(Sermon “Off the Hook”, January 2012) Bible text: Numbers 15:27-29; Matthew 9:1-8 (Jesus forgives and heals a paralytic) I was in Denmark a little while ago and was planning to do the Holy Supper at the Sunday service. One person in the group there asked me the day before if I could talk about sin. [...]
Archive for the ‘Sermon writing and preaching’ Category
Off the Hook
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged Charles Lawson, divine providence, fear, forgiveness, guilt, Jesus, lame, paralysis, sins, Swedenborg on January 1, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Why modules
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged compelled, compulsion, freedom, meetings, preaching, worship on October 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
First part of this posting is here: Modular Worship Meetings. Part two: Why approach worship, meetings, groups, or church services through modules? Because it allows for and re-introduces a sense of freedom. Very simple. No freedom, no worship, and no connection to the higher power we call God or source or fill-in-your-own-name. Swedenborg wrote about [...]
Eating the bread: part three
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged beggar, bread, convention new church, home church, Jesus, lord's new church, preaching, Roslyn Taylor, sermon writing, temenos on August 8, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Part three: leading in worship. A series of postings on the challenge of preaching. Series based on the preaching metaphor: one beggar showing another beggar where to get some bread. I asked Roslyn Taylor about the exhaustion thing, see part two. Ros is a female minister from a church environment that only ordains men to [...]
Eating the bread: part two
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged beggar, bread, exhaustion, Jesus, preaching, sermon writing, walking on August 8, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Part two: exhaustion. A series of postings on the challenge of preaching. In part one we looked at this preaching metaphor: one beggar showing another beggar where to get some bread. Here’s another side to this: a minister that attempts to provide the bread for a small or large group of people will feel exhausted [...]
Eating the bread: part one
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged beggar, bread, Jesus, preaching, sermon writing on August 8, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Part one: hunger. A series of postings on the challenge of preaching. Preaching metaphor: one beggar showing another beggar where to get some bread. That’s a funny image. Not the dispenser of bread for the hungry, but just another beggar who happens to have found some bread him or herself and now tells others about [...]
Sacrifice and pain
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged going to war, pain, religion, sacrifice, sermon, war soldiers, Word of God on August 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
This Sunday I will be preaching on the topic of sacrifice. What a weird topic in some ways. Our culture has few notions of sacrifice. Maybe going to war, soldiers traveling to a far-away place to fight, involves sacrifice. But sacrifice really means to make holy, not the giving up of something treasured. Anyway, the [...]
With God nothing is impossible: part two
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged impossible, Jesus, personal religion, power on July 22, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Link to part one. Normally we think, oh for God nothing is impossible. God can do anything. Strangely the Bible does not always load the words that way. See here: “Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Mt. 17:20) “All things are possible to him who believes.” (Mk. 9:23) It says, nothing is impossible for me [...]
With God nothing is impossible: part one
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged coin, drachma, impossible, Jesus, sermon, Stockholm on July 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Sermon summary for Sunday July 24, 2011, Stockholm. Tension: We don’t really believe that with God, nothing is impossible. We know it, but only with the head, not with the heart. We don’t want to admit this. Don’t want to face it even. Life does not match up to this truth. Let’s go and face [...]
Angels Are Calling My Name
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged celestial, heaven, mantra, prayer, regeneration, religion, sermon, spirit, vision on April 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
(Sermon by Stephen Muires, Feb. 2011.) Today I want to describe a vision. A vision that is at the core of religion, of every religion, and at the core of our lives as human beings. It is a vision of heaven in us. You may have heard people say that heaven is inside us. It [...]
The internal meaning of the Bible
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged Bible, creation, Genesis, God, inner truth, spiritual growth, Swedenborg, water, Word on November 7, 2010 | 1 Comment »
In today’s culture the Bible is on the way out. Quite understandably so, since no one is sure what it means, or even believes that it in fact means something. That is our message: the Bible means something. Its meaning is unknown, but not secret. The teachings of the New Church go a long way [...]
