Throughout the first part of the summer, St. Giles' Christian Education Committee held a Summer Educational Series studying the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. That study has now come to a close (a new study began yesterday morning), but in support of the great conversation that arose during the series, yesterday's sermon was a Communion Meditation that reflected upon the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. I used as my text my favorite communion text - the Emmaus Road encounter from Luke's gospel, chapter 24. Here is my recap of the sermon.

We're in the midst of a three week sermon series that takes us through the book of Esther found in the Hebrew Bible. Our task for yesterday, June 23, was to study chapters 4-6 - and my sermon focused primarily on chapter 4. Here is my recap of that sermon, entitled "For Such a Time as This." As always, the scripture text is posted below the video. Have a great week, everyone!

Here's a recap of my sermon from Pentecost - June 9, 2019. As you might expect, the text for the day was Acts 2:1-21. During worship, I used a child-friendly paraphrase of the passage to tie into the Word for Children... but below the video, you'll find the passage as read in the Common English Bible translation of scripture. Happy Pentecost!

Jennifer and I have been working through an Eastertime sermon series called "Surprise!" which takes a look at the life of the earliest church recorded in the book of Acts. The sermon I preached yesterday, based on Acts 9:36-42, looked at the life and witness of Tabitha - also known as Dorcas...  a compassionate and well-known woman whose story we often tend to skip over. Here's my recap of the sermon, and as always, the scripture text follows the video.

Our "God on the Move" sermon series continues at St. Giles throughout the season of Lent. Yesterday in worship, I preached a sermon entitled "God Moves Down the Road," based on the text of Jesus' famous Parable on the Prodigal Son from Luke 15. Here's my recap of the sermon.

Jennifer and I are in the midst of a Lenten Sermon Series entitled God on the Move, which seeks to help us reflect upon Jesus' journey toward Jerusalem in the days leading into Easter. Here's a recap of my latest sermon, "God Moves Past All Obstacles," based on the gospel lection for the day, Luke 13:31-35.

I relish the opportunity to explore creative forms of preaching, so I was excited to preach a dialogue sermon with my friend and Presbyterian clergy colleague Rev. Patrick Jinks. Together, we preached a sermon entitled "Love is the Answer" based on the Apostle Paul's famous words from 1 Corinthians 13. For the sermon recap video, Patrick and I sat down to discuss the passage (and, perhaps, to sing a certain well-known song...)

A major theme of the Apostle Paul's first letter to the congregation in Corinth was on spiritual gifts (or more literally 'spiritual things'), as this seemed to be a primary source of division and discord among the fellowship there. Paul's overall argument includes the well-known argument about Christ's body being made of many parts ("the eye can't say to the hand, 'I have no need for you.'") and the even more famous passage of love as the greatest of spiritual gifts (a passage we know well from weddings!). He begins his discussion of spiritual gifts, however, with the passage we examined in worship yesterday morning: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. Here is my recap video of that sermon.

Here's a recap of the sermon I preached on December 30, 2018, entitled "Rushing Things" based on the gospel lection for the day, Luke 2:41-52. As a bonus: at the end of the video, I also offer a bit of a fact check on myself. :-)

My beloved little city of Greenville falls geographically right along Interstate 85 in the upstate of South Carolina - a marker that also seems to serve as the "rain/snow" line for many a winter storm. The usual result, for those of us who like to see a good snowstorm every now and again, is disappointment; a forecast calling for a couple inches of snow in our area usually winds up being nothing more than a cold rain. (By the way -- all of this makes it very tricky for us to make a decision to cancel worship! Safety is our top priority, but there's always a touch of skepticism about the forecasts in our area!