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.
Sanctuary
Responding to a challenge from Sojourners Magazine, which published the fact that one in three women experience some kind of intimate partner abuse, yet 95% of church-going women have never heard the topic addressed from the pulpit, Rev. Cari preached on the topic. Her text was Matthew 22:1-14, and she shared a lot of information…
Bandages for the World and Us!
This 10-minute clip is from the All-Ages Worship service in celebration of Thanksgiving. It includes the dramatic retelling of the story of the day, from Luke 17:11-19 (the story of the 10-ish lepers) as well as a conversation Gabrielle had with the children, and the invitation Rev. Cari issued to the youth and adults. After…
Running on Empty
Rev. Cari begins with a story from Rachel Naomi Remen’s book My Grandfather’s Blessings, and uses it as a window into the text for the day: Philippians 2:1-13. How much does our culture’s avoidance of vulnerability and emptiness contribute to our misunderstanding of the meaning of the cross? Our faith tradition offers us a beautiful gift…
More than Just Justice
In this sermon on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (which she suggests renaming “The Parable of the Generous Landowner”) Rev. Cari explores our understandings of what is fair. The text is from Matthew 20:1-16 and its impact on us North American Christians is often confusion or even discomfort – because we tend to…
What Do You See?
Today’s sermon on the crossing of the Red (or reed) Sea from Exodus 14 and 15 was an attempt to capture the dynamics of liberation from slavery. It also meets the “favouritism” of God (as reflected in the text) head-on. If you’ve ever wondered, “What about the Egyptians?” then this sermon is for you!
Not So Random Rules For Church
Today was a service for all ages together, so while the children worked on a project in the chancel, Rev. Cari had a moment to talk with the adults about the text for the day. Romans 13:8-14 (which she paraphrased right off the top) guided the work and worship of the community, and by the…
On Asking
The final Stump the Preacher sermon for the summer of 2017 was on the topic of prayer. The requester (or “asker!”) specifically quoted Matthew 7:7 in the request, so that’s the text that Rev. Cari landed on for the sermon. Between asking the congregation to consider their own “story of asking” and ability to ask…
For Love Nor Money
Another “Stump the Sermon” topic – this time the request was for a sermon on “Love” so here’s the result. The text is Mark 10:17-31, a thorny one!
Divine Child Abuse???
The Stump the Preacher request that instigated this sermon was, as Rev. Cari says in the opening moments of it, that she “please talk explicitly about substitutionary atonement” in such a way that exposes it as ‘old paradigm’ – and then offer a constructive theology of God’s love pouring out. So part lecture, part sermon,…
I Doubt It
A team of lay leaders led worship at Crossroads today, and Bruce Holvick was our preacher. Listen as he explores the story of Jesus walking on the water found in Matthew 14:22-33.