RoboPreacher

there's no need to look up The “afterlife” is a topic we are, apparently, quite interested in; what, with all those movies and books. The truth, though, is we are as interested in this topic as we are ill-informed about it. At least from a Christian perspective… Most talk about the afterlife is, honestly, pure sentimentality and speculation. Which, if that is your thing; fine. Fine as long as we admit this popular speculation is not Christian. Here, try this: next time you read a book or watch a movie on the afterlife, track of how often Jesus shows up. My guess is, it isn’t that often… Now, I don’t want to be the cranky theologian. The thing, though, is popular depictions of the afterlife can’t even begin to touch the hope and promise Christianity makes about the afterlife… Those books and movies, for as hopeful as they may seem, are ultimately not Good News. These sentimental conjectures about what lies after this life, trade in true hope for trite platitude...

but i wasn't sure just what Too many churches out there treat Jesus as the answer to any question or problem you’ve ever had and many others act like following Jesus is the most reasonable thing you could ever do. The problem with that, though, is everyone knows better. We should stop doing that. We should quit pretending the folks who don’t believe are crazy. The truth is, those folks who don’t believe might just have a little more sense than you who are here today. Following Jesus is hard.  In the early church, when outsiders would do all the work of coming to the church and asking to join; do you want to know what the church, in all it’s wisdom, would do? The church would say, ‘that’s great. You can join us, anyone can. It’s going to take a year, though. The year is going to be hard, and you’re going to have to give up everything. In fact, we meet early Sunday,’ -which at that time, was a work day. That’s how the early church did evangelism. Contrary to all th...

for katie & scott Well, here you are. You’ve practically made it. Well done. Not to jump the gun or anything, but please allow me to give you two your first wedding gift. ( Give magnets ) Hold them up, show everyone. Can you tell what this wonderful gift is? They’re magnets. Precious magnets, don’t lose them. I hope getting this marvelous gift first doesn’t make all the other gifts you’ll get pale in comparison … Now, do you have any idea why I choose that gift for the two of you? Well, aside from how marvelous these magnets are; I chose them because in magnets ‘ opposites attract .’ Let’s give it a try . Opposites attract! Just like the two of you. As we got to know each other, a theme that kept reoccurring is how different the two of you can be. For instance, Katie you’re very detail oriented. Scott, isn’t like that, though, is he? And Scott, well, you’re a little closed-lipped, aren’t you? And Katie, well she isn’t.  The thing, though, is t...

a city with no children in it Our building, takes a lot of maintenance, doesn’t it? And you know, as I’ve thought about it, the school keeps trying to expand their space around the stadium, and the money for this athletic program just keeps pouring in. …So, maybe we could sell our property, move to the ‘burbs and build an energy-efficient place to gather; just ditch all this trouble. After all, our old building is hard to cool, hard to heat, leaky and expensive; but maybe that’s the point . Perhaps this place is more than a monument to efficiency, a temple to consumerism. In this life, the lie we’re told over and over again is that we’re worth what we contribute to the economy, we’re worth what we can buy or sell. ( I’m convinced that’s one of the primary struggles with aging. The world insists we’re only worth what we can produce or consume, and as we can’t do that anymore, the world decides we’re not worth the trouble anymore and leaves us holding a broken promise....