Old Stone Presbyterian Church: Recent Episodes
Old Stone Presbyterian Church
The paper I mentioned: https://d2jt48ltdp5cjc.cloudfront.net/users/14192/uploads/081251de-971e-4102-9566-189b40d7b143.pdf
In our reboot of the Midweek Deep Dive, Jim Fischer, the music director at Old Stone, joins Pastor Adam to discuss the first week of Advent and to look into week 2.
If you’d like to learn more about the complicated issues of guardianship, feel free to look at this article in the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights
Also, I wrote a paper about how the church could engage this issue: shorturl.at/jpw67
THE POINT: Perspective Matters as we understand ourselves in the text. Different people have looked through the text to guess how many named people are in it 166-205 are women 1122-1386 total named people in the text So, our range of women represented in the Bible goes from 11.9% at worst to 18.2% at…
This week's deep dive explores the deeper issues around the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton, how it connects to human worth, and how Amos 5 also connects to human value.
THE POINT: Stories matter as they are part of ours and not part of ours. This morning I was reminding of a parable from the Talmud (Rabbi Lau-Lavie from On Being in 2017). There’s a ship that sailing, and it has many cabins. And one of the people in the cabins on the lower floor decides to dig a hole…
Just a couple important intro items: Place this in historical context: Ezra - Esther - Nehemiah Where the bookended books tell stories of what it is like to return home, Esther tells of the story of remaining. A spoiler reader There have been more than a few times in my life where I have admittedly taken…
Every week, we'll do a deep dive podcast as a way to connect last week and next week together.
The story of Paul’s conversion is particularly well-known to us, in part because we know how prolific Paul is. So much of the New Testament has his voice throughout. Saul/Paul was good at what he did. He seems zealous, determined, thoughtful, logical. He tells us as much throughout his letters. And he…
Frame the next few weeks Talked about the resurrection last week and how it’s easy to have it become a nice story, an idle tale. Even the disciples felt that way. But, maybe there’s something more to this story - something deeper to what we witness on this day. This is not something we can explain or…
I had a tougher time writing this sermon this week because I couldn’t stop thinking about this little fig tree. We don’t know much about it, except that it’s at least three years old, and barren. A barren fig tree in the middle of a vineyard seems like a pitiable character. But what good reason might…
“Christian Communities must learn how to work vigorously for the limited change that is possible, to mourn over persistent and seemingly ineradicable evils, and to celebrate the good whenever it happens.” - M. Volf This quote is helpful because it helps us to consider what it means to be reconciled to…
When I read these texts this week I feel a burden. I want a world like this. It’s a world reconciled, resurrected, brought to life in unexpected ways. It’s also just! There is giving and receiving, everything’s open handed. In a phrase, it’s the Kingdom of God - the idea of what the world looks like…
Acknowledge all of the difficulties right now Lots of medical issues, deaths, emotional trauma that goes along with it. Doesn’t include things like transitions, new diagnoses, on and on and on. And these are just the things I know. There’s others buried in our hearts that we struggle with. All too familiar…
To start this four week journey about the impossibility of faith, I think we need to start by talking about the nature of something being impossible in the first place. Thinking about lots of our lives. We look at the world around us, it all seems so impossible, right? Even just the reality we’re thrown…
OH- There are few things we do in Central Ohio better (well, and maybe all of Ohio) than cheer on the Buckeyes. 104,000+ people packed into one space cheering on just a few college students as they duke it out against other college students. You don’t even need to have gone to Ohio State. Chances are…
Look at the stars... The story of Enchanted Rock and the Milky Way. Light pollution has gotten so bad that you can’t see most stars. There are designated places now called “Dark Sky Zones”… Enchanted Rock is one of them. The closest to here is in Logan. Our lives become haze of thrown light. They saw…