Category: Sermons
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Naming the Shadow
There is something unsettling about shadows. When I was growing up, our home on Oakland Avenue in south Minneapolis had a streetlight in front of it. The light would shine directly into my bedroom. And I remember sometimes waking up in the middle of the night, to see shadowy shapes on my wall. It might have been…
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Welcome is a Verb
Over these past few weeks in worship, we have been talking about becoming people of invitation. Not simply people who hand out invitations to worship or invite someone to attend a class or an event here at church, (though those things are important), but people whose lives quietly and consistently say, “There is room for…
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Words Matter
Language experts tell us that on any given day, the average person speaks about 7,000 words. That includes conversations with other people, muttering under your breath in the grocery store, singing in the car, arguing with the radio, and yes, talking to yourself. Those words add up quickly. The words you speak in a single…
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The Real Miracle of Christmas
Every year, as Christmas approaches, I’m convinced that there is an unspoken competition that happens all around us. It is the annual contest to see who can be the nicest version of themselves, at least for a few days. You see it everywhere. Suddenly, people start letting each other merge in traffic. Someone actually returns the shopping cart…
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Hope Refines
The season of Advent often feels like you’re standing just at the edge of dawn. Have you ever been up in the morning for a sunrise? Then you know exactly what I’m talking about: The sky is still dim. The world is quiet. Yet there is just enough light on the horizon to tell you that morning…
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For All the Saints
Jerry Buegler. Elmer Buegler. Gertrude Buegler. Grace Moody. Elliott Moody. Lyle Tjosaas. Carol Tjosaas. Phillip Moody. Charles Moody. Jim Campbell. Kimberly Devine-Johnson. Tom Hunstad. Matthias Meester. Robert Roubik. These are my names. The names of people, precious to me, who over the years I have lost. These are my names. You have your names. Your own list of people that you have known and loved, and who have died in faith. When…
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Together for Good
When I was a kid, my family had one of those big, clunky console televisions. People of a certain age will remember them. They weighed as much as a small car. The screen was this big, but the heavy wooden cabinet was this big. Every so often the picture would get fuzzy or the sound would cut out. We’d…
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The Generous Life
226 years ago, in the year 1799, a twelve-year-old boy named Conrad Reed, skipped Sunday School to go fishing. He found a place to fish along Little Meadow Creek on his family’s farm in North Carolina. While standing by the creek, young Conrad saw what he thought was a “yellow rock shining in the water.”…
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Rooted in Love
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom you belong. Amen. A friend of mine up in the Twin Cities once told me about his attempt to join a local pickleball league. (Anybody here ever play Pickleball?). He had seen the game, thought it…
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To Be Trinity
I recently read a story about a family that left their church one Sunday, and as they got into the car, the critiques started rolling in like they were filling out a review on Yelp: The list of pros and cons just kept coming. Finally, their eight-year-old piped up from the back seat and said, “Well, what…