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What's The Absolute Least I Can Do?

Worship
Mark 10:17-31
Proper 23 | Ordinary Time 28 - B
Frank Ramirez
Lectionary Worship Aids
Series VII, Cycle B
Call To Worship

God's people -- it is not in preserving blocks of concrete that the Ten Commandments come to life, but in our resolve to leave everything and follow Jesus. Are you ready? Really ready?

Collect (Micah 6:8)

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Prayer Of Confession

Lord, we haven't murdered anyone recently. We don't get caught stealing. We tell the truth under oath. That's enough, isn't it? What's the absolute least we can do and still call ourselves, if not your disciples, at least your followers? Fans? Help us out here. It looks next to impossible to get into your kingdom. Speak to us, Lord. Amen.

Hymns
What Does The Lord Require Of You?
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Blest Be The Tie
UPCOMING WEEKS
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Proper 23 | OT 28 | Pentecost 21
30 – Sermons
180+ – Illustrations / Stories
29 – Children's Sermons / Resources
22 – Worship Resources
29 – Commentary / Exegesis
2 – Pastor's Devotions
and more...
Proper 24 | OT 29 | Pentecost 22
31 – Sermons
180+ – Illustrations / Stories
34 – Children's Sermons / Resources
22 – Worship Resources
30 – Commentary / Exegesis
2 – Pastor's Devotions
and more...
Proper 25 | OT 30 | Pentecost 23
32 – Sermons
180+ – Illustrations / Stories
33 – Children's Sermons / Resources
21 – Worship Resources
30 – Commentary / Exegesis
2 – Pastor's Devotions
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New & Featured This Week

CSSPlus

John Jamison
Object: A sewing needle, a larger, darning needle, and a stuffed animal. You could use a stuffed camel if you have one, but I used a stuffed bear.

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent!

The Immediate Word

Mary Austin
Dean Feldmeyer
Christopher Keating
Thomas Willadsen
George Reed
Katy Stenta
For October 13, 2024:

Emphasis Preaching Journal

David Coffin
A younger clergy colleague once shared in our ministerial group that people in his generation do not like using the phone (despite an abundance of cellphones) to communicate. They prefer text messaging or email because they do not want to have to watch their words in modern telephone etiquette. They grow weary of gender identity, definitions of what is and is not politically correct change rapidly and vary in differing communities with diverse core values.
Mark Ellingsen
Bonnie Bates
Frank Ramirez
Bill Thomas
Job 23:1-9, 16-17

StoryShare

Frank Ramirez
“If I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him. But he knows the way I take….” (vv. 8-10)

You don’t have to be able to see something for it to be there. You may not fully understand what it is, for it to be fully what it is. And sometimes it’s a little child that leads you down a rabbit hole and onto a journey of discovery towards something you hadn’t imagined!

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
Call to Worship:

The rich man asked Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" As we explore that question in our worship today, let us open ourselves to Jesus and listen for his response to us.

Invitation to Confession:

Jesus, sometimes we hang on so tightly to the things that we want, that we don't leave room for you.
Lord, have mercy.

SermonStudio

Mark Ellingsen
Theme of the Day
Taking sin seriously.

Collect of the Day
Petitions are offered to increase the gift of faith that believers might forsake the past to reach out to the future, following the commandments and receiving the crown of everlasting joy. Sanctification (worked by grace as a gift) and eschatology are emphasized.

Psalm of the Day
Psalm 22:1-14
* See Good Friday.
James Evans
(See Good Friday, Cycle A; Good Friday, Cycle B; and Lent 2, Cycle B, for alternative approaches.)

Psalm 22, perhaps more than any other text in the Bible, gives eloquent expression to the loneliness and isolation which comes from experiencing God's absence. We can debate the reality of a theology of abandonment, arguing back and forth whether or not God ever actually does abandon us. But whether God moves or not, there are clearly times in life when we feel completely alone. This psalm gives voice to that feeling.

Stephen M. Crotts
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
H. Alan Stewart
Ancient people were terrorized by the thought of God. We have to strain our minds and our imaginations to try to conceive of the confusion and fear that people of antiquity faced when trying to get to know and understand God. They looked at the weather, the storms and the peaceful days, their own lives, the times of the year, and the way nature unfolded and tried to understand God.

They did not have Jesus Christ and his teachings, so they looked upon bad things as tests and punishments by God for the behavior of their lives.
Paul W. F. Harms
Adolph Hitler had a dream of a thousand-year empire. The years may make us forget too soon and too easily the terror that was Adolph Hitler. The terror was that this little man, not in stature alone, but in smallness of mind, had managed to do in an extraordinary degree what others had done before him, and what we are all capable of doing. What he did, says Kenneth Burke, was to make virtue vice, and vice virtue.

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