Words of Welcome

  Psalm 126 Once upon a time, the nineteenth-century “singing evangelist” Knowles Shaw wrote a gospel song titled “Bringing in the Sheaves.” While it isn’t in our hymnals, it regularly pops up in popular culture. You might have heard versions of it in episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, Batman , and especially the Simpsons . For some reason, it appeals to the popular mind, even if Mainline Protestants rarely sing it. Shaw found his inspiration for the song in the King James Version of the sixth verse of Psalm 126: “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”  And so we sing: Bringing in the sheaves,  bringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing,  bringing in the sheaves. If we’re going to bring in the sheaves, what’s a sheave? The answer: It’s a bundle of grain. Since  Shaw was the son of a farmer from Ohio, he knew what a sheave was. The same was true of t...

Vincent Van Gogh, "Sheaves of Wheat" Psalm 126 I took the sermon title from an old gospel song written by the nineteenth-century Disciples’ “singing evangelist” Knowles Shaw . While the song isn’t in our hymnals, it pops up regularly in popular culture. You might have heard versions of it in episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, Batman, and especially the Simpsons. It’s even been featured in films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . For some reason it appeals to the popular mind, even if Mainline Protestants rarely sing it. That goes for Disciples, because even though Shaw was a Disciple, the last Disciple hymnal that includes it was published in 1953! This song is based on the sixth verse of Psalm 126 , though the version of the Psalm we shared this morning lacks the words “bringing in the sheaves.” But, if you go to the King James Version you’ll find the words that inspired Knowles Shaw to write this song.  “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious see...

The reflection below was written and shared by Emily Hill, member of the Christian Church of Birmingham/Central Woodward Christian Church Youth Group as part of a youth led worship service at Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It is a wonderful reflection, which I would like to share with you. Dr. Bob Cornwall Pastor ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Luke 15:11-32 Hi. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Emily, and I’m a junior in high school. Let me explain to you what being a junior in high school implies. It means a heavy academic schedule. A load of extracurriculars. ACT and SAT prep classes. College visits and research. Late nights. A reduced social life. The beginning step of your future. And while not necessarily everything I just said applies to all high school juniors, it’s not uncommon that two or three of them would. Recently at my school we had our finals...

John 12:12-19 Have you ever misinterpreted something someone said or did? Anyone who has tried dating knows how easy it is to "misread signals." I’ve done it on many an occasion – just ask Cheryl. Maybe she looks at you in a certain way, and you think: My, she must like me. Later on you discover that she didn’t even know you were there. She was looking somewhere else and missed you in the foreground. Sometimes you get lucky. You’ve misread the signals, or the lack thereof, but you get the courage to go up and talk to her, or maybe make a fateful phone call and invite her on a date. Now, of course, I’m speaking from my own experiences, yours might be different. Then there are those pesky dreams – you know those visions you get in the middle of the night, which seem to be a sense of God’s calling. When you have those kinds of dreams, how do you know whether its God or not? Maybe the reason you can’t sleep isn’t that God is talking you, but is instead that pizza you ate at 9 P.M...