How to hear the Shepherd’s voice
How do we hear the shepherd's voice? Our speaker today will take the sermon in two different directions: a) First, naming some of the ways our faith tradition helps us to hear the voice: through prayer, in scripture, in creation. b) Then, admitting that we don’t always hear that voice. Yet even then we can trust that God is with us and working in our lives.
To access today’s worship video please click the following link: https://youtu.be/sn1uNSloB8o Please note, only the second half is available due to technical issues.
Touring God’s construction site
Today is part two of our worship series on the building (or body) of Christ and its foundation. The Christian church is built upon a foundation that is not an idea, not a doctrine, not an ethical standard, but a person – Jesus Christ.
Foundations exist to be built upon in ways that are like the way Paul wants Christians to build on Christ. Implicit in Paul’s metaphor of Christ as our sole foundation is the clear summons to build on that foundation. How do we build on that foundation? One of the apostle Paul’s most cherished ways of capturing both the relationships we already have with each other in the church and our calling to foster these relationships is “building each other up.” To build one another up is to participate in the greatest endeavour any of God’s creatures have ever engaged in. It means engaging in the construction of God’s peaceable home, a home in which God lives with befriended and reconciled enemies, with lost children who have been welcomed home, with returned exiles and refugees. To build each other up is to participate in God's plan to restore all creation.
To access the worship video please click the following link: https://youtu.be/WSJJP2T8tPU
No Other Foundation
What is a Mennonite? Is it a culture? A style of dress? Foods that taste great but gives you bad breath? A style of worship? A language? What’s foundational? Here on the prairies where Russian Mennonites are ubiquitous, we often get side-tracked about what is foundational. We tend to talk about things that set us apart, focus on the institution, or talk about the church as if its ours. Paul reminded the Corinthian Church that Jesus Christ is foundational. A Mennonite is nothing more than a person who has received the gospel—the indiscriminate gift of grace that God in Christ has given everybody. A Mennonite not only confesses Jesus Christ as Lord, but follows and trusts in the Spirit of Jesus to guide him/her in daily life.
To access today’s worship video please click the following link: https://youtu.be/yfKfCbSPZXo
