Love Not Fear

[ Th e title of the sermon was intentional ly chosen to look like a Big Bang Theory episo de title.] The Clothing Catastrophe Preached at Northminster Presbyterian Church on February 7, 2016 Text: Matthew 21:45 - 22:15 Well, one thing to learn from this story is this: If you receive a wedding invitation, you should NOT kidnap, torture, and straight-up murder the mail man. Such conduct is… frowned upon. I think there's more to find in this text, but you gotta start somewhere. Did you ever wonder, though, why these people would react so violently to an invitation to a lavish feast? Last summer, I got to attend a conference of something called 1001 New Worshipping Communities . (The only way you would not already know that is if we hadn’t spoken much in the last six months.) 1001 is a movement in the Presbyterian church to try to find ways to reach outsiders, outliers, and misfits, and bring them into, well, new worshipping communities. 1001 is not a cookbook ...

My Preconceptions Recently, I spent a week at a conference called Pursued by Grace as a representative of the Presbytery of South Louisiana (PSL).  The conference was part of a Presbyterian Church (USA) initiative called 1001 New Worshipping Communities , which I’ll just call 1001 NWC from here on. I told people before leaving that, at that time, I really had only vague ideas about what 1001 NWC was or how PSL would fit in, or what I was doing there. My pastor, Rev. Peggy Brown, had recommended me, and PSL agreed to send me. Peggy said she thought my interest in new and creative means of worshiping and serving God would make me a good fit. After some discussions with Rev. John Blewitt, who leads the PSL Congregational Development Committee, I got the idea that PSL had spent so much time and energy recuperating from the hurricanes Katrina and Rita a decade ago, that we had at least somewhat neglected doing new things, and founding new churches, and he thought 1001 ...