Three Sermons from the Vault
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Hello all! I was wondering what I could come up with for you today that would be both edifying and encouraging, and I will admit I was coming up short (with the weather, I feel it is a sleepy kind of day).
But then, I remembered a conversation that I had with a pastor friend of mine a while back at the last EMC Ministerial Retreat. “What was your favourite sermon you have ever preached?” we asked each other. At the time, I don’t think I was able to answer him fully, but now after a few months of reflection, I think I have come up with something. And so, below you will find the answer to that question (or I suppose, the three answers to that question).
Now, a qualifier. By no means do I think these are the best sermon’s I have ever preached. I try my best not to think in those terms as I am personally prone to getting a big head if I spent too much time with that line of thought. So instead what these three sermons represent are simply my three favourite messages that I have preached since coming to MacGregor EMC. Ill make sure to include a write up as to why.
I hope you take the time to listen to them. If it helps, there are certainly a lot of gaffes and goofs for you to rib me for later!
February 2, 2018 - On Genealogies
Now, right from the beginning of this sermon, it is obvious why I am fond of it: I got to make Dakotah Guenther read a long list difficult to pronounce Bible names in front of the whole congregation! I kid you not, to this day Dakotah often makes sure to check with me in advance of reading to make sure I will not pull such a stunt again! That said though, I do honestly think she did a better job reading that list than I ever could of, and that isn’t just me saying things to be nice either. She is a pro!
Beyond this though, their are two other reasons this is one of my favourite sermons I have ever given. The first is because it is a topic that is often overlooked because it is a little dry. I am someone who greatly enjoys the challenge of struggling with God and a passage in order to come up with something accessible and while sometimes I definitely miss the mark, on this particular Sunday I think I got there in the end. The second reason this is one of my favourites (and this is likely the biggest one as well), is because this was the first sermon my parents were able to hear me preach in our church.
September 1, 2019 - On Debt
As many of you know, I worked in finance as an Accounting Assistant and a Student Finance Coordinator in a past life at Providence University College and Theological Seminary. While things like finance and business have always been interests of mine, Providence, being a wonderful Christian University College (Go Pilots!), gave me the tools needed to think of these topics not just in a secular way, but in a theological one as well.
Of the different sermons on this list, this is one that if I could amend and update what I have said in the past, I almost certainly would change some things. It is not so much that I think any of what I said was grievously wrong (hard to go wrong with “The Bible says ‘care for each other’”), but more that I do think it required a bit more nuance and explanation than what it got. Maybe doing just that will be a good project for another time.
Also, I reference a book in this sermon. Debt: The First 5000 Years, by David Graeber. I reiterate what I said that Sunday; an interesting read. Also, just as a correction, I believe I said something backward in the sermon. The Assyrians did not take over the Babylonians. It was the other way around.
Finally, a big thanks to Ron Sawatzky for reading the scripture that day.
March 1, 2020 - On the Temptation
This is the most recent entry on this list, being from 2020. But it makes the cut, largely for the same reason the first of these three sermons did; it let me take a subject that most people find kind of dry, and wrestle with it. In this case what that subject was, is narrative analysis (a term so boring that I don’t doubt your eyes glazed over just by me mentioning it). Sometimes it is the boring things in life that bear a decent amount of fruit, as I feel was the case with this sermon as it afforded me the opportunity to talk about how the way the story of Temptation of Christ is told makes it stick in our minds so that we will have it with us when we need it.
A big thanks goes out to Alan and Matthew Dyck for this one. Their reading of the scripture set the stage perfectly.
And so there you have it! My three favourite sermons that I have preached since coming to MEMC. A big thanks to pastor Kevin Wiebe, for that conversation we had last November that sparked this. As a way of returning the favour, everyone reading still should keep an out for Kevin’s upcoming book that is an extension to the work he did with POV.ology. I had the great opportunity of being one of the book’s alpha readers, and it is something to look forward to.
But now, before I go, I just want to say, to all of my friends at MacGregor EMC, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I have loved being your pastor, and getting to know you. I have loved it more than you will ever know. And that is saying something because I tell you that a lot! I truly look forward to seeing with you what God will do over the time to come.
