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Playful Creativity

I’ll give you three guesses … go ahead … three guesses on what the cover picture to this devotion is. Nope … this is a picture of the tape we had used to mark off the church sanctuary when we opened up worship on June 6th.  We taped off every other pew as a help…

God Surprised Me

This Sunday morning past, God surprised me.  That is not an earth-shattering observation in that I am a simple soul … a soul easily amused … and more easily surprised.  But sometimes the blindness of my inner eye of faith, prevents me from seeing the joy of God breaking through into our world at times…

Holy Laughter

It was a homiletical hot mess.  I got a little too clever for my own good this past Sunday in my sermonizing.  If you were in traditional worship that morning, you already witnessed my brilliant idea of playing Hide-and-Seek in the middle of the sermon.  I had six cards with words on them that as…

Playing Hide and Seek

This morning’s sermon was preached away from the pulpit using notes. This text is an approximation of the actually verbal text of the sermon. Do you have any great Hide and Seek stories?  Most of us have at least one … and usually those stories involve someone who managed to never get found.  Robert Fulghum…

A Rainy Baptism

We again thank Brendan Armitage for providing this week’s devotion. Make sure to tune in next week for another guest devotion by Jill Emmert. Galatians 3:26 — “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Have you ever…

Morning Has Broken

Mine is the sunlight, Mine is the morning Born of the one light Eden saw play Praise with elation, praise ev’ry morning God’s recreation of the new day. (Morning Has Broken, Verse 3) This past Sunday morning as I was listening to the three Emmert brothers sing “Morning Has Broken” as an offertory anthem, I…

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April Fools!

Traditional Sermon Easter Sunday What a day!  We gather on what is inarguably the greatest day of the Christian year.  Our world gets all hot and bothered about Christmas.  But for the Christian, Easter is the day that matters. Our opening hymn this morning trumpeted the Easyer message from the empty tomb:         Jesus Christ is…

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I’m Especially Fond of You

EMAIL DEVOTIONAL week of Epiphany 5 Papa: Mack, you may not know this, but I am especially fond of you. This brief dialogue is from the movie, The Shack.  It is part of a conversation between the movie’s main character, Mack … and God … who Mack calls Papa because it is the way his…

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Pentecost 9 Preview

This week we encounter the story of Abraham and Sarah, a special visit from the Lord, and laughter that brings new life. The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? -Genesis 18:13-14 On faith they left all they…