Sermon Text: Exodus 17: 1-7 Last week the Israelites complained for food. This week they complain for water. Tune in next week to hear how they need a new Xbox and a car. In all seriousness, the Israelites are in trouble because they’ve been traveling through the wilderness and now they are camped at a …
Sermon Text: Exodus 16: 2-15 Imagine, if you will, that you are on a family vacation and you’re packed in the car, driving hour after hour. You’re close to your destination—perhaps Ocean City, Virginia Beach, the Outer Banks, Myrtle Beach. It has been a long trip in the car, traffic has added time to the …
Sermon Text: Matthew 18: 21-35 I’ll begin today with two stories of accidents. The first occurred when I was four years old. I was playing bocce ball in the yard with sister, who was eleven at the time. In bocce ball you throw a little target ball called a jack, and you try to bowl …
Sermon text: Matthew 18: 15-20 This week I had a few conversations about how life feels right now, mainly that life feels disjointed, that the disruptions in our lives are making us feel disconnected. I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about if life will go back to normal, if the church will ever go …
Sermon text: Exodus 3: 1-15 When’s the last time you lit a fire? I’m not talking about flipping the switch on your Weber Grill or turning on the gas fireplace, but a real, honest to God fire. I usually get my fire fix over the summer at Camp Sequanota during cookouts. As Pastor Scott Custead …
Sermon text: Matthew 16: 13-20 Israel is full of wonderful sites. One of the most intriguing is in the far north, called Banias, and it is the location for this week’s Gospel lesson at Caesarea Philippi. At Banias there is a 100-foot wall of rock that rises from the earth. It is 500 feet across. …
Sermon Text: Genesis 45: 1-5 There’s something comforting about the consistency of our liturgy in worship. It’s nice to know that if you walked into most churches in the ELCA you will find a similar order of service. Sure, there may be different styles, different words, and different music, but it’s a safe bet that …
Sermon Text: Matthew 14: 22-33 How have you been taking care of yourself? I ask because we’ve been living in a state of heightened anxiety for some time now, and our normal ways of self-care may not be available to us, or perhaps we don’t feel quite comfortable returning to those activities that give us …
Sermon Text: Genesis 32: 22-31 Tara’s father lie dying in a bed at the hospice house and her world coming apart at the seams. Her father had been in very good health, he was in his late 80s, but then the cancer suddenly showed up in his body. She, her mother, the doctors, they tried …
Sermon Text: Genesis 29: 15-28 One of the things I’ve been missing most, especially during our in-person worship, is all the singing. You know, church is one of the few remaining places where we sing in public. It was here, in these walls, along with a healthy dose of belting out tunes with the radio, …