A Love Letter to UCG
On May 7, 2017, Rev. Andy Bachmann and the Piedmont College Singers led our worship services.…
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Beyond Empire – Easter Sunday
Shelly: One of the most joyful parts of our jobs is to lead worship services on Easter Day. But one of the hardest things for ministers preaching on Easter Day is to think of a good sermon title. As evidence …
Continue readingPalming off Our Creeds
In some Bibles, the Palm Sunday story is sometimes subtitled, “the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem” which is ironic, of course, since the word triumphal implies that somebody is the victor and somebody else is the defeated and that is precisely …
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The High Cost of Keeping Quiet
Mark 4:35-40 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats …
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Nevertheless, She Also Persisted
SCRIPTURE AND READINGS Sometimes I wondered if I had any faith. And when I had had enough of that, I got up and went on my way. And that – the getting up and going – was faith. ~ M. …
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Practice Resurrection
Matthew 16: 21 From that time forth began Jesus to show to his disciples, how that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again …
Continue readingEntombment
John 11:1-45 My dad finally came out of the closet not so long ago. I’d been carrying him around for a while. Not shut up in a tomb with a rock in the door like Lazarus, all that remained had …
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Easter: The Prequel
Mark 9:2-10 The disciples did, however, question what this rising from the dead meant. Without a good Lent, there’s not a great Easter. We can have a pretty good Easter without a good Lent but not a great Easter. We …
Continue readingThe Living Poet Takes the Road
I’ve needed this February worship theme of Poetic License in the context of our troubled world. In hard personal or political times we need creativity to help put us back together after the latest news has broken us apart. Art …
Continue readingA Cold and Broken Hallelujah
A few years ago I got in a little trouble with a church member for a sermon I preached, entitled, “The Awful Grace of God.” In it, I quoted a little poem written some 2500 years ago by the Greek …
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The Art & Science of Poetic License
Sunday, February 12 was the second week of our new worship theme, “Poetic License.” How are our spirits renewed by the mysteries of creation? Several artists of our congregation shared their experiences in visual arts, music, spoken word, and teaching …
Continue readingMinistry: A Balance of Sorts
For Amy Rixx’s Ordination SCRIPTURE: First Corinthians 13: 1-7, 13 – If I speak in the tongues of mortals or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have …
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