Tag: church
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Collects
Corporate worship isn’t the only thing people do “at church,” but it is what everyone thinks of as “going to church.” Many, maybe most, people think churches – that is, congregations – mainly are organized for the purpose of conducting regular corporate worship. If, that is, they think much about “the life of the church”…
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Asking for Money
It’s “stewardship season” at our tiny church. “Stewardship season” is Christianese for what other voluntary organizations call “the annual fund drive.” Various members get tapped to stand up and say “what stewardship means to me,” hopefully to good and inspiring effect. After three or four weeks of that, plus a couple of letters, we collect…
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Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
One of those extraordinary ordinary days at church. A beautiful, clear, sunny day in late fall. The sun hitting that stained glass window at just the right angle to cast a rose-colored shadow on the wall across from the choir loft. I’ve never seen that before. Some people we’d expected to see weren’t there [“You…
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Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
[A sermon delivered at the Corydon Presbyterian Church on Sunday, August 11, 2019.] A lot of times these Bible stories we read in church start sort of the in the middle of things, and we need some backstory … but we can read the book of Ruth as a whole self-contained little story, really, and…
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Third Sunday of Easter
The day-to-day reality of participating in church could give you emotional and cognitive whiplash, if you let it. Like this morning: we spent an hour or so talking about the kind of deep theological topics that people debate in seminary and in theology texts – justification by faith, redemption, atonement, grace, which faith is it,…
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Second Sunday of Easter
The Preacher says there’s a time for everything. You know: “A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance,” etc. etc. Ecclesiastes 3. “Turn turn turn.” A time to meet, and a time to say good-bye. We’re adults, we understand, we do. We understand that people…
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Easter Sunday
This morning started out foggy and damp, but ended up brilliantly sunny and warm. There were a dozen or so colored eggs in the landscaping by the front door of the church that hadn’t been there the last time – surprise! This gave the front of the church a bright, festive look. About a third…
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Second Sunday in Lent
We had a great sermon today on temptation and protection. The text was Luke 4:1-13. I suppose we would have had this great sermon last week if there hadn’t been technical difficulties, but I was glad to get to hear it this week. First, there was that rather horrifying observation from the text itself when…
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First Sunday in Lent
Late last night, we got a text that our pastor was ill, and wouldn’t be able to make it to worship this morning. That never happens! [Hmmm … OK, technically … hardly ever.] But … worship is not tied to time, place, or individuals, according to one of my old professors, so there is never…
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Out of Sight
Why would anyone start going to church? That is far from obvious. Not that there are no reasons for going to church, or no good reasons, or even no genuinely compelling reasons. I love church. I always have – if “always” can mean “ever since I was a little girl, not counting the twenty-odd years…
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Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
People have a tendency to contrast contemplative spirituality with more “practical” or “active” forms of spirituality. But in fact, all forms of spirituality have their practical and material side, even the most contemplative. Today, after the Sunday school hour, there were four or five people busy in the multi-purpose room setting up the labyrinth. The…
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Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
Today at church is the last day of the diaper drive for the benefit of La Casita Center in Louisville. The Center runs something like a food bank for poor women in the community. Diapers aren’t food, of course, but they are something that families can need, and sometimes – like now – they can…
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The Good Kind of Rules
I got to thinking in the middle of the sermon this Sunday: There’s a polarized and polarizing discourse around “rules” or “commandments” and “obedience” in contemporary Christianity. It’s as if, as soon as someone invokes “Biblical standards” or “obedience,” it signals a whole complex of other positions, as does any language about “cultural conditions” or…
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Second Sunday After Epiphany
Ice is slippery, and presby* people like our little congregation are fall risks, so we are having a snow – or more precisely, ice – day for the Second Sunday after Epiphany. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Philippians 2:5 So we had church by…
Matters of Interpretation 