Bryan is in charge! This week's scripture

Bryan Bellamy has the helm this week. I will be in D.C. with a bunch of other young pastors plotting something or other.

Here is what Bryan will be preaching on:

Mark 8:11-13 New Revised Standard Version
Mark 8:11-13 The Message

I hope y'all have fun. I will send you a postcard.

Blessings be upon you,

will

Where are the cookies?

"Where are the cookies?" That seems to be the number one question I hear regarding worship lately. While I always enjoy questions about Bible history and theology, this is a valid question as well. We used to serve cookies in the courtyard after each service. The main reason we haven't been doing this lately has been that the courtyard is so dark and cold. We could use the fellowship hall, but you might notice that it isn't all that bright at night either. So we decided we would wait until it was at least a little lighter outside.

It is also a task to get cookies there every week. So, as we move back toward spring, I hope you might consider helping in this ministry. Homemade cookies are great, but if you are more of a purchaser than a baker, a couple dozen from the store work pretty well too.

I think this is a really important part of what we do. It not only helps new visitors feel welcome, it is also great to have a time to stand around and chat after service. Food always helps that along.

We will announce when we are going to start having cookies again. In the mean time, check the cookie box on your card this week so we know you will be willing to help when we start back up. We try to have a bunch of people helping so you should only have to bring them once a month or so.

Have a blessed week!

will

Reading for the 23rd

This week we start into chapter 8 with a look at the feeding of the 4000. Yes the 4000. We have already read the feeding of the 5000. This is another miracle account. Look for the differences:

Mark 8:1-10, New Revised Standard Version
Mark 8:1-10, The Message

Despite the temptation just to preach the sermon of the feeding of the 5000 again just substituting 4 for 5, I will be looking at the differences and wondering why Mark in his brevity decided to include a nearly identical account of something we already heard.

Let me know what you think!

peace,

will

Worship 1.16.05

Thanks to all who joined us last night! I think we had a wonderful worship experience. Our band was inspired and everyone who worshipped with us added to a really powerful energy!

I think my sermon was a little on the muddy side. If you read the blog this week, I gave a glimpse of what goes into the message. It is an interesting process and sometimes the fact that anything comes out at the end seems miraculous. It is also hard for me to judge the end product. It is usually the case that when I think I have truly delivered a powerful, meaningful message that most people are left scratching their heads. When I think that I have said nothing of meaning, people call or e-mail me and tell me how powerful the message is. There is surely some work of the Spirit involved in the time between when the words leave my mouth and when people hear them.

As I mentioned in worship, we are still looking for a few more people to help out, especially with setup. No experience necessary. You just have to be willing, about one Sunday a month, to show up at 5 instead of six and help get things ready. E-mail me if you are interested.

Mat God bless your week!

will

Putting it all together, part III

Throughout the week, I have been talking about what goes into getting ready for worship on Sunday evening. I have noticed that most pastors fall somewhere on a continuum between being very disciplined and systematic in their approach to preparing sermons to being very casual. I fall somewhere in between. I have some habits of preparation that I rarely stray from. However, at some point in the process, I just have to wait and see what happens.

I had planned to finish preparing my sermon on Thursday and spend Friday working on the other aspects of worship. However, here it is Saturday morning and I still don't have a sermon. It is 90% written, I just can't seem to find the end. Rather than sit in front of my computer frustrated, I tend to do other things. I usually find the message in the midst of another project or just while relaxing. I have finished many sermons in the middle of the night when the conclusion came in a dream. I truly believe the Holy Spirit is involved in this process, especially when I find the right mix of doing the work and preparation that God has gifted me to do, and then finding a way to get out of the way long enough to hear the still small voice of God.

See you tomorrow!

will

Putting it all together, part II

Yesterday, I started talking about what goes into putting sermons together. I left off the translation, which is what I worked on yesterday. I came across something interesting in the translation. (Interesting for me anyway.) The word used in verse 32 for speech impediment, (the Greek word is is mogilalos) is only used one other time in the entire Bible. It is used in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 35, verse 6 in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called the Septuagint. There are some other ways in Greek to say the same thing, so I think it may be important that the author of Mark chose this word.

Yesterday, I also did some reading about what other theologians and authors have thought about this passage. A couple of authors picked up on the same issue with the word for speech impediment.

Today, I will start trying to put all the data together and try to begin figuring out what I am going to talk about. There is a lot of sitting and staring at the computer monitor at this point. This is the equivalent of staring into space, except it looks like I am working. Depending how it goes, I may actually do some writing today.

I will let you know how it goes. Or, you can come Sunday and judge for yourself.

Putting it all together

I get lots of questions about what goes into putting together sermons and other parts of Sunday worship. I thought I might write a little bit about that. I am not going to give you a full run down in one post. Instead, as I work on the service throughout the weeks, I will try to post a little bit about what is going on. I hope you might find this interesting. If not, just keep scrolling!

Monday was a bit of a wash this week, so sermon prep did not begin until today. As we continue through Mark, I working on chapter 7:31-37. The very first thing I try to do it translate. I start with the gospel text and Greek and try (try being the operative word) to get it into English. Sometimes from this process I find something to share with you in the sermon. More often, it just helps me to slow down and read the passage a little more carefully. After you read the same texts a few times, it is pretty easy to assume you already know what it says. When you read it in Greek, you have to go a lot slower and think about it.

I always start with the text in some form or another. Later, I will read what other authors and theologians have written about the text, but I always want to start with just the words and see what word they might speak to me.

Grace and peace to you!

will

Sunday Morning's Sermon

I have already posted Sunday evening's sermon on the cometogether website. A couple people have asked me about the one from the morning. I just uploaded it and you can get it here. As usual, perhaps more so than usual, I apologize in advance for typos or errors. And as always, I love to hear your feedback.

See you Sunday,

will

Sunday Morning

I will be doing double duty this Sunday, preaching the morning services as well as the evening. As usual, there will be different messages in the morning and the evening. Here is the scripture for Sunday morning:

Matthew 2:1-12 New Revised Standard Version
Matthew 2:1-12 The Message

We will also be singing a new hymn written in response the the disaster in Southeast Asia. If you have any friends or relatives who have been talking about coming to church to try and better understand the disaster, this might be a good Sunday morning to invite them to come along.

May God bless your day!

will

Scripture for 1.09.05

Our journey through Mark continues this week. I hope you might take a look at the reading before service on Sunday evening.

Here is what we will look at:

Mark 7:17-30 New Revised Standard Version
Mark 7:17-30 The Message

See you Sunday!

will

Worship 1.02.04

What a great way to bring in the New Year. We had a really uplifting service this week. Thank you to everyone who came and participated. If you missed out, you can at least read the sermon.
I am really excited about all the possibilities this new year brings. I hope you will accept the challenge I made in worship to read scripture everyday, worship every week and be involved in some sort of small group that discusses scripture. If you need any help getting started, let me know.

Grace and Peace to you!

will

Worship This Week

Did you make any New Year's Resolutions? Were any to take better care of yourself, do more for others, take your faith more seriously, get to know more people, learn more, have more fun, or have a more open mind? Well, I think we can help with any or all of those. Come and join us Sunday evening at six!

We are back into Mark's Gospel this week. Here is the text for the week if you want to read ahead:

Mark 7:1-23, New Revised Standard Version
Mark 7:1-23, The Message

I hope to see you tomorrow night.

Happy New Year and May God Bless You!

will