Archive

FREE IN CHRIST: LIBERAL IN CONSIDERATION — CONSERVATIVE IN LIBERTY January 29th, 2006 Jeff Taylor Text:     1 Corinthians 8Note: 1 Corinthians 8 was read twice by Brad Lepp: once earlier in service with little inflection, then just before sermon with a sardonic, even slightly caustic tone. 1 Corinthians 8 (NIV) 1Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge.[a] Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2The man who thinks he knows something does not…

THE ANABAPTIST VISION: MENNONITE MANIFESTO OR IMMODERATE MYTH? January 22nd, 2006 Jonathan Seiling Texts:     Psalm 118:1-6Mark 1:14-202 Corinthians 6:1-10Q: For those who are parents here: If you had to fill out a form about your children who are not yet baptized, (e.g. school), and it asked a question about the child’s religion or religious identity, what would you say, regardless of the age of your child? Who would write “NO RELIGION WHATSOEVER”?Who would write “Christian” or “Mennonite”? If you…

THE BODY IS FOR THE LORD, AND THE LORD FOR THE BODY January 15th, 2006 Jeremy Bergen Texts:     1 Samuel 3:1-10Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18Corinthians 6:12-20The call of Samuel is one of the memorable stories of the Bible in which God calls an individual for special service. Like Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, the boy Samuel is an unlikely choice to bring the Word of God to God’s people. We learn that “the word of the Lord was rare in those days;…

AN INVITATION TO WALK WITH EACH OTHER January 8th, 2006 Lydia Harder Texts:     John 1: 35-39, 2: 1-12Mark 2:1-5; 8:1-10; 15:40-41Mark 9:2-8; 14:32-40Luke 24:13-32Introduction to themeToday will be a somewhat different Sunday morning. We will be reflecting trather concretely on our involvement in small groups at TUMC. But we will do this in the context of the story of followers of Jesus as they met in small groups throughout their journeys through Galilee, Samaria and Judea. Last Sunday was…

Advent IV: “GOD’S UNSTOPPABLE PURPOSE INVITES!” December 18th, 2005 Gary Harder Text:     Luke 1:26-38, 47-55IntroductionBeware of Christmas. Beware! Luke one should come with a warning label. “Warning! The following scenes are explosive, radical, revolutionary.” It is a dangerous, subversive text. But we in our western world are more into “cute”, nice feelings, sentiment, nostalgia. We mostly read this text as an innocuous, feel good baby story. Let us beware. Let us beware. There is a kind of dangerous restlessness…

Advent III: GOD’S UNSTOPPABLE PURPOSE RESTORES December 11th, 2005 Jonathan Slater Text:     Isaiah 61:1-11“When Jesus came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring…

Advent II: GOD’S UNSTOPPABLE PURPOSE IS FAITHFUL December 4th, 2005 Gary Harder Texts:     Isaiah 40:1-11Mark 1:1-8IntroductionLike most of you, my heart and my prayers this week have been with the Christian Peacemaker Team members in Iraq who have been abducted by “Swords of the Righteous Brigade”. James Loney, Harmeet Singh Sooden, Norman Kember and Tom Fox knew the dangers and risks of making their peace witness in Iraq. Yet their commitment to peacemaking compelled them to be there anyway.…

GOD’S UNSTOPPABLE PURPOSE SURPRISES November 27th, 2005 Gary Harder Text:     Isaiah 64:1-9IntroductionThere is something deeply outrageous about advent. Advent says that God is breaking into our world in a totally new way, that God’s purposes are unstoppable. To a secularized world that claim is deeply outrageous. And advent says that there is nothing we humans can do about it, or do to hasten it’s coming. All we are called to do is wait. Wait. Waiting is another of those…

THE OBITUARY November 20th, 2005 Gary Harder Text:     2 Timothy 1:1-14The funeral service in the old box-like rural church could have been a replay from 30 years earlier. The obituary, read first in German and then in English, sounded like most obituaries do, the basic life-story told cryptically and read with little emotion, “This is the life story of Jake Willms, born in 1910 in the Molotchna colony in Russia”, intoned one of the lay ministers with dignity and…

ALL THINGS IN COMMON? November 6th, 2005 Gary Harder Text:     Acts 2:42-47“Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”IntroductionThere are many Hutterite colonies in Alberta. Many of them are doing very well economically. When a community doesn’t own personal property, but “holds everything in…