Jesus Takes a Minute

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, April 6, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

We’re nearing the end of our Lenten journey that began with John the Baptizer ceding two of his disciples to Jesus. They trailed Jesus not knowing how close to get and whether to say anything before Jesus turned and asked, “What do you want?” “Where do you live?” they asked awkwardly. He replied, “Come and see.”

We have come alongside as Jesus traveled through hostile lands to mountain manifestations, not only healing and teaching, but revealing who he was. He was the incarnate, but more than enfleshed, he was human.

Sunday we see the intensity of his love, his grief, his resolve as he calls Lazarus from the darkness of the tomb to life and steps decisively toward his destiny.

In great anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

Mud in Your Eye

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 30, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

"One of the most barren and desolate places we can occupy as Christians is a place of smugness. Of rightness. Of certainty. The more convinced we are that we have full insight, comprehension, and knowledge, the less we will see and experience of God." 

– Debie Thomas


Our scripture from the Gospel writer John is identified as ‘Jesus heals the man blind from birth’ but the narrative of the actual healing is a small portion of the periscope. The bulk of the text is questions from the temple authorities.

Who did this? How was it done? He’s a sinner – he healed on the Sabbath. Are you really the fellow who was blind?

The work of God is accomplished and we are shown the strength of the radical love unfettered. John wrote the entire Gospel that we would know that Jesus is God.

Thank you, John. Thank you, Jesus.

We baptize baby Evelyn this Sunday. We remember our own. See ya’!

 
 

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Source: sermons

At the Water Cooler

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 23, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Before everyone carried bottled water, one could go to the water cooler at school or the office for refreshment and for conversation. In ancient Samaria the water cooler was the well – not just for community, but for life.

Today we look at an encounter at the "water cooler" at Sychar – at the town well. This encounter is between the creator of the cosmos and a Samarian woman with whom he had an appointment.

This Sunday we welcome new members as we keep our appointment with the one who has come to us.

In anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

I Saw It

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 16, 2025

The Christian church we attend started many years ago, against all odds. A small group of individuals had lost their leader and continued on without him. It would have been easier to walk away, though they did not. They pushed on. Why? Join us on Sunday as we discuss the many reasons why.

– Ken Carrington

 

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Source: sermons

Come and See

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 9, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

The Gospel of John presents a different "call narrative" of the disciples. No beachside summoning like we saw in Luke for men to drop everything and follow this stranger.

In John 1, we are presented with John the Baptizer heralding Jesus walking past. To his followers, John says, “Behold – look there – the lamb of God. Then again, the next day, pointing out Jesus, identifying Jesus, Look the lamb of God – two of John’s disciples leave him and follow Jesus.”

Once Jesus saw the two disciples of John who were now following him, he turned and asked them a question. He did not ask who they were or for their credentials, instead he asked, “what are you looking for?”

They didn't know, or couldn’t articulate, what they were after. Do we ever know the detail and depth of what we seek? What we yearn for?

Their actual response is awkward: “Where are you staying?” Seems to imply "we don’t know what we want, but we want to know more." Their question kept the door open and led to Jesus' invitation: “Come and see.”

Jesus calls us and invites us to come together and discover the life for which we are created.

Join me and others for this first Sunday of Lent. Let’s experience the lengthening of days and the deepening of our faith together.

In anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

Not Giving Up, Giving In, Giving Out, but Giving Over

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 2, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Surrender is one of the most misused, misunderstood words in our language. It is often used to connote a ‘giving up’ or a ‘giving in’ to a stronger power to which one has lost the fight.

Or it may be when one’s resources or will have been exhausted and one is ‘given out’ and no longer able to resist.

But this Sunday I want to offer that surrender can actually be a prescient, powerful and strategic move when one ‘gives over’ the unwinnable to the one who is inexhaustible, unshakeable, and hopelessly in love with you.

