Ed Moore: Advent, baptism and blow-dryers
The cult of consumption requires more than the occasional Advent sermon cautioning against “losing the real meaning of the season.” What if Advent became a season of baptismal renewal?
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Resources for Advent and Christmas
Begin your preparations for Advent and Christmas with resources from Faith & Leadership. These sermons, essays and stories invite you into the wonder, challenge and messiness of a season of waiting and then a season of light and joy.
Laura Everett: When heaven tastes like Jell-O salad
All Souls is the respect we pay to the dead and the reminder of life to us who still mourn, says the executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches in a homily for All Souls Requiem.
Laura Stern: The church in summer -- the whistling, fluid body of Christ
Spellbound by a hymn-whistling tourist, an island pastor learns that even in the malaise of summer, God gives every church all the gifts and graces it needs.
Cheryl M. Lawrence: Pentecost and the biker church
A pastor finds that the Holy Spirit descends upon her -- on the back of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
C. Kavin Rowe: Why Easter needs Christmas
Remembering the story of Emmanuel at Easter helps us to remember that the way God chose to save was a way with us, writes the New Testament scholar.
Lisa G. Fischbeck: Liturgy in the public square
A North Carolina congregation takes Palm Sunday and Good Friday outdoors and discovers how it feels to publicly claim their identity as Christians.
Jim Harnish: Who needs a savior?
In this Easter sermon, the senior pastor of Hyde Park UMC says that the unfinished ending of Mark’s Gospel reminds us that Easter is not just the remembrance of something in the past. It is the good news that the risen savior is alive and is on the road ahead of us.
Rebirth of an urban church
Today, Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa is a growing, missional church -- but it wasn’t always that way. Under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Jim Harnish, the congregation has pursued its vision in serving the community.
Laura Stern: Life, against a backdrop of death
The historic cemeteries on the North Carolina island of Ocracoke prompt a pastor to consider the darkness of Lent.