Good afternoon!  Sorry for the delay in posting this week.  I have no other excuse other than I am two weeks away from my due date and we are busily getting ready for my maternity leave at church and the baby at home.  And holy cow, spring is in full swing and things are BUSY at church!  I think I have something going on every night this week - all good things, but I've been trying to keep track of everything and I keep thinking I'm going to miss something.

I won't be preaching this weekend, so I won't post another sermon until Memorial Day weekend.  Our Children's Day & Choir Sunday is this Sunday, so the children are leading worship and we have some special music planned.  We're looking forward to a great celebration with the theme, It Takes A (Church In The) Village!

Have a great week, everyone!

- Rev. Sarah

Hi Everyone!

Sorry for the delay in posting this week.  The church hosted a baby shower for Bruce and me after worship on Sunday and we spent a lot of the day organizing everything!  We were truly overwhelmed and humbled by everyone's generosity.

There were heavy shepherding themes this week - both the 23rd psalm and the parable of Jesus as the Good Shepherd were included in the lectionary.  I preached on them both and talked about what it means to ground our lives in the teachings of the Gospel and truly allow that to shepherd us every day.

Enjoy!

Hi friends - here is this week's sermon.  Those of you who follow me on social media may have seen that my college chaplain, the Rev. Charles Rice, passed away very unexpectedly this week.  It did not feel right to preach, business as usual, without acknowledging not only this loss, but also the impact he had on my life.  In a moment of grace unexpected, the lectionary had us on the Road to Emmaus this week.  I could not have picked a more perfect scripture to preach on as I talked about the ways Rev. Rice embodied the incarnational love of God throughout his life and ministry.

Please keep the friends and family of Rev. Rice in your prayers, as well as the entire Ursinus College community.  As I post this sermon, they are preparing for his funeral in Collegeville, PA.  I so wish I could be there, but at this point in my pregnancy I just can't travel that far by myself.

<3

- Rev. Sarah

I know a lot of clergy celebrate the Sunday after Easter as Holy Humor Sunday, but, if I'm being honest, I'm really just not that funny.  So rather than force something that just won't work for me, this past Sunday we stuck to the things that I am good at in worship -integrating special music into the service, bringing the community together to bless a new batch of prayer shawls and gathering around the living waters of baptism as we baptized our very own Baby Jesus (or at least, he played him in the Christmas pageant last year!).  It was a wonderful Sunday and I was thrilled to see so many people come out, considering it was the end of school vacation and there is often a low after Easter Sunday, anyway.

Enjoy today's sermon!  Felt a little strange to be out of our sermon series, but it's always nice to just read the scripture at the beginning of the week and then see where my mind takes me.

Hello and Happy Easter!

I usually post my sermons on Sunday evening, but I figured everyone would be celebrating the Easter holiday and not waiting with baited breath for my sermon to post.

A few weeks ago, Jon and I went to see The Lion King when it came to PPAC and as I was watching, I had an idea for this year's Easter Sermon.  After watching April the Giraffe give birth on Saturday morning (yes, I was totally sucked in!), I thought about going in a different direction, but really wanted to stick with this message.  So stay tuned for an April sermon illustration! :)

I preached out of Matthew this year.  I tend to bounce back and forth between John and wherever we are in the lectionary cycle, but have preached on John for the past few years and really was looking for something different so I turned to Matthew this year.

I hope you all had a blessed Easter celebration!

- Rev. Sarah

Happy Palm Sunday!

It is week six of our Lenten sermon series, Boot Camp for the Soul and the theme for this morning is Celebrate & Wait.  I had a great time preaching through this series and I look forward to taking a look at some of the other series in the future.

I have always struggled with the paradox of preaching Palm Sunday when I know Maundy Thursday & Good Friday are coming.  In light of everything that happened in Syria last week, I think I lived out that paradox as I was preparing my sermon this week.  It's always so hard to find a balance.

We really had a really wonderful worship this morning at RCC this morning, which was exactly what I needed after a challenging sermon writing week and just the icing on the cake of a great weekend that started with our Easter Egg Hunt yesterday.

Enjoy!

- Rev. Sarah

I am on week 5 of the Lenten Sermon Series, Boot Camp for the Soul.  This week the theme is Dead Ends.  The scriptures are Ezekiel 37:1-14 & John 11:1-45.

If you are interested in learning more about the sermon series, take a look at the book, A Preacher's Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series.  It's been a really great series!

The full text is available at my blog, www.preachinginpumps.com.

Have a great week!
- Rev. Sarah

This morning, I am continuing our Lenten Sermon Series, Boot Camp for the Soul and the theme is redefined.  I didn't record the entire scripture, because it was quite lengthy to read and I think as long as you know what stories I am talking about, the sermon will make sense.  If you are interested in looking them up, the two scriptures are 1 Samuel 16:1-15 & John 9:1-41.  It is the story of the anointing of King David and the healing of the blind man (the children and I made mud during the children's sermon!).

Enjoy!

- Rev. Sarah

This is week two of the Lenten sermon series, Boot Camp for the Soul and the topic is, reset.  In this sermon, Rev. Sarah uses the call of Abraham and the dialogue between Nicodemus and Jesus about being born of the spirit to talk about what it means to start over and for God to give us second chances (and sometimes third, fourth and fiftieth chances, if we need them!).  She encourages people to hit the reset button and find changes (both big and small) in their lives that will strengthen their faith and draw them closer to God.

This morning I began a sermon series from the book, A Preacher's Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series, which was edited by Amy Butler. The sermon series is called Boot Camp for the Soul and this week's topic is The Need for Change.