Sermon series? You want a sermon series?
As someone who occasionally stumbles around trying to find something to preach on from week to week, this had me giggling big-time today. Funny stuff. Read it all.LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (NN) -- The people of Eight Mile Road Church of the Nazarene lobbied for a sermon series covering a book of the Bible from start to finish, but 76 weeks later, the church is sick of the book of Psalms.
Pastor Kevin Gibson responded to the so-called editorial pressure from the church people by choosing the longest book of the Bible. "Since week 29, they have been begging me to preach on coping with loss or how to raise Godly kids. I'm loving it. They are in a tough spot. Who is going to complain about sermons based on the Bible?"
A small but influential group asked the pastor to take a break from Psalms during the month of December, but Gibson would hear nothing of it. "If we take a break from Psalms for all those pesky church holidays, we'll never get through it. Besides, it stretches me as a preacher to make a triumphant Psalm fit with some of the more somber days of the Church calendar."
A layperson at Eight Mile Church (EMC) spoke on condition of anonymity. "When we asked for a sermon series on a book of the Bible, we thought it would be something short like James, Philippians, or 2 Acts. We're coming away with the impression that the Bible is best taken in small doses...kind of like those stupid promise boxes that had a verse for each day of the year... We think the Psalms suck. One psalm is all like, 'God you're my number one', then the next one is like, 'God you're busting my chops here.' It's just kind of a schizo thing going on."
posted by Matt Friedeman @ 11:03 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
LOL!!! I love it! The Bible is a great and wonderful book to Christians....as long as they don't stray beyond the familar fables. Go too far into the "good book" and you might end up with ideas like the layperson in the article or like Thomas Jefferson:
"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams."
(Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825)
Dear EC:
Well, I sure don't want to end up like TJ! Who, by the way, didn't think the "good book" worth going "too far" into - indeed, he wanted to excise everything that smacked of the miraculous and mysterious.
I would walk away from that faith too, in all likelihood.
Great to have you on the site!
Matt
Matt- Are you doing the afternoon radio show anymore? Thanks
Not doing the radio show. As I told someone the other day the simple version for "why" - I had a choice between coaching Zeke and Isaiah's soccer teams or not.
I chose to.
But I am missing the radio.
Matt
but probably not as much as they would be missing you!
Post a Comment
<< Home