Over six Sundays, Oct. 16 through Nov. 20, Senior Pastor Andrew Foster Connors and Associate Pastor Tim Hughes are preaching a sermon series based on Scripture readings paired with popular children’s books that speak to our most important values and hopes for the future.
The books are being read in full during the Children’s Sermon and also considered during the sermon.
Oct. 16: “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel,” and Jeremiah 31:27-34
The following is an excerpt of the sermon given by Tim Hughes.
“Virginia Lee Burton wrote Mike Mulligan in 1939, when the United States was still clawing itself out of the Great Depression. It’s a story about a working class man and a steam shovel that both find themselves increasingly unnecessary in a marketplace that is all about the bottom line.
There is an undertow of anxiety and sadness beneath this story that is not entirely resolved by its happy ending. This is a truth-telling book, I realized, and it is also a hopefulbook. That is more than we’ve come to expect from our politics and exactly what we long for in church…”
Oct. 23: “Miss Rumphius” and Mark 4:1-20
The following is an excerpt of the sermon given by Andrew Foster Connors.
“Miss Rumphius won the national book award in 1983. I love that the heroine in this story is an unmarried woman who finds her calling late in life. It reminds us that God’s seed can bear fruit at any time, and wisdom does not always come from what is new. Sometimes we need to look to our past to find our future. No one is too old to receive or fulfill a call from God. And most of all, we find that calling only when we’re sharing something with the world, making the world a more beautiful place…”
Oct. 30: “Ferdinand the Bull”
Nov. 6: “The Sneeches”
Nov. 13: “Stone Soup”
Nov. 20: “Thank You Mr. Faulker”
Visit the Sermons Page to hear all of our Sunday sermons.