This Sunday I invite you to join me in giving over the rancorous, chaotic, demeaning, the losing attempt at life alone to Jesus who was, is and will be our companion and guide to a life of purpose and joyful abundance. No mystery. Just a recognition of what is ours to do and what is his (whose yoke is easy :) 

Come to worship and have the burden lifted! Got some friends or loved ones in need of grace or looking for a lift? Why keep it to yourself? See you Sunday!

In great anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

Don't Let Them

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 23, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

“There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.” - Nelson Mandela

This Sunday we engage the text from Matthew 19 where Jesus makes clear that it is faith as of a child by which one may enter the realm of God. And so we celebrate the Second Presbyterian Kindergarten, it’s vibrancy and its poignancy and its importance. No there isn’t a catechism that has to be passed, but there is Chapel on Wednesdays where the Lord’s Prayer is said, the Word of God told in winsome ways and songs of praise sung. The love of God and the value of each child to God and to us is upheld. Is there anything more important?

Come this Sunday. Invite your friends as gospel is sung and the Word is shared and we are strengthened for these days to be the conduits of Jesus’ love.

 
 

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Source: sermons

Come, Sail Away

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 16, 2025

St. Augustine once penned, “God does not expect us to submit our faith to [God] without reason, but the very limits of our reason make faith a necessity.” I am not sure many of us ponder if faith in God and God’s purpose for our lives is genuinely a necessity. We tend to think in more concrete terms like food, water, resources, and emotional/physical support. But faith – that tends to be a luxury afforded to moments of idle wonderments and foxhole prayers.
 
This Sunday we have an opportunity to open our sacred texts and hear what the Hebrews writer declares about faith. Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation of the text reads: “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.” I am hopeful that as we read, study, and pray together in preparation for worship, God will deepen that faith depicted in Hebrews to those early Christians who in their own right had much to fear.
 
There is much to fear – no doubt – but come sail away with me this Sunday with the assurances of God’s promises at our back!
 
Onward and upward,
Steve

 

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Source: sermons

Plain Talk

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 9, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

The Gospel writers Matthew and Luke each report significant sermons by Jesus – sermons that convey, very simply, the tenants of his ministry. The Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain speak to the topsy-turvy nature of our lives in following the way of Jesus. Conditions of poverty, grief, suffering, and insult are to be born knowing that there is plenty, joy, comfort, and favor in a life of steadfast dedication in bearing the mysteries of God.

We are stewards under orders.

What we get to do!

In anticipation,

 
 

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Source: sermons

In Your Face

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 2, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Jesus has spent thirty years in his hometown of Nazareth when he is nudged by the Spirit to strike out and join others in their pilgrimage to be baptized by his cousin John.

He emerges from the water and the heavens open. He is affirmed by a voice from heaven, then driven into the wilderness where he is challenged and tempted, emerging again forty days later battle tested – and ready to launch his work teaching and healing, offering a new message. What better place than the hometown temple! Jesus brings his defining message – that yes, he has come in fulfillment of the ancient texts, but for all the people.

Shocking, dangerous, radical love.

Come this Sunday and experience this cosmic power. Bring a friend (and some chili!)

In anticipation,

 
 

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Source: sermons

What's My Line?

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 26, 2025

Identities are interesting claims to make. Have you ever thought about all the ways we are named and identified in today’s ever-changing landscape? We have family names, personal names, social security numbers, student ID numbers, phone numbers, emails, avatars, and the list goes on and on. I remember moving from SC to Washington, DC in the late 1990’s and the personal conversations I learned from the South switched from, “Where are you from?” to the DC proper, “What do you do?” I guess in DC it was more important to know what you did for a living than to know your family lineage.
 
