"Sometimes we ask how to talk about Christ to somebody who is suffering because we want to avoid our obligation to be Christ to that somebody who is suffering."
-Yammering at the Yard
Yammering at the Yard- September 17th
Join us tonight at Starland Yard at 8 for Yammering at the Yard: the Intersection of Christianity and Big Ideas.
We will be discussing Colbert and Suffering. As the comedian himself says, "What punishments of God are not gifts?"
Read the article below (warning: salty language) and join us!
https://www.gq.com/story/stephen-colbert-gq-cover-story
How Christ the King?
We continue our series on the mission and values of Christ the King by trying to answer the question, “How do we love our neighbor?”
We have to answer these questions, because Christianity seems complicated, but it isn’t. It’s hard. And there’s a difference. And the difference is in humility.
Why Christ the King?
We don’t want to be a church full of our neighbors… we want to be a church full of people who love their neighbors. That is a big difference. Sermon on Jeremiah 29: Love God. Love Neighbor. Love City. below!
Waiting
God promises blessing and renewal. So where is all that? How do we live in the tension between the promise and the reality? New Sermon on Psalm 130 below!
An Ordinary God in the Squares of Savannah
When we come into God’s presence, we expect something huge. Spectacular. Extraordinary. But what if this expectation says more about us than it does about God? What if God is primarily concerned with our ordinary lives?
People come from all over the world to visit Savannah. But they don’t come for the spectacular- the Civic Center, the hotels, or anything else. No, they come to see the squares- rows of “tithing blocks” full of houses, and “trust blocks,” full of churches, businesses, and public meeting places where people have lived out ordinary lives for centuries now. This is why the squares of Savannah and the cross of Christ are linked together in the logo of Christ the King… because its God working in ordinary places that is extraordinary. Sermon below!
Joy and the Christian life
When an explosion crippled the Apollo 13 spacecraft, there was only one way for the crew to find enough power to get home- they would have to slingshot around the moon. In order to get home, they would have to travel farther from earth than any human being had ever gone before.
Joy is like that. On the pilgrimage of the Christian life, joy is only attainable insofar as we are willing to stare into the darkness and pain in our lives. But when we stare into that darkness, we get a surprise- there is someone out there with us. And this person, Jesus, is transforming our darkness and pain into something beautiful. Something joyous. Check out our full sermon on Psalm 126 below!
Prayer: An Explosion of Dissatisfaction
Every road trip starts with an explosion- gas hits the starter, and a little bomb goes off in your engine. But thats not the only kind of explosion; the energy to move anywhere is begun by an explosion (however small) of dissatisfaction about where you are.
The psalms of ascent follow the rules of the road trip. They begin with an explosion. But the destination of the journey is radically different. The journey ends in Jerusalem, at the presence of God. Listen to the sermon below:
Pentecost and the Humpty Dumpty Life
Fairy tales are our truest stories. They are so true that we tell them to our children, to help our kids understand what it means to be human on a basic level. So when a short fairy tale has been retold for a thousand years, and has corollary stories in cultures as diverse as Germany, India, and South Africa, we should pay attention. We are encountering something that is not a-cultural, but trans-cultural. Something deeply, deeply human.
The tale in question is humpty dumpty. Its the story of a cracked up life; a life that nobody could fix, not even the king’s horses or the king’s men. Who among us hasn’t felt like that? It’s a story that asks a question; a question whose answer is found only in the King himself. A king who descended on Pentecost to reach us where we are, in all our loneliness and shame, and reorient us around himself. A king who responds to our prayers. Full sermon below.
Sabbath and Joy
How do you delight in something as mundane as a urinal? When you realize that somebody (somebody famous?) put it there. What if the discipline of Sabbath forces us to be enjoy ourselves and our world, because somebody (somebody famous?) put us/it there? New sermon on below!