Most weeks, our worship leader offers a 15–20 minute sermon based on the Scripture texts for the day.
Our regular preacher is pretty versatile. She’ll tell stories, pull together different ideas, lead a meditation, give the congregation an “assignment” to talk about in twos or threes, show a slide show or video, or sometimes even sing to the congregation. The sermon functions to deepen our reflection on the Scripture themes of the day, and often leaves us with a challenge or a question.
Scripture texts are outlined in the Revised Common Lectionary.
Give us Today our Daily Bread
The fourth sermon in the Lord’s Prayer series, focussed on the petition “Give us today our daily bread” features two Biblical texts. Rev. Cari opens up Isaiah 25:6-10 but focusses more on Mark 6:30-44, the story of the feeding of 5000. Note the humility of this petition… it’s not asking for bread to last forever….
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done
For the third sermon of this series on the Prayer of Jesus, Rev. Cari opens up Daniel 7:9-14, and then turns to Luke 17:20-21. Here, the contrast between God’s reign in “heaven” and how things are going “on earth” is most stark, and the text from Daniel really helps to clarify the differences between the…
Hallowed Be Your Name
For the second Sunday in the Lord’s Prayer sermon series, Rev. Cari focussed in on the phrase, “Hallowed Be Your Name” and jumped off from two different Biblical texts for this teaching sermon. Beginning with a section of Leviticus 19, from the “holiness code” she examined the word “hallowed” or holy. This quietly revolutionary text…
We Don’t Know How to Pray
With this sermon, Rev. Cari introduces a new 6 week sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer. Today she is preaching from Romans 8:14-27 and Matthew 6:5-15 (which is Matthew’s setting of the Prayer of Jesus). In introducing the series to come, which will follow the prayer, line by line, Rev. Cari mentions the two sources…
Is Anything Too Extraordinary for God?
This morning’s service was led completely by our JAM (“Just About Ministry”) Youth Group. They focussed on the story of the mysterious visitors to Abraham and Sarah found in Genesis 18:1-15. In the recording posted here, they offer their own retelling of the story, the reading of the Scripture text itself, and then their shared…
Relationships Are Who We Are
This sermon for Trinity Sunday is in response to the killing of George Floyd and the reality of anti-black racism and white privilege. Rev. Cari addresses the final words of I Corinthians 13, as well as the first chapter of Genesis, in relationship to the reality of systemic racism and the doctrine of the Trinity….
Come, Holy Spirit
For Pentecost Sunday, Rev. Cari preached on a combination of texts she’s never considered before: Numbers 11:24-30 and Acts 2:1-21. Referring to Eric Law’s work with the story of the Day of Pentecost, she reaches into our world to see where the “miracle of the tongue” and the “miracle of the ear” are needed now….
Falling and Rising
In her sermon for Ascension Sunday, Rev. Cari referred to the two “hinge” points of the two books of Luke and Acts (both written by the same hand). Jesus’ Ascension is treated at the very end of Luke (in chapter 24:44-53) and at the beginning of Acts 1:1-11. In the sermon, Cari meets the dual…
Mystical Hope
Today was Mama’s Day at Crossroads – a week later than usual, but we focussed in our worship time on the two decade relationship between our church and the Mama Orphans Children’s Home in Busia, Kenya. Rev. Cari preached a short sermon on John 14:15-21 to leave lots of time for the testimony and storytelling…
The Table of Community
Today’s sermon is based on the text from Acts 3:42-47, about the “devotion” of the earliest Christian Community. Rev. Cari also refers to the Gospel text for the day, John 10:1-10, and quotes her mentor, the Rev. Tony Robinson, in a recent sermon on that text. The link between the two texts is the kind…