Sweet Spots
Ideas and messages from Len Sweet.
Here, you can comment on any post to participate in the discussion.
The Shepherd’s Staff
Here is a great Christmas Eve sermon idea (or any time idea): hand out everyone a candy cane. Then build the sermon around the image of the “cane” as a shepherd’s staff: “thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23). There is a big difference between a shepherd’s…
Almighty Love
“And now God says to us what God has already said to the earth as a whole through his grace-filled birth: ‘I am there. I am with you. I am your life. I am your time. I am the gloom of your daily routine—-I am your joy. Do not be…
God With Us
During the fourteenth century the greatest pestilence swept through Europe that has ever been recorded in history. It was called *’The Black Death,” and claimed its victims by hundreds of thousands, in every country of the old world. In that dreadful epoch men sought to save their lives by isolation.…
Christmas
One of my most cherished mentors, Luther Ridgeway, preached the same sermon every Christmas Eve. I first heard it in the late 70s. But he first preached it on 25 December 1961, at Williamsville United Methodist Church in western New York. The sermon is entitled “No Time For A Sermon,”…
What Kind of Sheep Are You?
What Kind of Sheep Are You? Story Lectionary 20 December 2015 Fourth Sunday in the Advent of our Lord *Genesis 4 (The Story of Cain and Abel) Genesis 22 (The Story of Abraham and Isaac) Genesis 35 (Jacob is named Israel and Rachel is buried in Bethlehem Ephrath) David, the…
Back to Basics
A man was bothered with continual ringing in his ears (tinnitus), bulging eyes, and a flushed face. Over a period of three years he went to doctor after doctor. One took out his tonsils, one removed his appendix, another pulled out all his teeth. Nothing seemed to help. He still…
Hospitality
Everyone is celebrating the Sinatra centennial. Here is a story you might be able to weave into one of your sermons. Sinatra was famous for a mercurial temperament. “Yet it would have been unwise for anyone to anticipate his reaction, for he is a wholly unpredictable man of many moods…
Broken Hearts
Canadian author Margaret Terry made this her New Year’s Facebook Greeting for 2014. It would make a great Christmas eve meditation, or something to use when you only have a few minutes to convey the good news: “The first year I made Chocolate Hearts, Patrick was six years old. When…
The Christmas Story and Why I Love It
The Christmas Story and Why I Love It Lectionary 20 December 2015 Fourth Sunday in Advent Micah 5:2-5a Luke 1:47-55 Hebrews 10:5-10 Luke 1:39-45 Text to Life [There are a bunch of sermons here. You can, of course, preach the whole thing, which is dynamite. Or can you divvy up…
Pastor’s Prayer for 20 December 2015
I am no longer my own but yours,
Put me to what you will
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal
And now glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
You are mine and I am yours. So be it.
And this covenant now made on earth, let it be satisfied in heaven.
Amen
Covenant Prayer, John Wesley