Words of Welcome

Luke 10:25-37 Who wouldn’t want to be a “Good Samaritan?” We’re so used to connecting the word “good” to the character of the Samaritan it’s easy to miss the scandalous nature of this parable. What if there’s nothing good about a Samaritan? No one in Jesus’ audience would have applied the word “good” to a “Samaritan.” Do you still want to be a Good Samaritan?  If you go back to chapter nine, you’ll discover that Jesus ran into trouble in Samaria. He was turned away from a village because he was heading toward Jerusalem. Fortunately, Jesus didn’t follow the advice of James and John who wanted to call down fire from heaven to consume the village, but that goes to show that something is up in the story of the Good Samaritan ( Lk 9:51-56 ).   Not long after Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan villagers, he sent out the seventy to preach. After they returned from their mission trip, Jesus was approached by a lawyer. Now, I need to let you know that Luke doesn’t seem ...

Psalm 82 Who are we as a congregation? If we claim to be Disciples of Christ then what does that say about how we live in the world? That is the question that the  Preamble to the Design ,  which we recited earlier in the service seeks to answer. It’s a covenant statement that binds us as a congregation with our brothers and sisters across the region, across the nation, and across the world. It binds us with others who call themselves Disciples, but it also binds us together with all Christians. Indeed, it defines our “mission of witness and service to all people.”  That statement was adopted in the 1960s as the Disciples entered a new phase of life together. There is a briefer statement that was adopted more recently and it goes like this: “We are Disciples of Christ, a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. As part of the one body of Christ we welcome all to the Lord’s Table as God has welcomed us.” In April we officially became an  Open and Affir...

Romans 13:8-14 There has been a lot of talk these last few months about debt and how to reduce the nation’s deficit.  Not long ago politicians said that deficits don’t matter, and now everyone is in a dither about them.  So, at the very last moment, with the nation looking at the first default in its history, Congress held its collective nose and passed legislation that raised the debt ceiling and established a super-committee, which is composed of people on both sides of the aisle committed to not compromising with the other side!  Of course the Federal Government isn’t the only entity struggling with debt.  The national consumer debt – that’s the debt we as citizens owe, minus mortgage debt, stands at 2.4 Trillion dollars, or about $7,800 per person.  What this means is that many of us are borrowing a lot of money to pay for our chosen lifestyles.  Of course, in a consumer driven economy, where jobs depend on spending, perhaps that’s the way...

Luke 10:25-37 Growing up, my world seemed pretty simple. Being religious meant being a Christian. I didn't know many Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists. I didn't really even know anything about them. About as exotic as any of my friends got was being a Mormon. Today things are different, even if we don't always notice it. Mosques, synagogues, and Temples are everywhere. Just go two miles up Adams, and you’ll see a Hindu Temple under construction. Continue on up to Auburn Road and take a right, as you head toward Rochester Road, you’ll see two different mosques, one on the left and one on the right. Further down you’ll find an Albanian Catholic church, and then coming back down John R, at the corner of Long Lake, you’ll find a Romanian Pentecostal church. Turning right on Wattles, you’ll come to a Serbian Orthodox Church sitting next to Troy Athens High School, and then further on down Wattles, you’ll find a Croatian Catholic Church, a Greek Orthodox Church, a Jehovah’s W...

This sermon is the first of six that will lift up the six core values discerned to guide Central Woodward Christian Church. **************** John 11:28-35 When we gathered in February for a retreat, we discerned six core values that define our mission and vision as a congregation. We discerned these values in a context of prayer, worship, and study. We talked about our community and what it means to be a Disciple in the context of this community, beginning with our 5-mile radius, and expanding outward in concentric to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). As we discerned these values, we assumed that we are called to be a missional congregation, and that these values will help guide our practice of mission. It’s been a few months since we met, and with a new season of ministry in front of us, over the next two months we will explore these six core values in a series of sermons. As we think about these six core values – compassion, service, acceptance, worship, witness, and spi...

Luke 10:25-37 I grew up in small towns where we knew most of our neighbors, especially our neighbors with kids. Because everyone knew everyone else, our parents didn’t worry too much about us, as long as we let them know where we were going. We couldn’t get into too much trouble, because there was always a parent present to keep an eye on you and you knew that your Moms would talk to each other. But that was another time and another place, but it illustrates something about neighborliness – neighbors know each other and they watch out for each other. There is a flip side of this idyllic scene that illustrates the problem of not recognizing each other as neighbors. I read a story about a stabbing in a convenience store. A couple of thugs stabbed a woman to death, but no one stopped to help. A video store camera records customers stepping over the dying woman and one person even took a picture with a cell phone camera. Now that’s not very neighborly, is it? Every day we read about a neig...