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Sermon: Marks of a Relevant Church–Puncture Holes in the Despair of Our Age

October 10, 2012 by Chad Herring 1 Comment

Southminster Sermon: Puncture Holes in the Despair of Our Age from Chad Herring on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church of Prairie Village, Kansas. October 7, 2012. The fifth of a six week sermon series on The Marks of a Relevant Church.

Psalm 42
and Romans 8:18-28

* * *
Every so often, I find myself CONVICTED by a facebook post.

I know many of you don’t even use facebook, and that’s all right.

But for many of us, it is the water cooler of our age,

the place where we talk about

the party we went to last night

where we share pictures of our children’s successes and foibles

or sneak in a political one-liner, wish others happy birthday,

and laugh at a silly graphic or two.

 Ok, true, there is so much fluff there most of the time

that this may not happen to you at all.

 You might simply have a timeline full of lines like:

Dad wants blackberry cobbler instead of birthday cake!

or

hi ho, hi ho, its off to work I go.

or even a trite:

 If God brings you to it, he will bring you through it….

 

I admit, sometimes I scan through it so quickly

that I don’t really pay much attention.

I mean, I like blackberry cobbler as much as the next guy,

but I’m not invited to her dad’s party

so it doesn’t matter all that much to me, does it?

 

But every so often, I read a post that causes me to STOP and PONDER

if only for a minute.

This week, that post, from my friend Mark, said this:

What keeps me sane, in all this mess,

is the recognition that what we are really called to do

is puncture holes in the despair of this age.

[Read more…]

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Filed Under: bible, church life, sermon Tagged With: church, despair, hope

Chad Andrew Herring

Chad Herring

kairos :: creature of dust :: child of God :: husband of 19 years :: father of 2 :: teaching elder/minister of word and sacrament in the presbyterian church (u.s.a.) :: exploring a progressive-reformed – emergent-christianity :: more

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