Sermon Archives

March 22, 2015

Getting Ready to Die

I once knew a man who did not die well. This man had a terminal illness, but instead of admitting to himself and others that he was going to die, he acted like he was going to live for decades to come. For example, he left the apartment he had been renting and went out […]

March 15, 2015

Responding to Loss

It is hard to know what to do with loss, whether the loss is our own, or someone else’s. We can feel overwhelmed by loss, and overwhelmed by the cumulative effect of loss. We can respond to loss in a variety of ways; we can become bitter about how life has treated us, or entrenched […]

March 1, 2015

Grieving Well

On November 11, 1971, my grandmother was killed in a traffic accident. At dusk that evening, she was driving a tractor with a wagon attached behind the tractor. A drunken man, traveling about 60 miles an hour in a zone marked for 40 miles an hour, crashed his car into the back of her wagon. […]

February 22, 2015

The Ritual of Remembering: Funerals and Memorial Services

Today we begin the season of Lent, and we also begin a worship series on the rituals of loss and remembrance; a series on death and dying. You might be asking: Why a death and dying series for Lent? There are a number of reasons we are doing this. One reason for this series is […]

February 8, 2015

On the Way

One Sunday a few years ago when I was on vacation, I visited another congregation here in Goshen. The congregation I visited was in the middle of a summer series on faith stories where each Sunday a different person from the congregation told their own faith history. On the Sunday of my visit, the person […]

February 1, 2015

Questions about Membership

Today Marilyn and I begin a series of three sermons on the topic of church membership and belonging. We’re doing this series with the encouragement of Berkey’s Spiritual Leadership Team, which is a group of five elders who work with our congregation’s mission, vision, and pastoral staff. Last fall the Spiritual Leadership Team, or SLT […]

January 25, 2015

Singleness and the Church

If you’re on Facebook you know how it works – you find something interesting – an article, a picture, whatever -­‐ and you share it on your wall for your friends to see. A little over a year ago I read a blog post by Christena Cleveland entitled “Singled Out: How Churches Can Embrace Unmarried […]

January 18, 2015

Praying that We May be One

Today we are observing Mennonite World Conference Sunday. The worldwide movement of Mennonites is extremely diverse, with 243 national groups of churches around the globe. This diversity of Mennonites also holds true in Canada and the U.S. where there are a total of 42 distinct Mennonite groups. The Mennonite Church USA to which we belong […]

January 11, 2015

Location, Location, Location

Location, location, location. If you are in the market for a place to live, that is the song of the realtors. That has certainly been a factor for us both times we’ve bought a house. Thinking about work and school, and the proximity of those to where we lived was, and is, really important. Of […]

January 4, 2015

The Refugee

I’d like you to meet Rose Kingston. Rose Kingston lives in New York City, but that’s not where she was born. In fact, Rose was not born anywhere in the United States. She was born in Monrovia, Liberia, where she and her family once lived comfortably and safely. Rose’s mother worked as a secretary in […]

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