The Trouble with God

Douglas Adams, in one of his hilarious books, remarked, "Who is this God person, anyway". Good question, that. English forces us into using nouns to talk about anything, and thus obscures the essential wisdom that God is not a thing, so the use of a noun as God's "name" misleads. When Moses inquired, he was told that God was Who I Will Be, or Who I AM. God is the way things are, and we would do well to pay attention when this God person tells us how to live well within His Creation. He knows more about it than we do. Come join the Congregation of Community Presbyterian of Bellefonte, KY for this week's sermon, The Trouble With God by clicking on the blue text.

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.

Imagining a Convenient God

If I try to imagine God, the image I most often come up with is a grandfatherly sort, wearing white robes, and seated on a throne. However agreeable such an image is, that is not God. That is how I imagine God to be. It's an idol, and can cause real problems as we carry on our lives as Christians. The one, true God isn't limited by my imagination. God's name is "I am who I will be". God is the force that supports us all, limits and directs our lives, and it is God who grants the gift of faith. Sometimes we forget that, and start to think that faith is a human accomplishment, or that God grants faith to us because we are superior people. Stuff and nonsense.

Join the Congregation of Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte as we look into Paul's letter to his church at Corinth for some guidance about these matters in our sermon, "Imagining a Convenient God".

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.

God's Eyeglasses

Our assumptions about "the way things are" are called our "myth". That's unfortunate, because modern people hear the word "myth" and think "fairy tale". Our myth, though, is a highly useful set of assumptions that tell us things like the height of a stairstep, or where the doorknob is located, and even what God wishes from us. The problem with assumptions is that they are like eyeglasses -- we look through them without being aware that they are coloring our perceptions of the world.

I've always thought that God is less interested in "grading our behavior" than He is with assuring that we see His creation and His presence within it clearly. From that perspective, perhaps the Beatitudes are the world as seen through God's Eyeglasses. Come join the congregation of Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky for this week's sermon from Micah and Matthew, called "God's Eyeglasses" by clicking on the blue text.

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.

Disruption in the Cheap Seats

When my dad wrote prayers for church, they were full of "thees" and "thous" and he stuck "st" and "th" at the end of vowels, as if he thought God only understood Elizabethan English. I think it was his way of keeping God at a respectful distance. I don't know that this is the message of Matthew 4 at all when Matthew tells us of the call of the first four disciples. It looks to me as if God seeks us out way back in the cheap seats, where we actually live. Join the Congregation of Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Ky for this week's sermon, Disruption in the Cheap Seats by clicking any of the blue text.

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.

Come and See

In John's Gospel we get a story of two of John the Baptist's disciples meeting Jesus. When they ask where he is staying, Jesus answers, cryptically, "Come and See". Whatever they saw energized them. Would they see the same thing in a contemporary church? Join the congregation of Community Presbyterian Church by clicking on any blue text for this week's sermon from John 1, "Come and See".

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.

Meeting in the Water

The story of the baptism of Jesus by John is recounted in all three Synoptic Gospels and referred to in the Gospel of John. That sounds as if it is an important story, but what does it mean to say that Jesus was baptised? We think of baptism as a way to "wash away sins" or as a symbolic act of obedience, but we also are taught that Jesus was without sin, and was God Incarnate. Do either of these explanations help us to understand what it means to say that Jesus was baptised? What important lesson is contained in this pericope such that it appears in all the Gospels? Come join the joint congregations of the Chapel of St. Starbuck's and Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte Kentucky for our sermon this week from Matthew's Gospel, "Meeting in the Water" by clicking on any blue text.

Epiphany

January 6 marks Epiphany in the church calendar. It's the date we celebrate the arrival of the Three Kings -- the time when the world at large became aware of the birth of Jesus. Contrary to the nativity set on top of your TV, this did not happen on Christmas Eve, but probably two years later. We've mushed the two celebrations of Christmas and Epiphany together and robbed Epiphany of its dignity. We need to get over that and reclaim it.

So..what does the word "Epiphany" mean? We'll talk about that in today's sermon, from Matthew's account of the visit of the Magi. Join the congregation of Community Presbyterian Church for this week's sermon, Epiphany, by clicking on any of the blue text HERE.

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.