Pain
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged grief, Jesus Christ, Lord, love, providence, struggle, suffering on June 5, 2010 | 8 Comments »
(A sermon by Stephen Muires, June 2010) Lamentations 3:25-40; Luke 13:1-5; DP 234 (take-off) There is no such thing as chance. (pause) No evil happens by chance. Not a single evil thing is permitted to happen to a person on earth that does not lead to good (SE 1088). OK. That’s the teaching. We find [...]
The Evil that I See in Others
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged evil, Jesus Christ, Lord, regeneration on May 23, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Sermon by Stephen Muires, May 23, 2010. Matthew 7:1-5, Matthew 15:10-11, AC 6206. (sermon start, the hook) David had committed a crime. A pretty bad crime. It involved adultery, and murder. No one knew he had done this. God knew, of course, but David himself tried hard to forget all about it. God wanted to [...]
Creation story
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged God, Jesus Christ, regeneration, Swedenborg, Truth on May 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
This is a fragment of Swedenborg’s Arcana Coelestia, paragraphs 6-27, covering the first and second day of creation, newly translated from the Latin with a lot of liberties taken to make the text easily readable. Summary. The six days describe six states, one after the other, in the regeneration process of a person. The first [...]
Instruction and Worship for Children
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged church, education, Lord, providence, religion on May 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The main passage from the Writings that governs my thinking about religious instruction and worship aimed at children is: The universal affirmative. It is only by a universal affirmative principle that man is imbued with truths from the Lord – such as that the Word is the Word, the Lord is the Lord, Providence is [...]
Forcing Truth
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged belief, church, faith, Jesus Christ, Lord, religion, spiritual growth, Swedenborg, Truth on May 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Sermon (May, 2010) Gen. 12: 6-9, Mark 4:26-29, AC 9588. The Parable of the sower (cell: hook, where is the kingdom?) The kingdom of God. We long for this kingdom. We strive for it. We may not know exactly what it means, but we know it is something good. Where is it? What is it? [...]
Sermon writing structure – Organic
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged church, religion, Swedenborg, Truth, understanding on May 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Title: Organic build-up Summary: a way of implementing the sermon writing process. Motivation: hearing is an organic process that is inherently not logical, no long progressions of ideas can be heard. Hearing focuses on the now moment, and then follows it as the current idea changes into another one. While this one change needs to [...]
Victims
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged healing, Jesus Christ, Lord, miracles on May 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(Sermon, May 2010) Jeremiah 2: 11-13, John 5:1-15, Miracles 18 Have you ever heard someone say: I am a victim? I lost my job. I lost my house. I am depressed. I need medication. I… you fill in the rest. A victim of life. Unable to escape their past. Unable to face their future. (transition [...]
Burning Bush Translation Fragments
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged church, heaven, secrets, secrets of heaven, Swedenborg on April 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Here are some paragraphs from the Arcana Caelestia, the Secrets of Heaven. This is Swedenborg’s main work, in my mind. These are the books that contain the gold. These are the books that you may find on the market place, in a second hand stall, being sold for no money. But they contain the Word [...]
Death
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged death, faith, Lord, religion, Swedenborg on April 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Sermon (April, 2010) Hosea 6:1-3, Revelation 2:8-10, HH 445 (introduction) Death is a taboo… Don’t talk about death! It’s taboo. Maybe less so today than in former times, but still it’s something you avoid talking about. And: we have fear of death. That’s as strong as ever. Death is something we are afraid of. But [...]
Swedenborg’s Sacred Mission
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged God, religion, Swedenborg on March 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Introduction Every person on earth exists for a reason. Every single person, no matter what they do, how they live, whether they are humble, famous, rich or poor, has been put here by God. Life is the story of finding God. Some people know they are seeking, others think they have found, and yet others [...]
