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.
Invitation to Trust
The Rev. Wendy Bily was our guest preacher this morning, for the 5th Sunday in Lent. She preached on John 12:20-33 in which Jesus speaks of his impending death, and compares himself to a “grain of wheat.”
So… Affirming!
For the 4th Sunday of Lent, and Affirming PIE Sunday, Rev. Cari preached on John 3:13-21 (a text that has two others hovering in the background: Numbers 21:4-9, and Genesis 22). Though it was tempting to dive into the troubling aspects of the background texts, Rev. Cari kept her focus on the love of God….
The Paradox of the Gospel
For the second Sunday in the season of Lent, Rev. Cari tackled the paradoxical Gospel text of the day, Mark 8:31-38, in which Jesus says several difficult – even inconceivable – things. So it’s little wonder that she opened with a reference to the trio of Fezzik, Inigo and Vizzini in Rob Reiner’s film The…
Ground Orientation
For the first Sunday in the season of Lent, Rev. Cari preached on Mark 1:9-15, the text suggested for the day by the Revised Common Lectionary. Because the gospel of Mark doesn’t waste words, we’ve heard much of this text before! But the two verses pertaining to today’s theme are the ones concerning the Spirit…
A Way Where There is No Way
On the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Rev. Cari preached on the Hebrew Bible text, a passage from the prophet Isaiah, which picks up mid-argument… from Isaiah 40:21-31. She gives some context, then opens up the “meat” of the passage: what it means to “wait for Our God.” Along the way she brings out a few…
More than Words
This morning was VST Sunday – and our guest preacher from the Vancouver School of Theology was the Rev. Dr. Raymond Aldred, the Director of the Indigenous Studies Program at VST. Dr. Ray preached on the texts for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, including Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Psalm 111 and Mark 1:21-28. He preached from an…
Respond
For the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany, Rev. Cari addressed the third word in the new “tag line” – Respond – while reflecting on Mark 1:14-20, the story of Jesus calling the first disciples. In addition to a bit of oversharing on her part, about the “nets” she likes to keep in good order, this was…
Receive
For the second Sunday after Epiphany, Rev. Cari preached on the story of the call of Samuel. In fact, she read the part of the story at 1 Samuel 3:1-10, and then carried the story on a little further in the sermon. The story is set in a time (says the narrator) when prophecy was…
Connect
For the “Baptism of Jesus,” the first Sunday in the season after Epiphany, Rev. Cari preached with Crossroads’ new proposed vision statement, the Scripture text (Mark 1:4-11) and several stories in her hands. She was juggling! The word for the day was “connect” so she began with a description of how important social connection is…
The Twelve Days of Christmas
On this Sunday following Christmas, Dr. Bruce led the congregation in the traditional (for Crossroads) Christmas Carol request extravaganza, and offered a short homily. In it, he invited the congregation to be “countercultural” in the sense of actually celebrating Christmas AFTER December 25, instead of shopping and preparing for it for the there months before…