blip : Being Lonely In Paradise :

For the fourth Sunday of Lent I preached about sin. The assigned lectionary passage was the story of the “prodigal son” from Luke 15. Here’s a part from the middle of it:
That’s what guilt does to us. It’s a voice that convinces us that no one will ever love us again because of what we [...]

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This past Sunday I preached one of the sermons for the installation service for Ervin Stutzman, the new Executive Director of Mennonite Church USA. The worship planners tasked me to preach on the imagery of fruit in John 15:1-5John 15:1-5English: Contemporary English Version (1999) – CEVJesus Is the True Vine

1 Jesus said to [...]

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Yesterday I preached a sermon for the second Sunday of Lent. A bit of it is posted below:
We are restless—in a constant frenzy of innovation, always on the move, reaching beyond our limits, our desires are never satisfied. In their Manifesto, Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels prophesied an age of “everlasting uncertainty and agitation.” We [...]

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Lenten Prayer

Lord God, today is the first Sunday of Lent, a season of repentance, of self-examination, of silence and waiting for the leading of your Holy Spirit. Through your Spirit you lead us into the temptations of Jesus, forty days in the wilderness, where our lives are laid bare, and we come face to face [...]

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An Anabaptist-Mennonite Ash Wednesday sermon

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My sermon this past Sunday focused on Christian freedom: what does it mean to be free? I preached on 2 Corinthians 3:172 Corinthians 3:17English: Contemporary English Version (1999) – CEV17 The Lord and the Spirit are one and the same, and the Lord’s Spirit sets us free.WP-Bible plugin: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of [...]

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I’ve had a number of people email me and ask for the unedited version of my review of Ted Grimsrud and Mark Thiessen Nation: Reasoning Together. In an earlier post I had asked people to email me if they wanted me to read the full book review instead of the shortened one that appeared in [...]

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This past Sunday I preached on Paul’s stuff on human genitalia in I Cor. 12:22. Here’s an excerpt:
Paul uses human anatomy to make a basic point about the corporate body of the church. Every part is necessary; without eyes or feet, the body cannot function as it is created to function. Every part, every member, [...]

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Well, for what it’s worth, I preached my first sermon of 2010. It’s a meditation on two letters I received on the same day—one from a dude who wanted me to give him money so he can make my prayers come true, and another from a family who used to worship at our church. Here’s [...]

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Instead of preaching a single sermon, I gave three brief meditations throughout our worship service. Joel Miller gave me the idea a few weeks ago. I think it worked out pretty well. Below is an excerpt from one of the meditations. For the full text of all three, follow this link to my church website: [...]

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