https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-yjrhc-fbe318
Genesis 15
We know Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but how did that actually work? For one thing, He fulfilled the terms of the covenant with Abraham.
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Pastor Jenn
In Spirit and In Truth: Thy Kingdom Come
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-u6baj-fae9ec
John 17
The greatest evil that could befall the Church–and consequently the world–is for God’s people to become disunited from the Trinity and then from each other.
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Pastor Jenn
In Spirit and In Truth: What Do We Get Out of This?
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-cyuiw-fa3d71
John 4:35-42
Where Spirit-and-Truth worship occurs, mission and our fulfillment inevitably follow.
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Pastor Jenn
In Spirit and In Truth: What God Gets Out of It
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-359z4-f91c2a
John 4:25-38
Is it possible that this story is showing us that Jesus–that God Himself–has longings deeper than His incarnate physical needs, too?
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Pastor Jenn
In Spirit and in Truth: Union
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-uc9fe-f876ac
John 4:16-26
“A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth…” Finally we get to talk about what our theme verse means!
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Pastor Jenn
Thank you for joining us in “remote worship” today. You may continue to worship and learn with us throughout the week as well, through
Morning Quiet (Tuesdays at 9AM on zoom)
Prayer on the Spot (Thursdays at 2PM on Facebook),
Tithes and offerings, which may be offered by sending a check to Central Baptist Church, PO Box 886, Southbridge, MA 01550, or online at cbcsouthbridge.org
In Spirit & In Truth: It IS About You
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fcb42-f80882
John 4:10-18
God is the only one worthy of our worship… Worship benefits us because it is in our nature to worship. It is why we exist. The most true-to-ourselves, human thing we can do is worship. But, because that’s true, we are liable to worship anything.
True worship? False worship? What difference does it make?
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Pastor Jenn
In Spirit & In Truth: It’s Not About You
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-qju6r-f72e1d
John 4:1-9
When God is so worthy, He humbles Himself to ask you for something…
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Pastor Jenn
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Today in Adventures in Glitchy Technology, the livestream cut out about halfway through the sermon and even though the beginning and the end were recorded, the middle third was lost. I tried to “re-preach” that part and insert it, but if there are some “idea breaks,” that, in this case, is why. Pray for us!
(Seriously. Pray for us. None of the stuff that happens every single week is anything we can ever plan for. Our tech team shows up an hour early to make sure last week’s issue doesn’t happen again…and then something else does.)
Additional Dunce
If you knew me at the turn of the millennium, or were reading this blog when I was still writing it, back around 2014 or so, you may remember that shortly after 9/11/2001, there was an anthrax scare in the US Postal Service to which I unwittingly contributed. (I did not contribute anthrax, which was genuinely circulating, but I did contribute to the scare in some limited, but maybe less limited than you would think, way.) It was the fault of my getting over-creative with my handmade Christmas cards.
It has happened again, folks.
I have made handmade Christmas cards since 2001, but have not affixed anything remotely three-dimensional on the front of them…until this year. I’m not sure why I thought 2020 would be the year to revive the art form; I think I was merely thinking about how my mailing list friends, family, and Pilgrimage Outfitters deserved a card with a bit more effort and personal touch in a year like this.
So I made folded-paper angels. Lots and lots of them. Out of pages of an old beat-up hymnal that had been my grandmother’s. Then I stuck them on cards, added in a double-newsletter, and, like Noah’s birds or something, put sixty of them in the mail.
Then they started winging their way back here. But not all of them.
The ones that came back had been stamped with a very specific stamp declaring that they were “non-machineable” and required an additional $0.45 postage, each. They all seemed to be returning from somewhere roughly in my own vicinity, which made me suspicious that there was just one curmudgeonly (or very new) postal worker who was in danger of “going postal” (is that even a phrase anymore?), was annoyed by the rather thicker-than-usual envelopes, and was sending them back out of spite.
But, I didn’t know this for sure, did I? I could take a chance and throw the other 300 in the mail without additional postage and hope most of them would make it–because some of them had. But then what if I got flooded with most of them back? Plus, like the birthday candles all those years ago, some of them were coming back a bit smushed.
So I loaded everything I had (including the returned cards) into a giant box, and hied myself off, mask on, to one of the larger City post offices. The young woman behind the counter weighed an envelope. “Well,” she said, “it’s not too heavy for just one stamp. But it is going to get stuck in the machines. You only need 15 cents each to cover it, though. Not an additional 45!”
“Well then,” I said, sort of disappointed (additional postage!) but also relieved (not 45 cents!), “Do you sell 15-cent stamps?”
“Yep,” she said, and counted out enough sheets for 300 more cards…plus a few more for the cards I was resending. I took the stamps back to the box in my car and began affixing them. I had not seen 15-cent stamps before. They were differently patriotic than regular generic US stamps–eight little faceless heads with excessively tall “Uncle Sam” hats. Underneath the faceless figures were the words, “Additional Dunce.”
Additional dunce? I asked myself.
I think it took about 15 minutes for me to realize that my eyes are older than even I realized and it said “Additional Ounce.” And then another 45 minutes for me to get all those additional stamps on the ready-to-go cards. I’m pretty sure I was the dunce in this scenario. I’m not sure we needed any additional ones.
Yearning for the Yet-to-Come
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-mqpjf-f601ad
Revelation 1:12-18, 21:1-5
Wait for it…
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Pastor Jenn
A God Who Speaks
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fc8sz-f585c0
2 Peter 3:1-2, 14-18
Old Testament? Jesus? New Testament? How we need the Spirit and the Word to hear God’s transforming voice.
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Pastor Jenn
