All Posts for February, 2008

Blogging Toward Sunday

Dying of words

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 8:6-11; John 11:1-45

Feb 28, 2008 by Craig Kocher

I’ve noticed an alarming trend in ministry with college students: they use words better in technological media than in person. Emails, text messages and even facebook.com posts are often thoughtful, eloquent and witty. But one-on-one, the same students and I will stammer about, our words bumping into one another in mid-air.

Blogging Toward Sunday

I don't need anything else

Psalm 23

Feb 24, 2008 by Edwin Searcy

A folk-singing friend taught me that if I could link a sermon to a song, listeners would remember the song, and thus be more likely to remember the sermon. Music resides in a part of the brain that is resistant to amnesia, he said.

Blogging Toward Sunday

Thirsty for life

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42

Feb 17, 2008 by Edwin Searcy

The texts speak of thirst for life. The people thirst for water in the wilderness. The Samaritan woman at the well meets the One who gives the water of eternal life. Paul speaks of God’s love being “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

Blogging Toward Sunday

Life beween the verses

Genesis 12:1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17

Feb 10, 2008 by Edwin Searcy

Reading the assigned texts for this week overwhelms me. The call of Abram is told like a Haiku—just a few words, yet the mystery of our life as God’s people hinges on this ancient call and response. After the spare text in Genesis, the passages in Romans and John read like dense thickets of complicated sentences and layered metaphors.

Blogging Toward Sunday

Struggling with temptation

Genesis 2:15-17 & 3:1-7, Psalm 32, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11

Feb 03, 2008 by Edwin Searcy

Lent’s 40 days of preparation for baptism and discipleship are modeled on Jesus’ postbaptismal test in the wilderness. Reading about Jesus’ struggle with the devil opens up some potential directions for the preacher’s journey to Sunday: