Monday, June 29, 2009

Declaration of Independence

Every July I reread the Declaration of Independence, I'm a little early this year. I commend it to you.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Fun in Faith Sunday

Here are a few pictures from Sunday's Fun in Faith (VBS) program at Northminster. It was a great weekend of education, food, fellowship, and fun. Many thanks to all our volunteers and staff who made it a success. If you want to see more pics, please send Walk an email or comment on one of these blog entries.

Thank you, Connie M. for taking most of these pics!





Saturday, June 13, 2009

Fun in Faith Saturday

The following are a few pictures of our intergenerational VBS. Make a comment if you want to see more so I'll know there is interest. -- Walk






Friday Fun in Faith




Fun in Faith Thursday




Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Fun in Faith


Northminster Presbyterian Church in Pensacola, Florida presents its vbs, our Fun in Faith weekend. It begins tomorrow, Thursday, June 11, at 6:30pm. It continues Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 6:30 and Sunday morning at 9:40.

Here's a link to the flyer.

Monday, June 8, 2009

wordle and text of June 7 sermon on Saul and Stephen

The sermon was longer(and better, I think) at 8:30. I cut several paragraphs out and church was still long, with a baptism and the Lord's Supper. Here is a word cloud of the 11 o'clock sermon and the text is below. (Click the wordle box to enlarge it.)

Wordle: Sermon about Stephen and Saul

Sermon June 7, 2009


The heroes are the men who fought at Midway 67 years ago and Normandy 65 years ago, but the bible story is about speakers and leaders. 25 years ago President Regan showed the power speechmaking when he spoke at Point du Hoc in France; this week President Obama did it again. Words, delivered well, have the power to change people's minds.

It is strange to read a story about people being so upset by... a preacher... that they ... killed him.

This mob, no doubt some of the same people who were impotent to execute Jesus and had to trick the Romans into doing their bidding, were so upset by Stephen preaching about the Risen Jesus, and about Jesus blood on their hands. Deacon Stephen's preaching so angered them that they covered their ears so they could not hear him and they ran him out of town, pushed him off a cliff, threw stones at him until he was dead.

And watching all of this approvingly, and holding the coats of the mob was a young man named... Saul. I should note for everyone that Saul is usually known by the name, Paul. Like he did with Abram and Jacob, when God changes a man, he often changes his name. If you want to find out what God is going to do to Saul, come Thursday night for Fun in Faith.

Luke is setting up a wonderful juxtaposition of young men in the Bible story. Stephen is preaching to Gospel of Jesus clearly, and Saul is i inciting violence, arresting Jesus' people, whipping up the mob, threatening the young church.

Saul and the crowd are willing to kill for what they believe.

Stephen is willing to die for what he believes in. Would you die for Jesus?

Would you be willing to die for preaching the Gospel or living like a Christian? Does it mean that much to you?

"Stanley Hauerwas has written about the mass suicide at
"Jonestown" when hundreds of followers of Jim Jones and his
"People's Temple" took their lives and the lives of their children
(p. 106). He notes that in contemporary media accounts of
the event two dominant theories were put forth to explain
Jonestown: (1) The followers of Jim Jones were under the hypnotic
spell of a maniac. They were insane victims of an insane
leader who led them to suicide. (2) The followers of Jim Jones
were mostly poor, ignorant, oppressed people whose suffering
made them easy prey for the alluring promises of a crazed
messiah like Jones. (pause) In other words both theories assumed that
in the modern world only insane people would die for what
they believed." (Willimon, William. Acts, Interpretation series p. 66)

Presbyterian missionary Lois Anderson, who served for four decades in Kenya and Sudan, and her daughter, Zelda White, were shot in a village a few miles from Nairobi on Jan. 27, 2007. In a separate incident on Jan. 27, Geoffrey Chege, the regional director of aid agency, CARE International, was shot dead near one of Nairobi's most upscale suburbs, He was returning from a prayer meeting with his wife, who was not hurt. Kenyan-born Chege would have turned 57 in March.

In headlines fresh as today's paper, Christians are persecuted and killed around the world for bringing the gospel of Jesus to those who do not know him.
Some of us went to Haiti in the early 1980s, when it was 'safe.' Trip Porch from First Presbyterian and a group of Presbyterians from Tallahassee are in Haiti now, bringing medical and evangelistic ministries to God's own people in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Have you ever risked anything to tell someone about Jesus or to take a cool up of water to someone who is thirsty? Have you risked embarrassment?

William Willimon in his commentary on Acts says "Upon entering the cafeteria at Princeton Theological Seminary, one sees three bronze plaques inscribed with the names of Princeton graduates who, like Stephen, paid for their vision in blood:
Walter Macon Lawrie-Thrown overboard by pirates in the China Sea, 1847.
John Rogers Peal-Killed with his wife by a mob at Lien Chou, China, 1905.
James Joseph Reed-Fatally beaten at Selma, Alabama, March 11, 1965.

These names remind us of some later-day witnesses who went
before us, some of whom paid dearly for their witness to the truth. (p.66)

Before Stephen paid with his life, he saw eternity and Jesus and was willing to preach the love of Jesus, even willing to die preaching the truth and forgiving his killers.
Saul was so incensed by what Stephen was preaching that his teeth were set on edge; Stephen's sermon was like fingernails down a chalkboard. Stephen had to die.

I love to talk religion and debate and discuss theology. There have been a few times I was so exasperated that I wanted to punch someone in the nose because of what they were saying -- but to resort to violence means you've lost the argument. If the only way I can respond to some nonsense is to kill the other, then my ideas aren't very strong. Violence is a failure of intellect. Saul and the crowd who killed Stephen killed the preacher, and lost.

Even in American society today people kill in the name of religion.

Is that the way we approach the Story of Stephen and Saul?

Saul is a murderous, angry young man in this story: offended by the followers of Jesus, rounding up men and women, throwing them in jail. This mob was angry. They had lost the argument of ideas; they were emotionally overwhelmed. I don't want to say more about Saul and the mob. They were wrong and proved they were wrong by resorting to violence.

While the mob was spinning out of control ... Stephen was quietly and ... lovingly talking about Jesus.

Only a man sure of his immortality, and sure that Jesus is risen and is standing at God's side could preach the gospel with such cool, calm, clarity. The more upset the mob became, the more calm Stephen was. Acts 7 is a wonderful Biblical sermon. Stephen takes several themes of the Hebrew Bible and weaves them through his sermon. Read it this afternoon. Acts 7.

Stephen preached Jesus from the Hebrew Bible. Then when the crowd was killing him, he looked into heaven and saw the Father and Son waiting for him. Like Jesus, he forgave his killers and asked the Lord to accept his spirit.

Jesus died for you and me. This table reminds us of the only death that matters. Whether we live or die, we live in the Lord. May this meal strengthen and encourage us.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Word Clouds

This is the word cloud of last Sunday's sermon on Pentecost. (I think you can click on either to see it larger.)

Wordle: Untitled


This is the first draft of next Sunday's sermon -- looks like I'm heavy on Stephen and light on Saul. (Acts 7: 54- 8;3)

Wordle: Sermon on Stephen and Saul -- first draft

Jon's thoughts on Centering Prayer

I don't know how he is so prolific, but Jon Burnham has written a good piece on Centering Prayer.