation after a full week of Vacation Bible School. But in spite of the reduced numbers, I felt like it [...]

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My ‘preaching journey’ through the book of Colossians continued today with a focus on 2:6-19. While I sometimes struggle to find a ‘master metaphor’ or image that helps a sermon come together for me, the distinction between what’s ‘essential’ in the Christian life and what’s ‘additional’ came to me quickly and seemed like an appropriate [...]

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My congregation and I continued our summer study of Colossians with a look at 1:15-29. The passage presented me with a bit of a dilemma. On the one hand, the text invites its readers to consider ‘cosmic implications’ of Christ’s supremacy–both for our understanding of redemption and our understanding of the church. But on the other [...]

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Today, my congregation and I started a message series on the book of Colossians that will probably take us through much of the rest of the summer. As I told them, I feel there are several reasons that such a series will be worthwhile: A) Surprisingly, this will be my first stab at preaching through a [...]

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One of the more challenging ‘preaching tasks’ I deal with is deciding how to approach certain national holidays. On the one hand, I love my country and am grateful for all of the blessings that I enjoy as a citizen. On the other hand, I know that as a Christian I am the citizen of [...]

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