Antiheroes: Rahab
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Faith When the World is Burning
Not too long ago, I was asked to do a wedding for a couple of friends, one Christian, one from another faith. As we began the planning process, the other celebrant called and asked one thing of me – that I not mention Jesus in the ceremony. It wasn’t the first time I’d received […]
Antiheroes: God
NOTE: Because this is a dialogue sermon that transitions directly into communion, it’s worth listening to the audio if possible. ANDREW: Maybe this sermon needs a prologue. This is the final week of the ‘Antiheroes’ series that we have been moving through for the past six weeks. Each week we’ve dealt with another morally ambiguous […]
Antiheroes: Judas
A few weeks ago, I was up early on a Sunday morning, putting the finishing touches on a sermon. Ok, fine, I was writing a significant final portion of the sermon. But I opened my web browser and pulled up the New York Times. That’s when I learned about the Orlando shooting. Twenty people killed […]
Antiheroes: Jacob
A father’s blessing is a powerful thing. Children have chosen colleges & careers for a father’s blessing often without even knowing it. They’ve given up dreams and hopes and even true loves in exchange for a father’s blessing. The absence of a father’s blessing can be devastating. Children hungering for that blessing have gone looking […]
Antiheroes: Samson
The Samson stories are designed to go viral. No matter what else you think of them, I think we can agree that they have all the ingredients of contagious storytelling – secrets, sex, intrigue, violence, betrayal. It’s no wonder that poster on your bulletin looks like pulp fiction. A hero with enormous potential and even […]
Antiheroes: Eve
An antihero is a protagonist or notable figure who is conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities. The antihero genre has exploded in our culture in recent years as our culture seems more willing to admit the moral ambiguity encountered in life, an ambiguity long acknowledged in the biblical text. The sermon series reflects on 6 characters or collections of characters that might be deemed “antiheroes.”
On Being Of One Mind
Saturday Morning Cartoons. You might think it would be the proper context for a contest bordering on the ridiculous. But “Saturday Morning Cartoons” is not only a TV event, it is also an ice cream flavor at the Charmery. The Charmery is the ice cream shop two blocks from my house in Hampden (I know […]
The Culture of Jesus
If you step off one of the restricted elevators onto the executive suite level of Under Armour you’re greeted by a young person, mid-twenties, I’d guess. Behind her reception desk below the giant Under Armour logo are three words written in proprietary font – “Powerful. Young. Aggressive.” Under Armour, like most successful organizations, pays a […]
Pentecostal Hearing
What’s God’s problem with Babel? After all the mistakes that human beings have been through in the first ten chapters of Genesis here they seem to have finally gotten it together. After trying to become like God by eating the fruit, Cain killing his brother Abel, violence and evil spreading across the earth, the flood […]