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The Commons

A preaching blog with ideas and for interactive story sermon writing and image exegesis by Len Sweet.

Here, you can comment on any post to discuss its meaning and share your thoughts.

Astronauts

Two astronauts were preparing for a trip to the moon. They were sent to test out some lunar procedures on a Navajo reservation in Arizona because the terrain there was similar to the surface of the moon. During the course of the practice exercises, the Navajo chief arranged to meet…

Making Belief

Shakespeare scholar and author William F. Zak, who has taught for many years at Salisbury State University (Maryland), reflects in a convocation address to students given many years ago on the what goes on in the four years of college. I just ran across this, but the words are as…

Liturgical Bookends

Call to Worship: God is . . . So high, can’t get over HimGod is . . . So low, can’t get under HimGod is . . . So wide, can’t get ‘round HimGotta go in through the door. —African-American spiritual Benediction: Dance, dance, wherever you may beFor ‘I am…

Heart Worship

Maybe we aren’t hearing Jesus speak because we’re not serious about hearing Jesus speak, just going through the motions. “A man went to church with an angel as his guide. Every seat in the church was filled, but there was something strange about the service. The organist moved her fingers…

Goethe and Disney

All ideas come from someplace else. Take “Fantasia.” “Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) wrote about an apprentice who copied a sorcerer’s spell, but didn’t quite get it right. Using the spell, he charged his broom to replace him in the drudgeries of apprenticeship, including the task of carrying water. Things got out…

Take In The Stranger

While Henry Ford was on vacation in Dublin, Ireland, three priests asked him to make contributions to their new orphanage. Ford was receptive and wrote a check for 2000 pounds. The next day the headline in the small town newspaper announced that Ford had given 20,000 pounds. The priests hurried…

“Does Life Make Any Sense?”

“Does My Life Make Any Sense” I am haunted by a newspaper story. It told of a young secretary who, one day during her lunch hour, climbed out on the edge of the building in which she was working and announced her intentions to jump. Life, at least hers, had…

“You’re Sick!”

A man complained about his wife who he believed had never changed the toilet tissue roll since they had been married. He got so mad that he started writing the date and time on every cardboard cylinder he changed. One day he had had enough and in his frustration he…

Reset Clock on 01 November 2015

Time Resets on Sunday 01 November 2015. Want a creative idea for doing this as a community? A Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas handles the spring-forward, fall-back time change problem in a way that doesn’t inconvenience non-church attenders. This church doesn’t change anything until everyone is at church in the…

United but NOT Uniform

“From the outside, church congregations can look like remarkably contentious places, full of hypocrites who talk about love while fighting each other tooth and nail. This is the reason many people give for avoiding them. On the inside, however, it is a different matter, a matter of struggling to maintain…

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