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.
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…
The Mystery of the Incarnation
This Christmas Eve, Rev. Cari preached on the beautiful prologue to John’s gospel, John 1:1-14. Christmas is the celebration of God becoming human, in the startling specificity of the one we call Jesus of Nazareth… it’s also a cosmic mystery – not to be solved, but to be pondered – that the creator of the…
Attend
For the fourth Sunday of Advent, Rev. Cari completed the sermon series based on the four posture prayer of Julian of Norwich. The sermon focussed on the final posture, “Attend” was based on the Magnificat, the song of Mary found in Luke 1:46b-55. Introducing Attending as a “stretch” – a potentially uncomfortable position to be…
Accept
For the third Sunday in Advent, we added another word and posture to our theme for the season… and Rev. Cari preached on the story of the Annunciation (the Angel’s visit to Mary) found in Luke 1:26-38. As “call stories” go in the Bible, this one is unique. Mary doesn’t put up a fight –…
Allow
On the second Sunday of Advent, Rev. Cari picked up the second posture of Julian of Norwich’s four-posture prayer: Allow. The texts for the day were Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8, which she wove together along with “allow” to create an Advent invitation to “establish our hearts.” The Advent practice of “preparing the way” of…
Await
For the first Sunday in Advent, Rev. Cari focussed in on the words of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 64:1-9. She also responded to a request that she talk a bit about “silence” – her recent sabbatical experience of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. This advent our theme is a four posture…
Reign of Christ
This was Rev. Cari’s first Sunday back from her sabbatical, and as she stated in the opening of the sermon, the gospel text for the day, Matthew 25:31-46, is a “marvellously complex” one. She had invited the congregation, when she read the text aloud, to pretend they’d never heard this parable of the sorting of…