Our current worship series at The Well, “Sherlock’s Home: Observing God in the Everyday” is to point us toward finding God’s presence in what we typically might view as mundane, ordinary, and unimportant. Just yesterday I had the opportunity (some opportunity, right?) to mow our backyard. It is no secret that I love to do… Read more »
Posts By: Matt Rawle
In Response to ‘A Plea to my Centrist Friends’
“A Plea to my Centrist Friends,” posted on March 29, 2016, is a cry for those who rest in the center of the church’s debate on human sexuality to maintain the current United Methodist teachings on human sexuality found within the current United Methodist Book of Discipline. I believe the large umbrella of The… Read more »
Become the Water
After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. (John 19:28-29) “Louisiana,… Read more »
I Thirst
There once was a young boy playing football outside in the street all afternoon in the summertime heat. The streetlights, which stood as end-zone markers, began to glow as the sunlight faded, signaling that it was time to announce, “Next score wins!” to the rag-tag bunch of neighborhood friends. To say that the evening was… Read more »
Remembering a Mockingbird
Harper Lee never enjoyed being in the spotlight. It’s not because she shied away from telling a powerful story, but because it’s hard to be the focus of the spotlight while focusing the light itself. “To Kill a Mockingbird,” is more than the greatest American Novel; it is an unassuming vessel in which the Gospel… Read more »
This Isn’t About Money . . . sort of
Jesus tells the disciples a story about a man who will be going away on a journey near the end of his ministry (Matthew 25:14-30). This man shares his wealth with his servants before departing, offering them no explanation as to what they are supposed to do with this entrusted property. The amount of wealth… Read more »
Your 2016 Story
The Christmas season is in full swing (It’s twelve days, after all…) though it seems that the world has moved on. I saw King Cakes in Walmart yesterday, but eating a slice of its gooey, frosted goodness is just a sin before January 6th. Beginning this Sunday my congregation will begin a new worship series… Read more »
The Christmas Trinity
The nativity story is a play in three acts revealing to us God’s essence. In the first act Luke sets the story squarely in a real place and time. “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” Luke starts at the top with Caesar because in… Read more »
Lights Please…
The girls are home from school this week as we get ready for the Christmas holiday. As I started to write my Christmas Eve sermon I invited the girls to help me. I read them the Christmas story from Luke’s gospel, and I invited them to ask me questions about the story or to tell… Read more »
A Clever Genocide
13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Matthew 2:13 ‘The kingdom of… Read more »