Sermons and Talks at Myers Park Baptist Church

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Luke 10:1-16 – Rock and roll is the sound of angels telling the truth. – Jim Morrison Woodstock was not about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It was about spirituality, about love, about sharing, about helping each other, living in peace and harmony. – Richie Havens At Woodstock, we focused our energy on peace, setting aside the onstage discussion of political issues to just groove on what might be possible. It was a chance to see if we could create the kind of world for which we’d been striving throughout the sixties: That would be our political statement – proving that peace and understanding were possible and creating a testament to the value of the counterculture. It would be three days of peace and music. – Michael Lang When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. – Jimi Hendrix That’s all nonviolence is – organized love. – Joan Baez

Mia McClain: Luke 9:51-62

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Luke 7:36-50 Love has always been a contested and fragile power, vulnerable to multiple forms of misunderstanding and abuse. For too long, too many Christians have acted as if by simply reading scripture and adopting the name “Christian” they have been inoculated with the equivalent of a “love gene,” thinking that they now understand love and that love will immediately flow from them. The history of the church and most people’s experience of other Christians show this to be false. Christianity is best understood as a training ground in the ways of love. That is what Jesus began and what he wants the church to continue to do. – Norman Wirzba “Without forgiveness and love, you will live with resentment, bitterness, malice, and strife which result in more pain. You can never love without forgiving. Forgiveness deepens your ability to love and frees you from pain. You cannot love if you cannot forgive.” – Kemi Sogunle

Rev. Dr. F. Timothy Moore: Matthew 7:21-27, Mark 12:28-34, and John 20:30-31

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Ephesians 5:6-21 and Acts 2:1-14 –

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Acts 9:1-20 –

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Acts 5:24-42 –

Mia McClain: Revelations 8:7-13 and 22:1-2 – Water is life. Not only is water life, but water is also alive. So it has consciousness. The water is listening to us. And I had a phenomenon in my home in which water just started coming up out of the ground, and at one point, it was coming up at 8 gallons a minute. So it was a lot of water. And I began to have to have this relationship with water like I never had before, because I was very concerned it would flood my house, right? And we kept talking. We kept coming into a dialogue, and eventually, I was able to say to her, ‘look, if you need to take my house, it’s okay. You can have it, because there’s something that you’re trying to do, there’s something that you’re trying to say, and there’s something that my community needs for you to arrive like this. And so, I will be with you and I will be a protector of you, and so I can speak on your behalf. So, this water and I were in this alliance.Pat McCabe, Navajo and Lakota activist To be sure, the author of Revelation was not an environmentalist in the modern sense; nevertheless, he was an astute critic of the insatiable appetites of the Roman Empire that led to injustices against humans and to devastations of the earth.Rev. Dr. Barbara Rossing This is why I march: because my hometown has been without clean water for almost 1,000 days. Clean water is a human right for everybody.Amariyanna CopenyGet to know Mia >

Rev.Carrie Veal: 1 Corinthians 12:4-31a – May we raise children who love the unloved things – the dandelions, the worms and spiderlings. Children who sense the rose needs the thorn  and run into rainswept days the same way they turn towards the sun . . . And when they’re grown and someone has to speak for those who have no voice May they draw upon that wilder bond, those days of tending tender things  and be the ones. Nicolette SowderNo single person or category of people can claim exclusive insight into the Spirit’s presence or the complete nature of the Spirit’s activity. The fullness of the Spirit’s work is corporate, with the one Spirit manifested differently through different gifts. Thus, when the body of Christ operates, when a community of faith pursues and discovers things such as wisdom, knowledge, faith, and healing, no one less than God is at work. God’s Spirit is not bound to our own strategies, systems, or expectations, for the Spirit freely chooses to be present among Christians, their worship, and their witness. ~ Matt Skinner

Rev. Dr. Madeline McClenney: Luke 23:18-25 Rev. Dr. Madeline McClenney is the Founder and Executive Director of the Exodus Foundation, a local non-profit committed to ending mass incarceration.  “God takes what humans intend to be the definitive act of disfigurement and dishonor and reclaims it as something uniquely revelatory. Capital punishment. Death. On a cross. The end of a life that reveals the meaning of life. In that case, the cross is the consummate act of divine irony. What the Romans believed to be the cessation of life and meaning, God claims as the marker that defines the possibilities of life for all of us, for all time. The cross, then, becomes the ultimate apocalypse: the revelation of God’s intention for humankind. Through struggle and even death, God reveals life. We are on a mission. An invasive mission to strike Life into this Death-occupied, Death-obsessed, Death wearied world. So I’m telling you: Rise up off your pew and rise out into resurrection!”