Category: Sermon

Christian Leadership, Christianity, Culture, Devotion, Encouragement, Faith, Life, Sermon

Sunday’s Sermon: Resolution 2015 – Call

Nine years ago I had the greatest Jimmy John’s sandwich I have ever eaten. No other Jimmy John’s sandwich has compared to that one. 

What made the sandwich so great had nothing to do with the sandwich itself. It was your typical delicious Jimmy John’s sandwich. What made the sandwich great was the conversation that took place during the meal. Nine years ago this month, I sat at a Jimmy John’s in Chapel Hill, N.C., with my sandwich and chips, to tell one of my pastors that I felt a call to ordained ministry.  Continue reading “Sunday’s Sermon: Resolution 2015 – Call”

Christian Leadership, Christianity, Culture, Devotion, Encouragement, Faith, Life, Sermon

Sunday’s Sermon: Resolution 2015: Follow

Since moving to Kentucky in 2007, there is a lot I have learned about our great commonwealth. I have learned that a Derby Pie is a unique combination that must be tasted to be appreciated. I have learned that Lexington is not only the “horse capital of the world,” but also the “traffic jam capital” as well. I have learned that you can tell when someone is new to the state by how they pronounce “Louisville.”

Yet of all the things I have learned about Kentucky, probably the most significant is this: we love our sports. Sports is part of the culture in Kentucky. From the youth basketball courts to the college basketball games, we love to take in sports and talk about them daily. Go to McDonald’s in Lawrenceburg on any morning and you are guaranteed to hear people either talking about the next Kentucky game or a recent high school contest. 

We love to get involved in sports. We love to watch the athletes and cheer for our favorite team. We get excited when our team wins and we get frustrated, for example, when a certain team dressed in Gold and Blue decides not to make a basket against Texas. We love our sports.  Continue reading “Sunday’s Sermon: Resolution 2015: Follow”

Christian Leadership, Christianity, Culture, Devotion, Faith, Life, Sermon

Sunday’s Sermon: Resolution 2015 – Love

One of the things that I have struggled with throughout my life is love. I have a hard time receiving it and, to be honest, there are times when I have difficulty sharing it with others. 

Much of my difficulty with love is rooted in some deep hurts in my life. It is hard to feel the sting of not being loved by those who were unwilling or unable to do so. I have felt the painful rejection of friends, and even family members. The loneliness of connection, for an extrovert, can be quite difficult. My own hurts and pains, throughout the years, have created a wall that makes it difficult at times to receive and experience love.

It is painful for me and, to be honest, a reality that we all confront. In one way or another, we have all been hurt by love. As a result, we all struggle with love at some level, either in its giving or receiving. All of us know what it feels like to be rejected. We have struggled with sharing our thoughts with someone close to us. We have been hurt, broken, saddened, and frustrated by our attempt to share love or receive love. Writer and theologian Eugene Peterson writes about our desire for love. He says, “In no other human experience do we fail so frequently, get hurt so badly, suffer excruciatingly, and get deceived so cruelly as in love. Still, we continue to long for it, dream of it, and attempt it.”  Continue reading “Sunday’s Sermon: Resolution 2015 – Love”

Christian Leadership, Christianity, Devotion, Faith, Life, News, Sermon

Sunday’s Sermon: Resolution 2015 (Giving)

New Year’s Day has its varied traditions. Many of these traditions are cultural and regional in nature, such as eating black eyed peas or putting a coin in cabbage. Some of these traditions are centered on the idea of seeking good luck and fortune for the new year. Personally, I never understood how one could gain luck through eating cabbage or black eyed peas.

Among those traditions is one we are most familiar with and, perhaps, one we participated in a few days ago. That is the new year’s resolution. The idea that we will resolve to do something different in the new year that we did not do not as much in the previous.

Problem is that it seems we just recycle previous resolutions. Our resolutions often cycle around the common themes of losing weight, saving more money, and finding more ways to relax. Resolutions, though, that are appropriate coming out of a season of heavy eating, tons of purchases, and stressful calendars. For the record, my resolution for 2015 is to find more time to relax and not to stress about the little things in life. We’ll see how long that lasts. Continue reading “Sunday’s Sermon: Resolution 2015 (Giving)”

Christian Leadership, Christianity, Devotion, Encouragement, Faith, Life, Sermon

Expect the Unexpected

A high school friend of mine, yesterday, made an interesting observation on Facebook about this time of year. She said she wanted a bumper sticker that proclaimed to fellow drivers how she survived shopping at Wal-Mart the Saturday before Christmas.

That is a bumper sticker we all want by this point in December. We have arrived at the moment in the Advent season where we start to echo the motto of “survive and advance.” Survive all the rushing around, the frustrated shoppers, the overcrowded parking lots, in order to advance to the celebration of Christmas morning. After a month of hustle and bustle we’re just ready for things to slow down and to move on to the celebrations.

To be honest, however, there might be some among us who might have a different view about at this time in December. You might not be thinking about simply surviving to Christmas morning or wishing for things to slow down. You are thinking about something else. You are just ready for Christmas to be over. Continue reading “Expect the Unexpected”