Tag Archives: spirituality

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

  Introduction I love Christmas for many reasons, but one is that during Christmas we get to see, very clearly, the link between the Old and the New Testaments. On the whole there two mistakes people make in trying to … Continue reading

Posted in Advent, Advent Carol, Advent Sermon, Christmas, Christmas Carol, Church, Incarnation, Jesus, O Antiphons, Old Testament, Sermons, spirituality | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Heart of Thanksgiving

This sermon was given the day we celebrated the work of our organist, Ginni Peterson, who has been the organist at First Presbyterian Church in Medford for 57 years. She still has her chops! But, she is retiring at the … Continue reading

Posted in Gratitude, Magnificat, Sermons, Thanksgiving | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Mighty Mites

  Lucifer vs. Tit for Tat During the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s, social scientists were working on how to respond to the nuclear threat in ways that would stop either side from blowing up the world. If … Continue reading

Posted in Church, Church Growth, Community, Compassion, Courage, forgiveness, Jesus, ministry, Mission, Pastoral Ministry, Preaching, Sermons, Social Justice, Social Ministry, spirituality, Theology, Wealth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fishers of People

Posted in Church, Church Growth, Community, Jesus, Meme, ministry, Mission, Spiritual Growth | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Let Us Now Praise Famous Pastors: Eugene Peterson

To avoid being swept along by the winds of change and conducting a ministry which is mostly improvisation, one must stubbornly one’s heels into the ground.                    —Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Care More than once I have told people … Continue reading

Posted in Church, Eugene Peterson, ministry, Musings, Pastoral Ministry, Wendell Berry | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Leading From Below

  An old friend of mine, Joe Moran, took his son to a Catholic worship service when he was visiting his family in New York State. Joe was a former priest, and his family was very Catholic. After Joe left … Continue reading

Posted in Church, Church Growth, ministry, Mission, Preaching, Presbyterian, religion and politics, Sermons, Spiritual Growth, spirituality | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Does God Care About?

Posted in Church, Church Growth, Jesus, Meme, ministry, Mission, Presbyterian, Spiritual Growth, spirituality, Worship | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Holy Yielding

    This is a piece I wrote in 2008, after doing a workshop for the Quaker national gathering. At the time I was worshiping at a Quaker meeting, and considered myself to me more Quaker than anything else. I … Continue reading

Posted in Compassion, Courage, Healing, Mission, Musings, Spiritual Growth, spirituality | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

That One Thing…

  I was 17 when I had a faith encounter that changed my life. The story of the encounter was not so dramatic, but what happened immediately after was. At the time I was working in a professional summer stock … Continue reading

Posted in Jesus, Preaching, Salvation, Spiritual Growth, spirituality, Wealth | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Global Faith

This sermon was preached on World Communion Sunday.  In the early 1970s the government of Peru did an extensive survey of their population, to find out how they could best serve their population. Some of the results were really puzzling, … Continue reading

Posted in Church Growth, Communion, Global Christianity, ministry, Mission, Preaching, Sermons, World Communion Sunday, Worship | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment