Lamentations 4:1-6 November 17, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC If you ever go with me to Israel (which won’t happen again until they stop shooting at each other), you should be prepared to look at a lot of rocks. That sounds exciting, huh? It’s just that when we visit the Holy Land, there are two choices for the trip. You can visit a lot of beautiful churches that have been built over the centuries to commemorate Biblical events. Or you can go to the actual sites and see where things most likely happened, what has been uncovered and learn a bit about how people lived in those days. You can probably guess which trip I do, and I do it because I love archaeology. I love trying to understand the past and especially envisioning how different life was then than it is now. I have found that walking in the actual places gives a breadth and depth to the Biblical story that you just can’t get any other way. One of the places we go on that journey is the excavation outside the walls of the Templ...
Matthew 22:34-40 August 4, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC It is no secret that we live in a fractured world. We live in a contentious world. We live in a world where people in Barcelona, Spain spent an afternoon throwing things at and yelling at tourists to go home because they didn’t want “them” in their city. It is an “us vs. them” world, and no part of life seems untouched by our divisiveness. We live in a nation where this upcoming election threatens to tear at the very fabric of who we are, and we’ve already lived through at least a decade now where politics and opinions have torn families, relationships, communities and even churches apart. We’ve had people leave here because of what they think my politics are, or what they believe the church’s politics are, or what they fear the church’s politics might become. We live in a fractured world. We live in a fractured church. The United Methodist Church continues to live in the shadow and the aftermath of that word we had never hea...
“Invitations” Sermon Study Guide for June 30, 2024 Downloadable Version Scripture: Matthew 22:1-14 1. A Party Parable The audience: The players in the story: The invitation(s): Matthew 23:37-38 - kill the prophets 2. The Shabby Guest provision of clothing punishment Bottom Line: ________________________________ 3. Wearing the Right Clothing John 1:14 - grace and truth Questions to Discuss or Ponder: What does it mean to you to be invited to an event? What’s the most exciting or impressive invitation you’ve ever received? Why does Jesus conflict with the Jewish religious leaders so often? Why does he aim his teaching at them during this final week? If you were the king, having your invitation soundly (and violently) rejected, how would you feel? How would you respond? Why do you think proper attire for the wedding feast was so important? What does the “shabby guest” represent in the parable? What “clothing” does Jesus long to give us? How are you seeing that “cloth...
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