Acts 2:1-21 Pentecost is the day when the unthinkable happens. On Pentecost, 120 people sit in an upper room, waiting to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, because Jesus told them this was going to happen. I doubt any of them could have imagined what this meant. And so they wait, in a room that…
Galatians 1:13-17; 2:11-14 Who gets to belong — in any given group of people? Is it everyone? Or only certain people “our kind”? And what do people have to do to belong? What behaviors are expected of them? These kinds of questions are perennial. Anytime a group of humans comes together — even if it’s…
By Joanna Lawrence Shenk Acts 15:1-18 As I begin the sermon this morning I want to do something that I haven’t done for awhile, which is to give us some geographical orientation to the text. Today our story is from the book of Acts, which many of us, I imagine, have heard referred to as…
In this First Mennonite’s 50th Anniversary year, we’re presenting several short “History Moments.” This is the fifth in the series by Karen Kreider Yoder. By 2010, we had settled into our new, light-filled worship space at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav. Our congregation was growing! Guests visited and stayed. Young families arrived. Our Mennonite Voluntary Service workers (MVSers)…
By Karen Kreider Yoder By 2000, we had been without a full-time pastor for 3 years. During the last year of the 1990s, Lee Loots served as our interim pastor. Our storms had not ceased. We longed for a full-time, long-term pastor. We found our pastor from within. More accurately, Sheri found her calling among…
“Mourning Light,” by Lisle Gwynn Garrity © A Sanctified Art. Used with permission John 20:1-18 I’m going to be weaving the sermon with the poem (in italics) on this passage that I wrote for the book Drawing Near: A Devotional Journey with Art, Poetry and Reflection. In the beginning, on the first day, Jesus, rising,…
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