Posts Tagged: "Sermon"

The Sermon That Did Not Record Which Had Katy Perry and Frederick Buechner In It

Yesterday, after our church service ended, I picked up my phone from the chair and was surprised to see I had a text message notification from my wife. She had been there with me, in that same service, up on the stage and down on the first row. My first thought was that maybe she was informing me of something embarrassing, like, “Your zipper is down!” or “You have two different shoes on!” or something like that. But when I read her text message, it made me smile and feel known and loved. Here’s a screenshot of it:

Screen Shot 2022-08-15 at 5.29.07 PM

She knows I love to include in my sermons some jarring  juxtapositions of the ancient and modern, the sacred and the secular, high art and guilty pleasures… and she was calling me out for it.

Anyway, it was one of those messages that I really felt and really believe and parts of it seemed to just flow out of me as if the words were already written and established in my heart for ages. I was gonna share the link to the video of the sermon, but we had some technical glitch that I would not understand if I tried and could not fix if my life depended on it (so, no judgment, media team!). The glitch meant no audio was recorded at all.

Oh well, I actually prefer being read than watched or listened to anyway! And, lucky for me, all of my sermons are complete manuscripts. So I’m sharing The Sermon That Did Not Record Which Had Katy Perry And Frederick Buechner In It.

YouTube Preview Image

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10V_Z0_udjg

Just a little background on this song, “Love… Thy Will Be Done” —

Martika was a young new artist who began recording in the late ‘80’s. In the early ‘90’s, she really wanted to work with Prince—so she reached out and he agreed to meet her. When they met, he asked to see some of her work, some of the lyrics she’d written… and she handed him her journal. He looked through it and asked if he could take it for some time to sit with it and see what resonated with him. Martika agreed.

A week later, Prince got together with her and showed her what he’d done. He took something she wrote – something she had written as a prayer – and turned it into this song: Love… Thy Will Be Done. He’d already recorded a demo – with all the music and with his voice singing the lyrics.

Prince was the producer for Martika’s recording of the song – and in July of 1991 it was her first single released… it reached the top 10 on the charts of seven countries, including Australia, where it peaked at number one in October 1991.

Since that time, it’s been covered by multiple artists.

And after Prince’s death, his original recording that he brought to Martika – with him singing, was released on the album Originals in June of 2019. It’s an album of songs that Prince wrote and gave to other artists to record and perform and it contains his demos.

“Love… Thy Will Be Done” is a two-time Song of Summer… 1991 and 2019.

And I love it.

Especially these lines:… Read More

Church Without All The BS

These are the notes from my sermon preached on 11.21.21 at NWLife Church – the 9th in a series of 10 sermons based on the book of Nehemiah called “When Everything’s On Fire.”

The title of my sermon today is: “Church Without All The BS.”

Up to this point, Nehemiah has had quite the journey… A prayer, a plan, and the gracious hand of God. The favor of the king, permission to go, resources sent along for the work. And the support of the people—so the good work begins. Rebuilding.

And of course there are problems encountered along the way. But Nehemiah is not derailed. He continues. He prevails. The enemy does not succeed. And there are some conflicts among the people, some abusive practices that come to the surface. So Nehemiah has to deal with that too. But even still, the work continues. Restoration. Approaching wholeness…

Glimmers of the Beloved Community, God’s dream for us all.

And it appears that although the work was not easy, it is, in fact, worth it. Better days ahead, for all. Maybe there is life after the fire. Perhaps we can emerge from the ashes and thrive. So, let us believe. … Read More

Joyful In Hope

NOTE: I was really excited to preach this sermon today… but when I arrived early this morning at the church to begin prepping for our Drive-Thru Food Bank, I heard a distinct dripping sound and noticed significant water damage in our auditorium. We’re assessing it now, but it’s obviously not safe to hold a service indoors today so we had to cancel. Anyway, here’s my sermon:

Romans 12.12

Be joyful in hope, patient in trouble, and faithful in prayer.

Romans 15.13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.

Author Karl Ove Knausgård said,

“There is only one thing children find harder to hold back than tears, and that is joy.”

Last week I talked about the faithfulness of God.

God is faithful. Always and forever.

After the service, a confident little girl (around 9 years old) holding a german shepherd stuffed animal under her arm came up to me and said, “I’d like to talk to you.”

It’s funny how my first reaction was to be kinda scared because, well… church PTSD (I’ve had some bad experiences that started out with those words, “I’d like to talk to you.”

Anyway, this girl was wonderful—she wanted me to know that they’d just moved into their new neighborhood and when they left for church this morning, their car didn’t work.

Their old neighborhood had a neighbor who helped them with their car before.

But today in their new neighborhood, a very kind new neighbor came to their rescue… and they made it to church, just a few minutes late.

She concluded her story by saying, “So, I think we agree. God is faithful.”

There was a pause, and then she asked, “Um, what is faithful?”

I love it. I think she knew in her heart that God can always be trusted because God is always good.

But big words can be tricky.

I stumbled around for a few seconds offering other big and tricky words:

“Reliable. Trustworthy. Constant. Dependable.”

I could see that no light bulb was going off.

So then I said, “God always keeps his promises. He’s always good and we can trust him.

That’s what faithful means.”

She nodded and agreed with me. “Yeah, God always keeps his promises. That’s right.”

“And the devil tried to keep us from getting to church this morning, but God is faithful.”

I laughed and said,… Read More

Shari’s Unscripted Commentary

Each Sunday, when I’ve finished my sermon, Shari joins me on stage for a few moments of unscripted commentary. I get the sense that this is what people most enjoy about the “sermon time.” And it’s not included on the videos we post online…

Interesting thing, that.

Maybe the best bits about church can never be accessed via the internet.

The bread and the cup. Water baptism. Child dedication. Hugs. Standing in prayer with our brothers and sisters in Christ – shedding tears together, celebrating together. Serving on a Sunday. Those few moments of unscripted commentary.

Anyway, back to Shari’s unscripted commentary…

In my sermon, I had read from Sally Lloyd-Jones’ “The Jesus Storybook Bible” – the story of the Prodigal Son, which she titles Running Away.

“The son takes the money and goes on a long, long journey to a far off country. And everything’s wonderful and perfect—for a while. He can go wherever he wants, do whatever he wants, be whoever he wants. He is the boss, he is free!

Sometimes he gets a strange, hungry, homesick feeling inside his heart, but then he just eats more, or drinks more, or buys more clothes, or goes to more parties until it goes away.”

Shari said how she… Read More

Wind of God

- - Uncategorized, Video

This is the sermon bumper from Sunday’s message – part 2 in our Untamed series, “Sails Up, The Wind Is Blowing.” It’s one of my favorites. Kinda felt like there was no need to preach after it – it would have been enough just to let that sink in…

Video & sound editing—Shaun Jones-Morford, voice… Read More

Considering Who Is In Those Pews

In Frederick Buechner‘s book Telling The Truth – The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, he briefly describes a few people sitting in those pews on a Sunday morning…

“In the front pews the old ladies turn up their hearing aids, and a young lady slips her six year old a Lifesaver and a Magic Marker. A college sophomore home for vacation, who is there because he was dragged there, slumps forward with his chin in his hand. The vice-president of a bank who twice that week has seriously contemplated suicide places his hymnal in the rack.

A pregnant girl feels the life stir inside her.

A high-school math teacher, who for twenty years has managed to keep his homosexuality a secret… Read More