Presby-Musings

This week we'll be concluding the sermon series "The Elijah Chronicles," a series where we re-imagined the story of the prophet Elijah as though it were set in a post-apocalyptic future.  The world is desolate in our story.  There is an evil king, a military dictator if you will, who is persecuting those who worship God and advocating the worship of idols instead.  There is a remnant, a small group that refuses to give in---the Resistance. When we last saw Elijah, he had just experienced the most incredible victory of his life---the defeat of the prophets of Baal, the false god that the wicked king Ahab and his detestable wife Jezebel were forcing the people of Israel to worship.  God had sent fire from heaven to demonstrate his power, and his continued relationship with the Hebrew people , and the story ended with the people crying out "The Lord is God!" before executing all the evil prophets of Baal.  It was a huge win for the Resistance, and for Eli

I was reading some minister's sunny blog post the other day about how the Presbyterian Church (USA) wasn't really  dying, and that all of the other mainline denominations like the Episcopals , Methodists , Lutherans , etc. weren't really dying either. The gist of the post essentially came down to this: it depends on what you mean  when you say that mainline denominations are dying.  If by dying you mean that they are dwindling in number, closing churches , losing congregations to other denominations, not attracting young people/families/younger ministers, and becoming increasingly political and divisive---that's not really dying.  But if you mean dying to orthodoxy, creeds, biblical authority, Christocentric theology and the like---then yes, they are dying.  Which, in this sunny author's view, was not really  dying, but living. Huh? Here's what I would like to offer as a rebuttal: Hogwash. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if there are

This week we are continuing our sermon series entitled, The Elijah Chronicles, a re-imagining of the story of Elijah, set in a post-apocalyptic future.  If you missed out on the first chapter, you can go back and read it HERE.  Or you can watch the whole service on our Livestream recording HERE. The Resistance continues, brothers and sisters...  But this week we aren't going to just sit idly by and wait---this week we are going to strike a blow against tyranny and idolatry!  The story that we are going to be exploring in this second installment of our series centers on an epic battle between Elijah and the false prophets of the ancient god Baal , a battle that would ultimately begin to turn the tide against the evil king Ahab and his wicked queen Jezebel... The people of God had forgotten who they were.  Elijah helped them to remember.  And he kicked some serious... you know... in the process. More on that in a moment. Have you ever had one of those moments when you d

This week I'll be starting a new sermon series at my church---a three part series from the stories of Elijah from 1Kings entitled, "The Elijah Chronicles."  We will be re-imagining this story as if it was set in an apocalyptic future, inspired by films like "Book of Eli," "I Am Legend," and comics like "Judge Dredd" or "The Walking Dead."   The story of Elijah is very cinematic, actually.  "In a time of desolation... when the people of God had forgotten who they were... a prophet walked in from the wilderness and helped them to remember."  You can almost picture that, right? Take a look at the graphic above, and you can actually... picture it.   The setting of Elijah's story is in the northern part of the divided kingdom of Israel.  In the end, God's prophecy to King Solomon came true---because he turned away from worshipping God alone, his kingdom was torn from his family and divided.  In the time of

This week we'll be concluding the sermon series, "The Smartest Man in the Room: Lessons From the Life of Solomon."  It's been an interesting ride these past few weeks as we have drawn our inspiration for this sermon series from an unlikely source:  The Emmy Award winning television show, "Mad Men." Like the character of Don Draper from "Mad Men," Solomon had a problem with self-indulgence.  He denied himself nothing, and then soon realized that when you constantly deny yourself nothing, you end up with nothing. Solomon seemed like he had everything, though. Solomon had 700 "princess wives" and 300 concubines at his disposal.  The princess wives were the by-product of alliances with other tribes, nations and kings.  Their purpose was to strengthen his position in the world and produce children to spread his legacy.  The concubines were for... other reasons.  Even his drinking glasses were priceless. Mine are mix and matchers f

This week I am continuing the sermon series that we started last week entitled, "Smartest Man In The Room: Lessons from the Life of Solomon." As we established last week, this sermon series draws it's inspiration from the award-winning television show, Mad Men---particularly the character of Don Draper, who has a lot in common with Solomon himself.  If you would like to read more about how we made this connection, click HERE . Solomon was a man for all seasons.  A renaissance man before there was a Renaissance.  His thirst for knowledge was insatiable.  He is credited with writing 3,000 proverbs, which became the source of a great deal of wisdom in the Hebrew tradition for generations to follow him.  It is believed that he wrote 1,005 songs and poems.  The guy knew everything and had everything.  We're going to find out just how much in a little while when we read from the Biblical story of his life. But he forgot the one thing that he should have remembered.