Who's On First?

The offices of vigils and lauds each morning at St. Starbuck's the Jittery have produced an interesting discussion: how do we imagine our relationship with God? Many people think of it as "God-active". In this model, God changes from loving father to uncompromising judge depending on our behavior. Others see the relationship as "people-active". We react to God's free gift of love, and God never changes. The French say that in every relationship, one is kissed, and the other kisses. Join us for today's sermon, Who's On First?

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.

Luke's World

To understand our relationship with God, we have to put it into a framework which we can relate to. The problem comes when we confuse the framework we constructed with God Himself and exclude people from God's Kingdom because they don't agree with us. Such a one was the Ethiopian Eunuch who came all the way to Jerusalem to worship, only to be turned away. I don't know who picked a story about a eunuch for Mother's Day, but we plays 'em where they lays. Join us for Luke's World at Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, the little church in a hole on a hill.

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.

Cleaning out the Barn

Somehow, the radical, passionate teaching of Jesus of Nazareth has been transformed to the 21st Century religion of complacency. Somehow, the thought that Jesus "did it all" has come to mean that we need do nothing at all. Somehow, Jesus' command, "If any would become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me." has become code language for passively bearing the aches and pains of age. If all that is so, who is left to do the work of the kingdom? Come see, and join us for Cleaning out the Barn

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.

Fishing for Peter

Peter is everybody's favorite disciple because he's such an entertaining doofus. He's easy to relate to because we're all, from time to time, entertaining doofuses, and Peter is our patron Saint. Somehow, though, Peter's meeting with the risen Christ changed him into the Apostle Peter, a completely different guy. You might say he was "born again", if that phrase hadn't been so badly co-opted and loaded up with 21st Century baggage. Come join us to find out what else can be fished up out of Peter.

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.

The Gospel of Thomas

"Doubting" Thomas is the poster child for one of little faith, but when the risen Lord visited them, the other disciples were huddled in a locked room in fear of the crowds. Where was Thomas? Thomas was out among them. Who's the one of little faith now?

Thomas shows us how a rational man can relate to the resurrection, and do so powerfully. Join us for "The Gospel of Thomas".

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.

Running from the Resurrection

In Mark's original telling of the story, the three women finding the empty tomb ran for fear and "said nothing to anyone". It is a devastating ending, and later hands added "the shorter ending of Mark" and "the longer ending of Mark". The followers of Jesus ran, not only from his crucifixion, but from his Resurrection as well.

Among 21st Century believers, it is enormously difficult to cling to something as preposterous as a dead man raised, and yet Paul, in his 54 c.e. letter to his church at Corinth, describes this one, irreducible event at a matter of "first importance". How do we hold onto the Resurrection as a fact in a modern world? Click HERE to join us for "Running from the Resurrection".

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.

The Best Part

At the crucifixion of Jesus, He was alone, abandoned by his disciples, by the crowds which had followed him, by everyone who saw Jesus only through the lens of their own needs and wishes. By doing so, they missed the best part -- the new covenant between God and His people

In the end, only a Roman Centurion got the best part. "Truly, this man was the Son of God". Click HERE to join us for "The Best Part".

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.
³⁷