Halloween & the Nature of God

What would it be like if you walked up to God's door on Halloween?

What would it be like if you walked up to God's door any day of the week?

Are Christians Kind?

This is one area where I think that the Christian Church messes up so often.  If others are supposed to know Christians by their love, what are they supposed to think when we're insulting each other (and worse)?

Who is the person in your life you should be kinder to?  Even those people we disagree with?  (No names, please.)

Families Called to Hope

Following is a sermon that I delivered on May 13, 2012 at Pocatello First United Methodist Church.

John 15:9-17

How many of you read the newspaper today?  Watched the morning news?  Looked at headlines online? It seems that we are inundated with bad news.  The world looks hopeless. Every day there is a new crisis. A new reason to panic.

Was it always like this? Is there really more bad news than there used to be, or are we victims of a 24 news cycle, where everything is an emergency … but it will wait until the top of the hour or until after “a few words from our sponsor.”

If there is good news, it usually gets tagged onto the end, almost as an afterthought.  And yet, there are terrible things that are going on in our world every day: Financial markets just reported a 2b dollar loss at J.P. Morgan. Who can tell what will happen in Greece? Or Spain?  But that’s only money right?  What about war?  There are new reports of increasing violence in the Middle East. Unfortunately, there’s nothing surprising about that.  But, just a few weeks ago, there was a rocket test in North Korea. The good news is that it was unsuccessful, but does anyone think that they’re quitting?

But Wait, There's More ...

Puncturing Our Presumptions

Following is a short presentation that I gave at Pocatello First United Methodist Church's Leadership Summit today.

A day or two ago, when Pastor Craig was asking me what the title of this talk should be, I told him that I had many talents, but coming up with titles was not one of them. But when I saw Puncturing our Presumptions, I knew that it was perfect. Because that is the main thing that gets in our way when we try to connect with people who don’t have experience being in the church.

As you have already heard and seen in our program and guide for today, the Methodist Church’s main purpose is “the formation of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”

One aspect of that is training the people who are here.  As Paul calls it in Eph 4, “Equipping the Saints.”  And when Paul talks about “saints” throughout his letters, he is not only talking about people like Mother Theresa or Francis of Assisi (though they would certainly qualify).  He is talking about all of us, those people who are a part of the church.

But in Matthew 28, Jesus calls us to make disciples of ALL nations.  That can mean going out to show new people about Jesus.  The church has both bad and good example of that in our history.  But it can also mean those people who find their way to us.  It might be a person who crosses our path at work, school, or even the grocery store.  Or, it may be someone or a family who wanders into our church on a Sunday morning.

But Wait, There's More ...