Sermons

CMC 6/19/22 Worship Service from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

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: Bodied Biodiversity
Texts: John 20:24-29; Genesis 1:1-13
Speaker: Bethany Davey

I have the unique privilege of preaching on Juneteenth and Pride Sunday, both of
which celebrate and affirm collective liberation from colonial oppression. While
the work of liberation is ongoing, lifelong and absolutely collective, it is essential
that we take a breath, pause and celebrate those who have paved the way for these
days to become a possibility. Juneteenth and Pride Sunday are possible because
ancestors and generations of dreamers and activists dared to imagine a reality that
defied colonization, that defied empire.

Queerness, which we intentionally celebrate this month, defies empire. Queerness
is in direct opposition to the homogenous nature of colonialism that thrives within
white supremacist heteronormativity and favors Eurowhite, cisgender, heterosexual
ways of being. Were colonization to have...

Worship | Pentecost | June 5

CMC service 6-5-22 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

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 by Ben Rudeen Kreider: Like the Howling of a Fierce Wind

The Membership Commitment of Columbus Mennonite Church begins simply and beautifully – The Spirit calls us from where we are…

Of course – it doesn’t stop there – but it does start there. Here. Where each of us are – in our different places…

As a newcomer to Columbus, a few weeks into my internship here with you all, I am beginning to figure out where I am. I discover via trial and error which roads connect to what, where is bikeable, walkable or drivable, where to get food, whose names go with which faces and stories in this church.

But this morning we are all here in this sanctuary, waiting, singing, praying, each in our own voice, placed in the pews and on Zoom, calling out...

Worship | May 29

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.

Our guest speaker this Sunday is Samuel Sarpiya. He is the Executive Director at the Center for Nonviolence and Conflict Transformation in Rockford, Illinois. He addressed the delegate body at the Mennonite Church USA assembly this weekend in Kansas City and pre-recorded his Sunday message for congregations. His sermon is entitled The Way of Peace in our Polarized World.

Worship | May 22

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 | “Outside the gate by the river”

Text: Acts 16:9-15
Speaker: Joel Miller

After a gathering last month for those preparing to join the church, Leah let me know she’d like to be baptized. My response was that this deserves its own Sunday. Baptism is far too rich an event to be crammed into an already rich event of hearing new members’ faith journey stories as we did two weeks ago. After checking calendars, we settled on today.

It was a pleasant surprise when I proceeded to peak ahead to this week’s lectionary readings and discovered the featured story: The baptism of Lydia in Acts 16. It is one of the small but not insignificant joys of preaching when life and lectionary converge.

The practice of baptism connects us today to spiritual ancestors, through the Anabaptists who were determined to reclaim baptism...

Worship | May 15

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...

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