Sermons

If your family is anything like my family, there was great anticipation for Christmas. As a young child, it seemed like Christmas could not come soon enough. It seemed like it took forever for Dec 25 to come. Days without school, no homework or tests to study for. Plenty of good food (turkey or ham,…

12.24.14 Christmas Eve Service; Pastor Douglas Scalise Opening Prayer: O God of love, you have brought us together tonight and blessed us with your very self and in so many other ways. Open our eyes to the light of Christ which glows in the darkness of a world engulfed in violence, anger, misunderstanding, pain and…

Pastor David’s sermon this week is about the greatest gifts God has given to us. Watch our “1 minute preview”!

Ready or not here comes Christmas, just four days away. We’re not surprised by the timing of Christmas – it tends to arrive about the same time each year. Since we know when Christmas is coming at some point we begin cleaning, sending cards, making or buying gifts, baking cookies and confessing our sins (because…

The context for today’s scripture is a meeting between two expectant mothers. Elizabeth is getting on in years and has never been able to have a child. Mary is young and not yet married. Both pregnancies are unexpected and unplanned by the people involved. It’s amazing how news of the same event – being pregnant…

Unlike the other three gospels, in Matthew, John the Baptist bursts upon the scene without any preparation or warning. Whenever there’s a significant difference in how the gospels present a person, event, or story that gives us insight into that writer’s particular perspective or view. Matthew believes the action of God in history is often…

Today we begin the season of Advent, a season of marking the days as we remember the birth of Jesus and await the second coming of Christ. One of the words we associate most with Advent and Christmas is “peace.” “Peace on earth, good will toward men,” the angels say in the old King James…

With Thanksgiving coming this week, I’ve imagined myself being “one” with pastors all over the country who were doing the same thing I’ve been doing all week—praying that we can encourage our congregations and ourselves to grow bigger hearts of thankfulness beginning this Sunday. Probably every church in America is exploring some of the Scriptures…

Do you have any traditions in your family that you enjoy? Do you know their origin – how, why, or when they started? In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, one of the best known songs is Tradition. The lead character, Tevye says, “Some people may ask, how the tradition get started? I’ll tell you…I…