Sermons & Worship Audio

Advent IV: “GOD’S UNSTOPPABLE PURPOSE INVITES!” December 18th, 2005 Gary Harder Text:     Luke 1:26-38, 47-55IntroductionBeware of Christmas. Beware! Luke one should come with a warning label. “Warning! The following scenes are explosive, radical, revolutionary.” It is a dangerous, subversive text. But we in our western world are more into “cute”, nice feelings, sentiment, nostalgia. We mostly read this text as an innocuous, feel good baby story. Let us beware. Let us beware. There is a kind of dangerous restlessness…

Advent III: GOD’S UNSTOPPABLE PURPOSE RESTORES December 11th, 2005 Jonathan Slater Text:     Isaiah 61:1-11“When Jesus came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring…

Advent II: GOD’S UNSTOPPABLE PURPOSE IS FAITHFUL December 4th, 2005 Gary Harder Texts:     Isaiah 40:1-11Mark 1:1-8IntroductionLike most of you, my heart and my prayers this week have been with the Christian Peacemaker Team members in Iraq who have been abducted by “Swords of the Righteous Brigade”. James Loney, Harmeet Singh Sooden, Norman Kember and Tom Fox knew the dangers and risks of making their peace witness in Iraq. Yet their commitment to peacemaking compelled them to be there anyway.…

GOD’S UNSTOPPABLE PURPOSE SURPRISES November 27th, 2005 Gary Harder Text:     Isaiah 64:1-9IntroductionThere is something deeply outrageous about advent. Advent says that God is breaking into our world in a totally new way, that God’s purposes are unstoppable. To a secularized world that claim is deeply outrageous. And advent says that there is nothing we humans can do about it, or do to hasten it’s coming. All we are called to do is wait. Wait. Waiting is another of those…

THE OBITUARY November 20th, 2005 Gary Harder Text:     2 Timothy 1:1-14The funeral service in the old box-like rural church could have been a replay from 30 years earlier. The obituary, read first in German and then in English, sounded like most obituaries do, the basic life-story told cryptically and read with little emotion, “This is the life story of Jake Willms, born in 1910 in the Molotchna colony in Russia”, intoned one of the lay ministers with dignity and…

ALL THINGS IN COMMON? November 6th, 2005 Gary Harder Text:     Acts 2:42-47“Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”IntroductionThere are many Hutterite colonies in Alberta. Many of them are doing very well economically. When a community doesn’t own personal property, but “holds everything in…

“PREACHING AGAIN, FOR THE FIRST TIME” Pentecost Sermon October 30th, 2005 Maureen Louth Text:     Acts 2:1-41Jesus said to those following Him, You will be witnesses to my suffering and resurrection, in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth; and the Holy Spirit will come upon you with power. This direction to Jesus’ Disciples is recorded, in some form, at the end of each of the Gospels, and again at the opening of the Acts…

It is better to obey God than man, and to speak His word with Boldness. October 23rd, 2005 Rev. MacLeord Baker Ochola II [retired bishop of Kitgum Church Uganda] Text:     Acts 5:27-29There is a Luo saying that” “Anyaka ma wang mine oto myelo neon ceng” – meaning that a youthful girl whose mother’s eyes are blind, dances looking at the sun. The people of Northern Uganda, like this youthful girl, must dance looking at the sun because all our…

“MESSENGERS OF FAITH, LOVE AND HOPE” Commissioning of Pastors for Youth Ministries, Maureen Louth & Jonathan Slater October 16th, 2005 Ardith Frey [representing Leadership Commission of MCEC] Text:I Thessalonians 1: 1-10 Allow me to greet you with a paraphrase of Paul’s greeting to the church at Thessalonica.To the Toronto United Mennonite Church From my colleagues in the Leadership Commission of MCEC and Muriel Bechtel, Minister of Pastoral Services. “Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God for all…

What does the crucifixion have to do with Thanksgiving? October 9th, 2005 Gary Harder Text:Luke 23: 32-38 Introduction(Our thanksgiving service was a celebration held in three languages, Spanish, Korean and English. Because of translation, the sermon needed to be quite short) It comes as a bit of a shock to read the crucifixion story from Luke on this Thanksgiving Sunday. We read the crucifixion story only on Good Friday, don’t we? And shouldn’t we be reading upbeat praise and joy…