by Blair Ramsey; Genesis 2. 1-7 2020 has been quite the year. At this point, I’m so tired of the joke “hindsight is 2020”. I received my college diploma via UPS on my front steps, learned that Trader Joes has a really good smelling lavender hand sanitizer, have seen people drive down Friendly Avenue with rubber …
Keith A. Menhinick | CPBC | 8.16.2020 Yall remember that old Vacation Bible School song? Dem bones dem bones dem… dry bones. My title for today’s sermon is “Carry dem Bones.” And like a good Baptist I also have a second title, “Call on the Ancestors.” I’ve been thinking a lot about my own ancestors …
by Kelli Joyce, 1 Kings 19.9-18 May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart always be acceptable in your sight, O God, my strength and my redeemer. This past Friday night I watched the 2001 Wes Anderson movie, The Royal Tennenbaums, for the first time. It’s the story of how two …
by Michael Usey; Isaiah 6.1-8 I know that many of you are listening because you’re hoping that you’ll hear an entire sermon about dream sex with spirit demons, about alien DNA, and about miracle covid cures, and other prurient topics, but you’ll have to wait on a week that we didn’t bury a great American …
By Michael Usey, Genesis 4.1-16 A couple of weeks ago some guy named JSV4 went on Twitter to complain about his local Mexican restaurant. He posted a picture of his beleaguered spouse and wrote: “My wife, date night after three months locked up in quarantine. Waiting for shredded cheese as it’s the only way she …
Where Is Your Brother? (The Original Super Smash Brothers) Read More »
by Michael Usey My friend Brett Younger, a pastor in Brooklyn, opened his sermon last week this way. Do you ever feel like you are drowning and people think they are helping you by describing the water? The pandemic has led to a lot of advice that states the obvious and misses the point. For …
by Lin Story-Bunce, Genesis 32. 22-32 When Caryanne and I learned we were pregnant for the first time, we immediately started thinking of possible names. Because we both have names that connect us to our families, gifting our son with a name that ties him to his larger family story felt important. We also want …
Christian McIvorJuly 5, 2020 Isaiah 66.1-4, Matthew 7.21-27 Chrissy and I bought our first home – or at least, we started paying the bank for it – in the fall of 2013. We did our due diligence and had the property inspected, and everything turned out to be in good shape, except there was a …
As far as I am concerned, the book of Jonah has the best last line in the Bible: “And should I not be concerned about Nineveh,” God says to Jonah, “that great city, in which there are more than a 120,000 persons who don’t know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” …
by Michael Usey Moses’ early history is the stuff of novels. When Pharaoh instituted a mass slaughter of the male infants of the Hebrews, Moses’ mother hid him in a tiny ark in a stream where Pharaoh’s daughter bathed. The princess found him, and took him to her household to raise. But, once he was …
by James Blay (Genesis 3.9-13) The birth of the Information age in the late 20th Century ushered in a period of immense access to information in very efficient ways. In a lot of ways it mirrored the invention of Gothenburg’s Printing Press in the 15th Century. Where once the availability of information was limited to …
by Michael Usey The world is a lot right now. Another week being trampled by the new and improved Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Corvid-19 (where the infection rate continues to increase here in NC), a looming economic recession with sky-high unemployment, systemic and personal racism leading to the murders of black citizens, and our …
Luke 4.16-20, Acts 2.1-13 Two summers ago I took our youth to Laredo, TX – one of the largest port cities in the country just on the border of the US and Mexico. The week before we left, I had lunch with Bill Ingold. During our lunch I admitted that I’ve always been worried that …
by Michael Usey It’s Ascension Sunday, the most curious of all feasts on the church calendar –a celebration of the day Jesus left us, the day Jesus started to work from home. Once I preached on Ascension Sunday at College Park a sermon respectfully entitled, “Hey, I Can See My House from Here.” I’m not …
New Testament Reading: Acts 17. 16-34, NRSV This past week I heard from five San Diego friends that I have not heard from in years; perhaps you have reconnected with people too. A peculiar consequence of the Rona is this reconnection with people from our past, or people we know now but in new and …
Romans 8.6-11; Ezekiel 37.1-14 Sometimes I’m amazed at how fragile our human flesh is. We have fragile bones that break, fragile lungs that collapse, fragile hearts that miss a beat, fragile minds that freeze with age. Our fragile flesh propels us into selfish greed, succumbs to lust, fixates on wealth, drives us to narcissism or …
by Michael Usey Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. All the scripture lessons for this morning are about shepherds. We have chosen the music in this service with the same theme. It’s an indication of how central this image of the Good Shepherd is for our faith. Authors Judith and Neil Morgan tell a story about …
by Michael Usey When I was in college and seminary, I confess with some shame that I was fascinated by those people who make speeches for a living, the professionals, the ones who speak at conventions, banquets, and motivation seminars. We always called them hired gums. After I got married to Ann, that desire went …
Mediocrity, Misanthropes, Miscreants, & Muddleheadness Read More »
by Christian McIvor Hello, College Parkers! I’m glad to be offering the sermon this week,and while it’s on the same scripture passage we looked at last week, I’mgoing to have a different focus that I hope is meaningful for you all. Ithink it’s a testament to the love and strength of our community thatwe’ve been …
by Michael Usey The Antiques Roadshow is a great TV program on PBS. It’s been going for years; it was supposed to have a program in Williamsburg, Virginia, this spring, but it has been rescheduled, along with most everything else. If you haven’t seen it, you should know that it is simply a group of …
