Overview

"The book is a collection of twenty-three sermons from the period of February through August, 2020. Each sermon is preceded - and thereby situated in the congregation - by that Sunday's greeting and, after the church moved to online-only worship due to the outbreak of COVID-19, by the day's ""announcements."" The author considers his preaching style to be more irenic than competitive in spirit. If, though, there is homiletic competition going on in what he is doing here, it is, he says, with preachers (and with himself when he numbers among them) who are bent as preachers on being conservative or evangelical or liberal or progressive or idiosyncratic or entertaining or otherwise situated above the word that preachers as preachers must strive to submit to and serve. He intends his sermons as exercises in openness for the truth of God's word - which word the church is ever on the verge of losing touch with and needing to learn anew to hear and heed. The sermons are neither feel-good nor finger-pointing. They are neither prosperity-promoting nor therapeutically oriented. They are not even an attempt to make the church sound relevant to the issues of the day. Rather, they simply aim at openness to the truth that sets us free for and in and through the faith and courage that Christ came bringing."

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9781662907999

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The author is a minister member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), serving, since 2008, Pulaski Heights Presbyterian Church, Little Rock, Arkansas. A borderline Luddite, he is ill at ease in the world of video worship services, though that is the world he himself stepped out into in the course of these sermons, when, due to the outbreak of COVID-19, his congregation moved from in-person to online-only worship. The sermons, however, are not about the world of video worship services, nor are they about COVID-19. They are about striving to proclaim God's word in human words that will invite understanding and renewal in the church.The author's congregation is small, elderly, and largely appreciative of serious sermonic wrestling with theological truth. In their visitor brochure, they describe themselves thusly: We are followers of Jesus Christ, striving together to serve the future ruled by the truth and grace of God. In the power of the Holy Spirit, we seek not to be conformed to the world as it is, but to let our lives and world be transformed by the gospel Christ came bringing.Here in Little Rock's Hillcrest Community, we seek to be a center of worship, theological learning, generosity, and courage, where hearts are lifted, minds stretched, and wills moved by the guidance and grace that God has spoken and speaks into the world through the life and mission of Jesus.We see inclusiveness, the loving embrace of one another in and amidst our differences, as a visible sign of the new humanity that God is calling into being.

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