

Pentecost: What Do We Expect From the Spirit?
A sermon on Ezekiel 37:1-14, Acts 2:1-21, and John 15:26-27. [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here; Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash] This past Monday night in Children’s Church we were talking about the story of God calling Samuel to be a prophet, and we were helping God out by making megaphones out of our hands and yelling “Samuel, Samuel, Samuel!” We were laughing and having fun, but we were also learning. And I know this, because of the question one of ou


Anniversary Message: Prayer for Abiding Peace
A sermon on John 17:6-19 [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash] The gospel we just heard is the appointed gospel reading for the seventh Sunday of Easter, but it is also particularly appropriate for this anniversary celebration. For one thing, other than the first couple of verses, this gospel was read as the gospel for the “organizing service” of this congregation fifty years ago. Since I was obviously not part of the


Love is our Home
A sermon on John 15:9-17 [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Nicolas Weldingh on Unsplash]. In last Sunday’s forum we worked together to complete a community assessment for Abiding Peace in preparation for engaging the Reconciling in Christ process. One of the questions related to what core theological premise our congregation affirms, and we easily agreed on our answer: “God is love.” It was an easy conclusion because… who is going to disagree with t


Waters of Welcome
A sermon on Acts 8:26-40 [for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Vishal Banik on Unsplash.] About ten years ago my family had the chance to move to Italy with my husband’s company, and it was a life-changing experience. Setting aside the awesome privilege of getting to live in a great European city and travel to so many others, it was also an opportunity to immerse ourselves in another culture. Most of the time I found that immersion inspiring, and mind-