Login / Signup

The Immediate Word

TIW Contributors

George Reed
Mary Austin
Dean Feldmeyer
Chris Keating
Tom Willadsen
Katy Stenta
Elena Delhagen
Proper 27 | Ordinary Time 32 - B
Dean Feldmeyer
Thomas Willadsen
Christopher Keating
George Reed
Katy Stenta

For November 10, 2024:




Dean FeldmeyerWhat We Keep For Ourselves
by Dean Feldmeyer
Mark 12:38-44


What is The Immediate Word?

The Immediate Word gives a theological perspective on today's headlines and popular culture for your sermon, children’s sermon, and worship service. The Immediate Word gives a theological perspective on today's headlines and popular culture.

Cutting Edge: THE IMMEDIATE WORD gives you the tools to be cutting edge ... to put you in touch with today's most critical issues and to aid you in crafting messages and presentations that will truly help your congregants understand the Gospel in the context of what is current and most important to them.

Collaborative: THE IMMEDIATE WORD is a unique collaboration of some of the sharpest, most contemporary clergy of our day in an Internet-based service that gives you weekly information, inspiration, and presentation materials for your sermon, children’s sermon, and worship service.

Enabling: THE IMMEDIATE WORD will enable you to create high-impact sermons, children’s sermons, sermon outlines, worship services and compose pastoral prayers that help people pray with you, write compelling pastoral columns for your newsletter, arm your Sunday school teachers with meaningful, up-to-the-minute discussion sermon material, speak more constructively during the "Concerns of the Church" portion of your sermon, children's sermon and worship service about matters that worry your parishioners, advertise timely discussion topics to draw people into your church, and more.

Interactive: THE IMMEDIATE WORD is a dynamic, interactive process. First, among the team of clergy that creates it every week. Secondly, with you: you can personally participate in the creation process by providing your input and reactions to the input of others on new sermons, children’s sermons, sermon outlines and worship resources.

Timely: THE IMMEDIATE WORD sends participants the topic of the week on Friday and the final product on Tuesday afternoon, giving you time to digest the sermon and worship service materials and then incorporate them into your preparations for the coming Sunday service to deliver high-impact sermons and worship services.

Satisfaction Guaranteed: THE IMMEDIATE WORD is not only guaranteed to satisfy you, we believe it will actually energize your ministry. We are so confident that you will find THE IMMEDIATE WORD to be such a great value that if you are not completely satisfied with the service we will refund the balance of your subscription payment, no questions asked.
UPCOMING WEEKS
In addition to the lectionary resources there are thousands of non-lectionary, scripture based resources...
Signup for FREE!
(No credit card needed.)
All Saints Day
30 – Sermons
180+ – Illustrations / Stories
29 – Children's Sermons / Resources
22 – Worship Resources
29 – Commentary / Exegesis
2 – Pastor's Devotions
and more...
Proper 26 | OT 31 | Pentecost 24
31 – Sermons
180+ – Illustrations / Stories
34 – Children's Sermons / Resources
22 – Worship Resources
30 – Commentary / Exegesis
2 – Pastor's Devotions
and more...
Proper 27 | OT 32 | Pentecost 25
32 – Sermons
180+ – Illustrations / Stories
33 – Children's Sermons / Resources
21 – Worship Resources
30 – Commentary / Exegesis
2 – Pastor's Devotions
and more...
Plus thousands of non-lectionary, scripture based resources...
Signup for FREE!
(No credit card needed.)

Recent TIW Installments

Proper 27 | Ordinary Time 32 - B
Proper 26 | Ordinary Time 31 - B
Proper 25 | Ordinary Time 30 - B
Proper 24 | Ordinary Time 29 - B
Proper 23 | Ordinary Time 28 - B

New & Featured This Week

CSSPlus

John Jamison
Object: An x-ray showing the human heart. I have attached a public domain image you may use if you like.

* * *

The Immediate Word

Dean Feldmeyer
Thomas Willadsen
Christopher Keating
George Reed
Katy Stenta
For November 10, 2024:

StoryShare

John E. Sumwalt
It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives sleep to his beloved.
(v. 2)

While staying in a motel recently, I was wakened several times during the night by someone sawing wood in the adjoining room. At first I thought the sound was coming from outside. But when I peered out the window over the dumpster there was nothing but a weary raccoon on his way home after working the late shift.

Emphasis Preaching Journal

Frank Ramirez
Bonnie Bates
Bill Thomas
Mark Ellingsen
Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17
Mark Ellingsen
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
The First Lesson is drawn from a short story set in the period of Judges (1:1), underscoring the loyalty and fidelity that binds families together. The date of the work is uncertain, a date prior to the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century BC indicates its purpose may be to establish David’s ancestry. A post-exilic date might indicate the author’s efforts to counter the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah which considered intermarriage wrong.

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
A 91-year old man recently appeared in court, charged with causing death by careless driving. He was driving behind a lorry on a fairly narrow road, when to the horror of other motorists, he pulled out to overtake the lorry. The other motorists were horrified because they had all seen a motorcyclist coming in the opposite direction. The motorcyclist flashed his lights in warning and the lorry driver pulled as far to the left as he could, in the hope that the elderly motorist who was driving at 40 mph, would either speed up and get past or would take other evasive action. But it was too late.

SermonStudio

James Evans
It is not possible in a single sermon -- or even a psalm -- to answer the question, "What is the meaning of life?" That is one of those complicated and complex questions that require a lifetime of reflection, prayer, study, and some trial and error. However, it is possible to ask and answer a different question that may be just as important. The writer of Psalm 127 seems to be trying to answer such a question: "How do we find a life that is really worth living?"

Schuyler Rhodes
There is a well-worn axiom that warns against mixing religion and politics. It was probably devised in an attempt to help smooth the rough places in some of those long holiday dinners with seldom-seen relatives. Keep the conversation polite, vague, and unchallenging. That way, all parties can stay through the dessert course and get home in one piece. In truth, there is wisdom in such an unwritten law. However, a serious people of faith must contend with the time after dinner when the relatives have dispersed and it's back to business as usual.
Stephen M. Crotts
And he sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living."
-- Mark 12:41-44 (RSV)
Lee Ann Dunlap
Several years have now passed since the television series Survivor first debuted to become a summer ratings sensation. The concept was simple: place a group of individuals with diverse backgrounds, skills, and personalities into close proximity with a common purpose, namely survival on a deserted island, and let the audience watch as their relationships develop, or fall apart.

Mary S. Lautensleger
Fried green tomatoes were the house specialty at the Whistle Stop Cafe in Alabama during the 1930s. Evelyn is suffering through the growing pains of a midlife crisis when she and her husband come across the quaint Depression-era ghost of a town called Whistle Stop. Their destination is a nearby retirement home where Evelyn quite by chance meets octogenarian Ninny Threadgoode.

John R. Brokhoff
Robert W. Stackel
On August 20, 1977, there was launched an 1819 pound space craft, Voyager 2, at Cape Canaveral. At 61,148 miles per hour it was directed toward the planet Neptune. In 1989 it arrived, only twenty-one miles from its destination. From 2.8 billion miles from earth it sent back pictures of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Since it completed its mission, it was turned toward outer space, where it will float through the Milky Way forever and ever.

Special Occasion

Wildcard SSL