What About The Church?

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Title - What About The Church?
Church - Living Word Lutheran in Katy, Texas (ELCA)
Author - Pastor Mike Aus
Citations - Luke 14:21-22, Matthew 22:3-10, Matthew 14:13-21, Matthew 7:5
Quality -Good quality.

Summary - The church's spiritual growth campaign for this season of Lent involves discussing the core beliefs and questions of Christianity in small groups. The seventh and final part of the series involves the question of the Holy Spirit. This sermon asks the question why do we have a church? What did Jesus have in mind when he created the church?

First, we look at the feeding of the 5,000, the only miracle to appear in all four gospels. There are thousands of diverse people there (men, women, children, slaves, Jews, Gentiles, rich and poor) and Jesus invites them all for eating together. He broke down the barriers of society and gave a model for building a church that doesn't discern between different races or histories.

Second, we read the parable of the great banquet. A rich man sends out invitations to a huge party and nobody shows up. The rich man then invites the poor, the lame, the slaves and people who didn't have anything else to do. They invite the good and even the bad. This is what Jesus had in mind for his church, that all that mattered is accepting the invitation.

For instance, "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is a popular expression, but is a little self righteous. Jesus didn't say that. He said we should love the sinner and hate the sin within ourselves. Jesus didn't talk about fish all the time, but people throw those on their car. Jesus talked about seeing logs in our eyes and maybe that should be the symbol.

When people come to church they shouldn't see the barriers in society. Church should make people feel better not worse. What if the church was a place where we invited the doubters, the sinners, the rich, the poor, the happy and the sad. What if we could love others as radically as Jesus did. That is a church that could change the world.



(photo from Flickr user: harrilb

Living Word Students Spending Time in New Orleans

Check out the http://lwstudents.blogspot.com/, to read about LWL students' experiences spending their spring break helping others in NOLA.

What Does The Holy Spirit

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Title - What Does the Holy Spirit Do?
Church - Living Word Lutheran in Katy, Texas (ELCA)
Author - Pastor Mike Aus
Citations - John 16:5-8, Apostles' Creed, John 14:26, Psalm 8;
Quality - A little quiet, clicks

Summary - The church's spiritual growth campaign for this season of Lent involves discussing the core beliefs and questions of Christianity in small groups. The sixth part of the series involves the question of the Holy Spirit. This sermon asks the quesitons, where is Jesus today? Is he in some far corner of the universe waiting to come back? No. He did not remove his presence, he promised that he would be here and he does that through the power of the Holy Spirit.

How do we feel the spirit? How are we spirit filled? Some congregations have experienced laughter, howling like wolves, et cetera. The Quakers experience the spirit through peaceful meditation. Is one more spirit filled than another? No. The spirit can take many forms and can be found in all places. Where do you feel the power of the Holy Spirit? Maybe people jumping around and knocking themsleves out on pews isn't your thing (Maybe you feel it in in a coffee shop at 11:00 at night blogging about sermons).

But the Holy Spirit is more than just about emotion. A lot of things can make you excited. The Astros are totally exciting, but that's probably not the Holy Spirit. People get excited about the Dallas Cowboys and that's certianly not the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit:

The Counsler, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name. He will teach you all things, and bring to your remberance all that I have said to you."

- John 14:26

The role of the Holy Spirit is to teach you and remind you. Therefore, being filled with the spirit means caring about the things Jesus cared about. And what did Jesus care about the most? People. All people. So being filled with the Holy Spirit means being compassionate about people.

How Does God Guide Us?

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Title - How Does God Guide Us?
Church - Living Word Lutheran in Katy, Texas (ELCA)
Author - Pastor Mike Aus
Citations -
Quality -Medium Quality, Some Background Noise and Clicks

Summary - The church's spiritual growth campaign for this season of Lent involves discussing the core beliefs and questions of Christianity in small groups. The fifth part of the series involves the question of God's guidance. Paul's story is one of going from the bad Saul to being good Paul. But is it so black and white? What was he like before his conversion? He was religious, zeaolous, passionate, smart and intelligent. How was he after? He stopped killing Christians, but otherwise he was fairly similar. God didn't make him a completely different person, he guided him in the right direction.

Pastor Mike discusses how doubt is a part of faith. Lots of prophets turned down and doubted that God could use them to do good. But these doubters were used to change the world. Too often, some churches give out the idea that if you don't believe 100% then you don't belong in church. But doubt is not that opposite faith, God can use these questions to propel you on the road to truth.

Church is not a place for people with a perfect theology and a perfect morality. It is a place for everyone, a giant come-as-you-are party for people with problems and issues. Bring them and we'll work them out together. God can use those problems and those issues to bring you closer to him.

Recently, a quantum physicist said that "The universe is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose." So the message of the Bible might be this, "The world isn't more wonderful than we suppose, but more wonderful than we can suppose." The goodness of the good news is so good that it may be beyond comprehension, but it's worth trying.

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Check out this article by UT Prof Robert Jeson that Pastor Mike references.

Why and How Should I Pray?

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Title - Why and How Should I Pray?
Church - Living Word Lutheran in Katy, Texas (ELCA)
Author - Pastor Mike Widner
Citations - Romans 8:26, Matthew 7:7
Quality - Low Volume

The church's spiritual growth campaign for this season of Lent involves discussing the core beliefs and questions of Christianity in small groups. The third part of the series involves the importance of praying. C.S. Lewis said that "My prayers do not change God. They change me.” The essence of prayer is trying to communicate with God. What we say isn't as important as our desire to speak to God. As Martin Luther said, "The fewer the words, the better the prayer."

The Lord tells us how to pray in the Lord's Prayer. It is a group prayer that defines our spiritual community. We ask us for forgiveness for "our" sins as a group, not as an individual.

Prayer is being in the presence of God. Though it doesn't mean that God will change things for us, but it reminds us that God is there with us, listening to us. It doesn't matter how we pray, but that we pray.

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Section on our beliefs about prayer was adapted/quoted from an article in The Lutheran Magazine, “Preparing your heart for prayer” in the September 2005 issue.

For more information on the “Jesus Prayer” and the ”Centering Prayer”, check out “Soul Shaper” by Tony Jones, Zondervan Publishing.

For more prayer ideas, check out “Heart Ignite: 166 Engaging Prayer Experiences for All Ages” by Lyle Griner / Diane Monroe, Youth and Family Institute.