My First Sermon at COPC

March 8, 2009

Calling All Non-Presbyterians

Do wet babies put you out of sorts? Do rapture gain-sayers get up your ire? Do you think that Calvin should be read only if he's accompanied by Hobbes? If so, I could use your help.

I'm planning a study series for this summer aimed at helping folks at our church better explain and defend from Scripture some of the distinctives of presbyterianism. I'd like to focus, in particular, on those reformed/presbyterian doctrines or practices which non-presbyterians find the most bizzare, mystifying, and perhaps even offensive.

What I could use from you, therefore, my non-presbyterian brethren, are your lists of these objectionable doctrines and practices. Perhaps I can phrase it this way: What are the top ten reasons you would not join a reformed and/or presbyterian church?

Anonymous responses are more than welcome.

CDP at the New BRDhouse

Hey Yocals, If you haven't yet been out to Englewood to the new and improved BRDhouse coffee shop/music store, you really ought. And for a perfect excuse, you can come out Saturday night, February 7th at 8:30 and hear Curt, Tom, and me sing. We ourselves are neither new nor improved, but some folks still find us tolerably entertaining.

Just Passing One On

Quite Possibly the Most Ignored of All Christ's Commands

Now I beseech you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

The Poem to Which My Book Fell Open This Morning

...............London, 1802..................

Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh raise us up, return to us again
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet they heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

William Wordsworth

I Passed