   (…continued) Finally, there is the objection that the church has too many hypocrites. To someone making this objection, I would say, “Are you kidding?  Of course we have hypocrites around here.  We also have adulterers, liars, deceivers, snobs, people who are too greedy for their own good, crabby and ungrateful people, angry and […]
3387) Reasons to Avoid Church (3/3) Read More »
   (…continued) Next, let’s take the objection concerning money.  Here I might get a little defensive.  Even Phil Robertson one time made a little jab at preachers about this one. Phil Robertson (1946-2025) is the bearded patriarch of the Duck Dynasty clan.  He is a good Christian man, and I once heard him say he
3386) Reasons to Avoid Church (2/3) Read More »
From a sermon a few years ago.     We are in the middle of a sermon series on the many objections people have to going to church, why they leave the church, and why some return. The series is based on a little booklet that lists ten of these reasons, reasons discovered in a survey
3385) Reasons to Avoid Church (1/3) Read More »
   I was cleaning out an old storeroom in one of the churches I served many years ago. Under a pile of junk, covered with dust, I found a big book of old sermons. The sermons had been discovered and published in the 1950’s by the descendant of a pastor who served that congregation
3357) Give Your Preacher a Break Read More »
   What do Louie Armstrong, Elvis Presley, and Martin Luther have in common?  They all initiated a revolution in the music of their time and culture.  Louie Armstrong introduced New Orleans jazz to the nation and then to the world.  Elvis Presley introduced rock and roll to the nation and then to the world.
3334) Louie, Elvis, and Martin Read More »
For most of my ministry, I led Sunday morning worship out of the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978, Augsburg Publishing House). The order of service was the traditional Lutheran liturgy. Near the end of the service each week was the “The Prayer of the Church,” with a recommended format (along with other options). In the
3317) The Prayer of the Church Read More »
   In a home for severely disabled children, Catherine was nurtured for twenty years.  The child had been intellectually and physically disabled from the beginning and had never spoken a word.  She either gazed quietly at the walls or made distorted movements.  Her life seemed to consist of nothing more than eating, drinking, and
3313) Wasted Efforts? Read More »
   Since I have retired, I have visited many churches. Some of them have been huge, seating many hundreds, even thousands, of worshipers. After worship, people may exit out of any one of many doors.    Most of the churches I served were small, seating at the most 200, crowded in for big
3298) “Good Sermon, Pastor!” Read More »
 A Methodist minister tells this story…    A family of inactive members in his parish lived right next door to the church. The yard was a disgrace. Wrecked cars and discarded appliances littered the place. The grass was seldom mowed. The husband was a disgrace. He drank too much and rumors were that he
3247) Not All Churches are the Same Read More »
   In Ecclesiastes 5:2 Solomon says, “Do not be quick with your mouth; do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth.” Or, we might say, “God is big and you are little, so show a little respect.”    Every once
