Sermons

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859.

Sermon: Sabbath-ing
Texts: Deuteronomy 5:1-7;12-15; Exodus 20:8-11; Mark 2:27-28
Speaker: Joel Miller

With Mark’s Sabbatical almost here, it’s a good time to revisit the role of Sabbath in all our lives.  If you’re not sure whether you have Sabbath in your life, or are pretty sure you don’t, let’s start with a broad view.

Before Sabbath was a holy day, a noun, it was a verb, with nothing especially holy about it.  To sabbath means to cease, to rest.  Verbs are action words, and sabbath is an action word meaning, basically, to refrain from action.  Sabbath is the un-verb.

The first four times the Hebrew word shabot, sabbath, appears in the Bible it is in verb form.  It’s mentioned twice in Genesis 2, where the Creator Elohim famously and somewhat mysteriously ceases, rests, sabbaths from all creative activity.  This...

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859.

Sermon | A common center, ever-expanding

Text: John 21:1-17
Speaker: Joel Miller

Every fall I teach an Inquirers Sunday school class.  It’s open to anyone, with a special invitation to new-ish folks.  We do an overview of Christian faith in a Mennonite perspective and look at the story of this congregation. 

One of the things we talk about is a couple different ways of forming community.  One focuses on strong boundaries, the other focuses on a strong center.  If you’ve been part of that class, this will sound familiar. 

In a community with strong boundaries, there’s a pretty clear line between who’s in and who’s out.  Or at least what you need to do to be in, and stay in.  In congregations this often comes down to a set of beliefs and a few moral issues.  The key is whether a personal can...