Churchy (Churchy): Recent Episodes
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Sermons, sacred music, and conversations from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Fairfield, Connecticut.
A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Our bishop diocesan, the Right Rev'd Ian Douglas, joins us virtually to preach an incredibly relevant message for the Church in this time.
A Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost
We ought to be as swept up by the love of Jesus and God’s Holy Spirit as we get swept up by frustrations of masks, distancing, and altered plans.
And imagine if we were as eager to show up, in some way, for our ill or downtrodden neighbors, our black and brown neighbors, our LGBTQIA+ neighbors, and our poor neighbors, as we are eager to return to our building and in-person gatherings.
What kind of church might we be if we were as imaginative about the ways we can be the Body of Christ as we are imaginative about ways we can consume the body of Christ in Holy Communion safely at this time?
A Sermon for the Day of Pentecost
"The Day of Pentecost is meant to sweep us off of our feet, to bring winds of change, to flip things around, to unite us all, and to help us not to fear, to paraphrase the great Sandra Montes."
A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter "We are held by the same covenant—we are forgiven, we are embraced and loved, but how can we receive love if we don’t love others or if we don’t love ourselves? How can we truly love God and the life God gives us if we measure our life not in love but in accomplishment, affluence, and appearance?"
A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter
When we live for and with others, we live for and with Christ.
A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter "What does abundant life look like at this time?"
Stations of the Resurrection, a special worship offering by St. Paul's during this Season of Easter.
A Sermon for Easter Sunday
"God is the One who whispers softly and reminds our bodies to breathe when we are lonely, anxious, and stricken by grief."
A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent
"Cups that ‘runneth’ over rarely enable us to be our best selves."
A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent
We carry things that hold us back. We carry material things that occupy our time and energy, and we carry emotional things that prevent us from being fountains of God’s love and mercy.
The First Sunday of Lent
"One wonders if God had a resource like Cesar Millan’s book when She attempted to raise the perfect human."
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany "The Living God is present in the man standing before them on the mountain, and God is consistently seen in the faces of the oppressed and heard in the voices of the poor. "
The Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple "We can always risk love because God is with us."
A Sermon for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul
"It is in our brokenness, that we find power."
A Sermon for The First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord "When we gather like this we tend the seeds of God’s kingdom, growing in our lives and in our world."
A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Christmas
"Herod, a vindictive, selfish, broken and fragile egotist seeks the counsel of these magi to eliminate the child and preserve the power he thinks he has. Instead, the magi read the signs and see that the only child in the room is this king, and the only true king in the world is this child."
A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent "We need communal rhythms that make deliberate space for both grief and joy." -Tish Harrison Warren
A Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent
"Sorry John Mayer, but we don’t need to wait for the world to change in order to live in THIS world as a people who share in God’s dream FOR this world."
A Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday after the day of Pentecost "It is sometimes tempting to consider this time to be one of hardship for the Church, but rather than grieving the withered vines of our former flourishing, now is a time to focus on tending to the vines of ministry that aregrowing among us."
A Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after the Day of Pentecost “Bother God enough and God will give you whatever you want.”
We know that God doesn’t work this way.
A Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after the day of Pentecost
The one hundred and thirty-seventh psalm is one that we have indeed prayed. And while we may want to avoid the discomfort of these words, what might be gained if we witnessed to the human experience of grief that we share with our so-called enemies?
A Concert in celebration of the feast of St. Michael and All Angels on Sunday, September 29, 2019, sung by the St. Paul's Choir, John Abdenour, director, with Mr. Edward Tipton, organ, and Richard Clymer, Kenneth Tedeschi, Robert Hoyle, Scott Cranston, and William Whitaker, brass quintet, and Lee Caron, timpani.
Repertoire included anthems of Edward Bairstow, Tomas Luis de Victoria, Edward Elgar, Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky, and a work specially composed for this concert, A Sequence for St. Michael, by John Abdenour. Hymn arrangements by John Abdenour.
A presentation of NightChurch.
A Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after the Day of Pentecost
If we love our wealth even a little, we cannot love one another the way we could. If we love our stuff and treat it as if it is permanent, we’ll never know the permanence and immanence of God’s love.
A Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost "It is in that most basic human experience of recognizing our vulnerability and our lostness that God finds us. "
The Gloria from the Nunc Dimittis (Gloucester Cathedral) by Herbert Howells, sung by the St Paul's Choir live in evensong, Sunday, May 19, 2019, Mr Peter Berton, organ.