The Last 4 Sermons Are Up!

Okay, so if you've been depressed about not being up-to-date in our series on the 10 Commandments, fret no more!

We had a minor issue with the 7th Commandment which kept us from posting the others (since we wanted to keep them in order). That minor issue had to do with not being able to find it... therefore, I attempted to re-preach it. The problem with re-recording that night was that the last part of the sermon was largely shaped through the thoughtful and insightful discussion that the various table groups had and offered to the larger worshiping group. There was no way to re-create that... Therefore, you will not hear Meagan say the words "anal sex" in the context of worship. Sorry. Do not despair. I tried to say "genitals" a few more times, just to make up for it. :)

Listen on iTunes

Listen on PodOmatic

The 7th Word: Sex and Marriage and Spirituality

The 8th Word: Stop Stealing

The 9th Word: Can You Handle the Truth? - The Jesus Way is the way of truth-telling. We have been invited into a new way of getting on in the world. The truthfulness of God refuses to allow us to continue living in self-deceit and unconfessed sin, or with dehumanizing and dishonest speech toward our neighbors. God created us to Live the Truth. The Truth needs a Truth-Telling Covenant Community in which find its home.

The 10th Word: Your Heart Desires - What a perfect bookend to the 10 Commandments. God's strong desire is that we would desire Him with all of our desire. This final Word names some of those desires that creep into our hearts and minds, begging for us to pursue them. These misplaced desires separate us from God and they separate us from our neighbor. Before we know it we have everything our heart desires, but we've lost our soul.

Reality and Truth: Is There a Difference?

Quiet week on the blog... Was the Ninth Word that straight forward?  :)


I came across an interesting distinction in a book that I was reading this morning.  Marva Dawn references a French dude, Jacques Ellul (could the guy's name be any more French?), who describes a difference between reality and truth.*

She says that reality is what we see on the surface.  Truth is what is really going on in a certain situation.

Dawn, then uses this example: The reality is that our world is full of economic chaos and political craziness; the truth is that Jesus Christ is still Lord of the cosmos and everything. 

So the question for us becomes, do we organize our finances and our hopes for the future around the "reality" of what is around us?  Or do our lives, economics, and hopes for the world rest in and reflect the TRUTH that Jesus Christ is Lord of all? 

Is this distinction between reality and truth helpful
?  How do you see it played out in your life? 

How do we orient our lives around what is true?

Feel free one and all to jump into the mix... hopefully, this is the place each week where we can begin to see how God's words might take on flesh in our lives.

*Marva Dawn with Eugene Peterson in "The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call."