This week, we have the excitement of Water Day after church (sprinklers/slip and slide/Kona Ice!!) and all are welcome.

We also are entering into a new sermon series: How to be Blessed: The Beatitudes
Who among us does not want our lives to be happy and blessed? We receive all kinds of advice from our world about how to achieve exactly that, and yet we find that much of it falls short. Jesus has different ideas of what it means to be blessed, and we find those in His Beatitudes. We are going to spend time with each one of His sayings on blessing found in Matthew 5 and consider other places in scripture that affirm the same sources of blessing for us.

This week, we enter into this list of upside down blessings with one that ties them all together: “blessed are the poor in Spirit“. What does this mean? Can any of us relate to poverty in our affluent culture? What does poverty in spirit look like when we have everything that we need? Where do we feel like perhaps we do not have enough or are not enough as people? How in the world does this make us blessed?

Link to readable sermon PDF

This Sunday is a special one because members of our youth group are away on their annual mission trip in Baltimore with Pastor Jessie and other adult COA members (pray for them please), and this means that we are blessed with a guest preacher. Helen Kelly, who has been a member and lay leader in this church for 35 years, will be delivering the message. Her sermon will focus on the following (her words):

In my message, I will be talking about how God doesn’t give us (or prevent) trials and tribulations, but that He is there to support us and give us tools to help us cope. We have all these issues, but we do need to keep them in perspective within God’s whole world and His actions. Action, Faith and Prayers are tools we can use that can help solve problems and manage our own mental health.

This is the final week of our Dr. Seuss summer sermon series, and this week we come to Christmas in July! 🙂

We will be examining another of Seuss’ most popular stories of The Grinch. This book has been recast as two feature films, broadway musicals, and of course the wildly popular television special aired every single year. Something about this story captures our imagination, but in what ways might it connect to our faith journey? In what ways are we called to respond to those who would be Grinches in our world? And in what ways are we like the Grinch ourselves? What areas of life do we push away and close our hearts towards? In what ways are we missing the point of what is really going on (i.e. what Christmas was all about)? Where is joy awaiting us if we allow ourselves to risk it?

This Sunday will also include our Communion Sunday– an apt week to feast together at the Lord’s Table where absolutely all are welcome! (rescheduled from 7/3 due to Pastor Jessie’s Covid)

Link to readable sermon PDF

This week, we dive into one of the Seuss stories with the most pointed moral: Seuss himself said The Lorax was “pure propaganda” in service to the environmental protection movement. It was published just before the very first official Earth Day, and presents a powerful image of what happens (even beyond climate change) when we allow our human ambition and greed to outweigh our call to follow Jesus in service to others in our world. We will explore the multiple messages of this story, and its challenge to us about what really is ENOUGH. We will consider the ways that perhaps we are called to greater simplicity; for the sake of the earth and for the sake of our own spiritual journey as well!

Please do not forget to check out the sermon series webpage for resources on diverse supplements and alternatives to Seuss that teach similar lessons. We are blessed in this day and age with a plurality of voices on these topics.

Link to readable sermon PDF

This week, we move into one of my personal favorite Dr. Seuss tales: The Sneetches. This short story presents two groups who are identical except for one little thing: stars on their bellies (or not). And this little thing is something they manage to turn into a massive dividing line between who is in and out; a measurement of who counts and who doesn’t; a judgment of who is good and who is bad. And don’t we do the same thing in society now more than ever? Our division and polarization are at an all-time high in America, and just like Sylvester McMonkey McBean who swoops in and makes money off the Sneetches’ infighting, we have no shortage of people in our world who will capitalize on all our division. Yet it discourages us and makes us all worse as people. It is not God’s will for us. So what can we do to stop caring about those darn stars? Where are some points of connection? Join us in the conversation.

And don’t forget that on the main sermon series webpage, there are links to wonderful lists of diverse children’s authors offering supplements or alternatives to all these great Dr. Seuss lessons. They are really worth checking out!

Link to readable sermon PDF