Prayer for July 9, 2020: Please pray with me.  God above all gods, soften our hearts.  It may be strange to mention gods.  We like to believe that the idea of gods is outdated.  Yet, how many idols do we face each day?  How many idols and false gods...

You may like this.  You may hate it.  My question is this – why? Here’s a simple test to see if politics (partisanship actually) is your idol.  An idol is something that a person worships, that acts like a god of some sort.  An idol is the thing we...

Prayer for July 8, 2020: Please pray with me.  God of faith, you empower us with the faith you give us.  Yet, I wonder if we fully grasp this.  Do we expect that faith is limited and has limitations?  Do we buy into the notion that society sells us...

The subject of martyrs may be surprising.  But martyrs have been around a long time.  Martyrs are those that are willing to die for a cause.  Often we associate martyrs with religious faith.  Stephen is considered the first Christian martyr – a man who died for his faith in...

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVTFtsk7umU&w=560&h=315]...

I’ve been watching.  I watch what people post on social media.  I’ve learned over the years to mostly just scroll past it – especially when it’s something I don’t like.  Engaging in social media “debate” is almost 100% pointless. I see the posts about a variety of things.  There’s...

Prayer for July 7, 2020: Please pray with me.  God who breaks into the world, you offer a vision of what can be.  Yet, for some strange reason we too often reject it.  We claim that it’s not real or a dream.  We claim that “real” life doesn’t work...

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSev8XPLgu4&w=560&h=315]...

(Here is my sermon from yesterday’s worship.  You can find the video on our church website – www.ststephenlc.org). W. Fowler wrote an article in 1913 about how in ancient Rome, when an army surrendered, there were three options of what to do with the defeated army. First, they might...

Prayer for July 6, 2020: Please pray with me.  God of wonder, fill us.  Fill us with wonder about you.  Let us not get caught in fighting against evil and injustice so much that we become that which we fight against.  Do not let hate take up residence in...