The following is the bulletin note for a sermon on July 4, 2021, and is a summary of thoughts from Eric Metaxas’s book If You Can Keep It: Os Guinness views America through what he calls the “Golden Triangle of Freedom”: Freedom requires virtue. Virtue requires faith. Faith requires freedom. The founders understood that if this American experiment were to work, we would have to be built on virtue. We were the only nation founded on a creed, not on blood or on a despot (or group of anarchists) overthrowing another despot. To become truly great, the founders knew we needed
Read more →ALWAYS SAY YES Improv rule number one: ALWAYS SAY “YES.” If your partner says, “I’m rowing my boat across a sea of elephants,” you never say, “That’s ridiculous… it’s actually a regular sea. Of water.” *crickets.* You said, “NO.” Where are you supposed to go from there? Instead, no matter how crazy it sounds, it’s always a “YES, AND…” answer: “Yeah! And you’re rowing SUPER fast for someone with no arms! How are you doing that?” Spontaneity adds a wonderful spark of fun and inclusion and lets people know you’re on their side. The “Um… ACTUALLY” person always has a
Read more →“This could change your life!” Psh, yeah right. Feels like an empty promise. I’ve been let down by too many “this could change your life” statements. I mean… I’ve been told that about everything from a $2000 webinar to a $2 bag of sour gummies. Call me crazy, but not much changes my life. But this… this will change your life. I promise. Er… it’ll change your life IF you change your life. The dirty little secret of changing your life is that YOU change your life. Not the program. Not the gummy. You do. I put together a little
Read more →I studied almost 20 hours for last week’s sermon, and it STILL came up short. But it was important. Here’s the gist… Leviticus was a guidebook for the people of God to gain PHYSICAL access to a holy God. The tabernacle was his house, and the way they were made acceptable to be in his presence was through physical sacrifices (chapters 1-7), a physical priesthood (chapters 8-10), and physical laws (what to do with diet, uncleanness, leprosy, etc.) When they obeyed, God blessed them physically—rain, flourishing crops, peace from battle, etc.—and when they disobeyed, they were physically cursed—drought, death, captivity,
Read more →
