Leah promised that she would not smoke cigarettes anymore. This was going to be the last one, absolutely, no doubt about it. She was done. She knew the smokes were killing her and they were terrible for her family. She didn’t want to have her daughter see her smoke, ever again. So this was the last one. [Read more...]

We’ve reached the end of our series of sermons on Love, Sex, and Marriage, following Paul all the way through the first letter to the Corinthian church. He addresses a church in conflict, and we have taken that message to relationships and the conflicts that happen around sexuality, money, and religion. As Paul gets to the end of the letter, he waxes eloquent, some of the most beautiful words in scripture, advocating that the solution to all of these conflicts is the Power of Love. [Read more...]

Love, Sex, Marriage: The Power of Love

Terry had a fight with her husband last week. This unfortunately was not a rare occurrence. Terry and Bob fought regularly – over the dumbest things. Last week it was about cell-phones. Bob thought that if they were going to pay to have cell phones they ought to be able to get through to each other when they needed to. Terry had left her phone at home and hadn’t been able to answer Bob’s persistent calls through the day went unanswered, she hadn’t even known about the calls until she got home. She had a busy day at work anyway, and she figured she wouldn’t have been able to answer the phone anyway – and besides, Bob wasn’t’ so great at answering his phone when she needed him. But still, they went back and forth – each one accusing the other of essentially not coming through for each other – not being available. Oh, they went at it. [Read more...]