The Pulpiteer

Podcast: He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother

pastorandy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:02:29 +0000

This sermon is in between series. The scripture we worked with was the book of Philemon, which is only 25 verses. We went through the book, verse by verse as well as gave some background to the book, so we could better understand what was going on. Philemon ends up being a powerful book, not only on the issue of slavery, but also on God winning our hearts and us examining how we view others. Taking Philemon to heart could be revolutionary. I moved right from the sermon into communion, and I left that part on the podcast to show the connectedness between message and sacrament.

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Podcast – Called Community part 4: Dinner for Schmucks

pastorandy — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:30:46 +0000

This is the fourth in the Called Community sermon series. This week’s scripture is from Luke 14:1,7-14. It is a teaching of Jesus that centers around people striving for honor at a meal Jesus was attending. The key verse is 11, where Jesus tells us that those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. We are called to be a humble community that is socialized in a different way than the world. For us as a church it affects us in a few areas: our unity, the company we keep, and our hospitality in worship.

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Podcast – Called Community part 3: Is it my neighbor Lord?

pastorandy — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:15:12 +0000

This is the third in the Called Community sermon series. This week’s scripture is from Jeremiah 1:4-10 and it is the story of the calling of Jeremiah. We are a called community, which means that we are called as a community, but also that we are a community of called people. Each follower of Christ ought to wrestle with God’s calling on their lives. What is it that God is calling you to do as a part of the body of Christ? What gifts do you have? What passions do you have? What have others affirmed in you? Where do your gifts fit in with the Christian community of which you are a part? Consider these things as you consider God’s call on your life.

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Podcast: Called Community part 2: Weeping Prophets

pastorandy — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:44:49 +0000

This week’s sermon comes from Jeremiah 8:18-9:3. This is one of the sections of Jeremiah that earned him the nickname, “weeping prophet.” If we are to be a called community that carries the word of God into our world, then we must do so as people who love and care deeply about the people in the world. Our world is messed up – just as Jeremiah’s was – so I think he can serve as an example for us today.

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Podcast: Called Community part 1 – Treasure

pastorandy — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:00:42 +0000

This week’s sermon comes from a parable in Luke 12:13-21. In this message I focus on the phrase, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” This is such a challenging statement to me, and I don’t even consider myself a material person. It is the air we breath, I think, in our 21st century North American culture. If we don’t find life in the abundance of possessions, then where do we find it? I think we find it, oddly enough, by giving it away to Christ. In serving, in giving, in sacrificing, I think we meet Jesus in unexpected and powerful ways. At the end of the message, we have two people from the congregation share about their camp experience.

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Podcast: Image of the Invisible God

pastorandy — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:57:40 +0000

This week’s message comes from Colossians 1:15-29 and it comes from a very Christocentric portion of scripture. In it, Christ is described as creator, sustainer, and redeemer. The message focuses on Christ and the story of salvation – creation, fall, redemption, and new creation. The image in this post is the one I had in worship to provide a visual to the message. I cite a quote from one of my seminary professors, Dr. Stone. If you want to read his whole blog post (it’s a good one) click here. Also, I attempted a quick rendition of “Better All the Time,” which I’ve heard by the Blind Boys of Alabama. Here is a link I could find that may get you to that song.

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Podcast: Jesus and _________

pastorandy — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:00:43 +0000

This weeks message is from 1 Kings 18:20-40, the story of Elijah battling the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. It’s a crazy story, and one of my favorites. It was also a very challenging story to wrestle with last week. I find that I’ve got more in common with the people of Israel, many times, then I care to think about. Elijah continues to call us to worship God and God alone.

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If you’re tired of hearing my voice…

pastorandy — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:40:21 +0000

I’ve been wanting to post a link to a couple of sermons by a seminary friend of mine from Pennsylvania, Seth McPherson (pictured here, right side up). The first sermon is one from awhile ago that deals with beauty and thinking about beauty from a Christian perspective. He interviews the beauty editor for Seventeen Magazine, and it’s a pretty interesting message.

The second message is from two weeks ago, and the neat thing is that we both preached from the same text in 2 Kings – Elijah going up in the whirlwind. We emphasized two different things and it was neat to hear Seth after I had studied the passage myself. So, here is the link to that sermon.

Enjoy. And if you do, remember that we are both Asbury Seminary trained and approved. Oh, and I should mention – Seth has some awesome tatoos, but I couldn’t find pictures of them on his website. So send him email if you’re interested…

Podcast: He Was Made Clean

pastorandy — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:00:53 +0000

This week’s sermon comes from 2 Kings 2:1-14 and it is the story of the healing of Naaman the Aramean general. God takes an unclean enemy – Naaman, and heals him. This is the sort of thing God does. The shocking thing is that God does this through fairly normal means – just washing in the Jordan. This message is a sacramental message, pushing us to think of the extraordinary things that God does in and through the ordinary. During this message, my sister-in-law, Lisa, was painting a response to the word. I’ll post a picture later. It was pretty cool.

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Spiritual Harvest

pastorandy — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:00:46 +0000

Here is a piece I wrote for our July Newsletter. I thought it would be good to share via the blog.

I really enjoy my garden. I don’t know how good of a gardener I am, but I’m good enough to have tomatoes, peppers, and other veggies to eat at the end of the summer. There is nothing like vine ripened tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumbers from your own garden. We celebrate the harvest with BLT’s, stuffed peppers, homemade coleslaw, and fresh broccoli. This year I’ve tried growing lettuce for the first time, and already it has been fun to step out the back door and grab some fresh lettuce to top our grilled burgers.

As much as I enjoy eating the produce from our garden, it is not the main reason I love gardening. There is something miraculous about the way the tomato plants produce fruit. Have you ever really looked at a tomato seed? They are tiny. How does a plant grow from that? Seed, soil, water, sunlight – these are the things required for the growth of a plant, but how does it happen? Yet somehow, at the end of the season, I’ve harvested several tomatoes from a plant grown from one seed. There is work involved in gardening. I could do more, but for me it mostly involves making sure the plants are spaced out evenly, watered regularly, and the ground is reasonably clear of weeds. Most of the work, however, occurs almost magically as vines lengthen, leaves expand, flowers bloom, and I take it all in. I love it. Anne, Elijah, Alexandra and I regularly check the garden and go over the names of the plants. And we watch God’s good creation grow as God designed it to do.

Jesus often taught using parables that involved agriculture. I have heard that Jesus did this because his audience was from small, rural communities. That may be the case, but I suspect there is more. I think we can observe the handiwork of God in a special way in the tiny miracles of nature, and in doing so we can find clues as to God’s purpose and design for us. The apostle Paul wrote that the fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Jesus told a parable about a mustard seed, a tiny seed that grows into a large plant. Perhaps the garden can give us a glimpse of what ought to be occurring inside of each of us. If you have the faith even the size of a tiny mustard seed (or tomato seed I would add), then amazing things can happen. The Holy Spirit can grow something within you that is nothing short of a miracle. As you grow and change there is work you ought to do in order to help the process. Make sure you are providing nutrients through Bible study and small groups, get sunlight through worship, weed out the things that choke off life from your spirit. The main work though is done almost magically as God grows something new inside of you. Then, just like our garden plants, we should expect some sort of harvest. It may be small at first; a little more patience here, or some more generosity over there. Eventually, by the grace of God, we can find that our harvest has increased, the fruit of the spirit is so abundant, we have to ask, “How did all of this come from a tiny seed?” The answer, of course, is by the hand of God.

May this season be one of growth and transformation for you by the power of God through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” Galatians 5:22-25