Doylestown Presbyterian Church

This article is printed in the September Tidings. Jesus was the consummate teacher. During his three years on earth, Jesus used a variety of ways to communicate the truth about God.  He gave sermons with memorable instructions such as “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” He would contrast teachings of his day with his own instruction such as the time he proclaimed “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love you neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He would give direct ins [ ... ]

This article is printed in the August Tidings. Later this month, I reach a professional milestone as I deliver my 1000th sermon.  If you count the homilies I prepared as a seminary student, or my message as a high school senior on Youth Sunday or even the very first sermon I gave to my family in our living room when I was about seven years old (the topic was “Jonah and the Whale”), the total is closer to 1025 lifetime messages. Still, I am using my ordination date as the starting point for this official count. That kind of event got me thinking and led me to pull out my calculator.  If [ ... ]

This article is printed in the July Tidings. It was an unexpectedly grace-filled moment. Some of you heard the news last month about the perfect game that wasn’t. For those of you who aren’t baseball fans, a perfect game means the pitcher retires all 27 batters of the opposing team without one of them reaching base—no hits, no walks, no errors. It is such a rare event that in the 131-year history of Major League Baseball, there have been only twenty perfect games ever pitched and two of them occurred earlier this season. On June 2, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out  [ ... ]