Maybe it’s true the often quoted saying, “The more things change; the more things stay the same.”  In Sunday’s lectionary text from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus finds himself at the beginning of his ministry having to answer some of those same questions: “What is your purpose here? Aren’t you Joseph’s child?  Who and whose are you? “
 
Cress is attending a funeral in New York this weekend and has asked me to preach on Sunday. We are now directly in the season of Epiphany and there is much to discern in Luke 4 as Jesus returns home to Nazareth to begin his ministry and reintroduce himself. How will we receive and respond to his message? Maybe as confused and stunned as his hometown was in the first century?
 
Hope to see you Sunday,
Steven

 

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Source: sermons

Beloved

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 19, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –


"The end of nonviolent action is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community.”

- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
 

Last week we saw Jesus (whose time had come) embark on his life’s work.
 

His first move was to accompany others to the Jordan to his cousin John, to join the holy and the hoi polloi shoulder to shoulder in the muddy waters to be baptized.
 

The heavens opened, the Holy Spirit settled on him as a dove and a voice declared him beloved. He was then led (others say driven) into the wilderness where his humanity was attacked - tempted, as we are.

His spiritual conditioning proved as strong as his resilient spirit.
A lesson for today, tomorrow and the days ahead.

Though some may be tempted to gloat, or rend their garments, or recede from the tensions, disillusionment and seeming impossibility of world and national narratives, our Jesus models our struggles leading to inevitable victory for the beloved of Jesus God.
 

Dress warm. Remember your umbrella. Come share in the baptism of Crevon Brown, Sr. and welcome him and Tina Murphy, Patricia Toately Blake, and Susan Lovell home.
 

In great anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

He Gets It

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 12, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

The commentator Barclay writes: "For thirty years Jesus had waited in Nazareth, faithfully performing the simple duties of the home and of the carpenter's shop. All the time he [must have sensed that a task was waiting.] The success of any undertaking is determined by the wisdom with which the moment to embark is chosen. Jesus must have waited for the hour to strike, for the moment to come, for the summons to sound. And when John emerged Jesus knew that the time had arrived.”

This Sunday we engage the texts, imagine the impact on the community then and now. Why was Jesus baptized?

Invite someone you know or want to and share the mystery of God’s incarnation positioned for God’s love.

In anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

Epiphany Sunday

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 5, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Do any of you have phrases that seem to appear in response to certain situations? Or actions or feelings that seem to be recurrent?

At the new year it seems that I default, as many of you may know, to the image of Janus. Janus was among the pantheon of gods – Jupiter, Pluto, Apollo, Mars – that the ancient Romans worshiped. He was thought to keep the gate of heaven. And so he was the god of gates and doors, beginnings and endings; portrayed as having a double-faced head, each face looking in an opposite direction.

This year I also think about the Masks of Comedy and Tragedy – images diametrically opposite but that encompass as well the margins and contain the bulk of the experiences of our lives. So here at the beginning of this new year 2025, I again take the opportunity to look in back on the past year and to state why it is that I believe we, with our ups and downs, may look forward to 2025 informed, conditioned, encouraged and poised for what’s next.  

Will it be challenging? Sure. Will it be joyful and exhilarating? It may be. And it will be if we keep our sights on the one whose name we would bear – Jesus!

Come this Sunday for communion and for strengthening, positioned for God’s grace and experiencing Jesus. It’s all good!

In great anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

Home Alone

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, December 29, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

While we did not have a “white Christmas” in Charleston this year, we had a joyous celebration of Jesus’ birth with two moving worship services on Christmas Eve. I am not sure about you, but I find the Christmas season can come and go so quickly and it seems that white Christmas never materializes.
 
This Sunday Cress has asked me to preach, and I am truly honored. The lectionary text this week sends us ahead a few years to Jesus at 12-years-old in the temple with the religious leaders and scholars. It appears even Mary and Joseph had a hard time keeping up with Jesus during his pre-teen years!
 
I hope we have not left Jesus behind with all the presents unpacked and colorful decorations stored until next year. It would be disappointing to miss what lies ahead on the journey with this precocious child.

See you Sunday!
Steven

 

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Source: sermons