Mother's Day

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, May 12, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

When I arrived here in Charleston to serve the Second Presbyterian Church there were a number of traditions in place, none more delightful than Seersucker Suit and Fancy Hat Sunday.

Always on Mother’s Day, we would take an offering for The Village Summerville, a Presbyterian retirement facility. We would have lunch on the portico and in the park. There would be prizes for hats that would be judged by fluid criteria. This following… church!

The lectionary text would be from the 17th chapter of John. I never really thought about how wonderfully this text on a day honoring mothers fit with Jesus’ long goodbye – farewell discourse that coached, tutored, taught his nearest conditioning them for their life to come.

This Sunday, Jesus speaks to us through scripture on this Mother’s Day, Seersucker/Fancy Hat Day, come-to-church, come-to-each-other, and come-to-Jesus day.  

See you in Church –

 

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Source: sermons

In Love, For Love, To Love, With Love

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, May 5, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes, “Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.”

We, ourselves are called to extravagant love; to be conduits of God’s love that will ameliorate meanness, pettiness, and stinkin' thinkin'. 

We have the opportunity to lift ourselves, our neighbors, our community, state and nation to a different plane through the power of the love of Jesus. Let’s come together and learn how.

See you in worship and at the Congregational Meeting.

Playin’ offense for Jesus –

 

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Source: sermons

A Closer Look

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, April 28, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus,

“The psalms, and especially Psalm 23, speak powerfully to and for God’s people in troubled times.

"The message from the everyday saints to “walk the walk” of daily faith in our time, the message is clear: Psalm 23 is essential. The putter is the essential club for golfers. The chef’s knife is the essential tool for cooks. And Psalm 23 is the essential text for the daily life of faith. Sure, you can golf without a putter, cook without a chef’s knife, and live the Christian life without Psalm 23. But who would want to?”

- Rolf Jacobson

This Sunday we take a closer look at the text everyone knows in language from 400 years ago, but that still serves us, feeds us, informs us, reminds us of the love that is ours.

 

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Source: sermons

Why Me? With Me!

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, April 21, 2024

It is easy to blame God when things go wrong and to forget "thanks" when things go right.

Why do good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people? This Sunday, let's take a look at what the Bible says and "why me, or with me" is not new to our society.

– Ken Carrington

 

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Source: sermons

Peter’s Inside Word

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, April 14, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Our text is from the Gospel writer Luke describing the incipient church. Luke doesn’t list the doctrinal positions they held in common, nor does he describe them gathering in a room to argue the finer points of theology.

Instead, Luke writes that the testimony of the apostles to Jesus’ resurrection led to real, practical, life-changing action in the world. Perhaps this is what Easter is about, not theory but practice. Josh Scott in Christianity Today writes, “It’s the bursting into this world of a new creation that plays by different rules, where love calls us to work for the flourishing of every single person and of the whole creation.”

Should our response to Acts be to idealize the early church? It had its own set of issues and challenges. Instead, I think we are invited, even called, to join in and continue the work the early church began.

May we be an Eastered, Easter people.  

In great anticipation,

 

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Source: sermons

Bad Mouthed, Sold Short, Maligned

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, April 7, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

I’m sending you a snapshot from four years ago during the early days of the pandemic:

“A Place Where Doubt is Welcome

I’ve been missing you. For some reason it feels particularly acute this April 15 evening around 5:00. The day was gray. Cooler than in a while. The buildings here on the Second Presbyterian campus were empty. The pivot to recovery unknown.

Our work singly and together continues. But words of encouragement can become annoying in their repetition.

I know this is not forever. (I say this and the next phrase to bubble up in my brain is ‘I know my redeemer liveth!’ Thank you, Jesus)

We will get through this best together. Yes - stronger, quicker, better together! (ugh)

Even as we deny ourselves and are denied the embrace we so long for -  for the right reasons, out of prudence and love – in moments of grief, confusion, accomplishment, perseverance – a hug would be nice.

Today we continue in the Gospel of John and discover much more about the disciple Thomas than we may have known.  The other disciples have retreated to a safe house. We will witness a cowardly crew come to believe. We witness hearts surrendered and a man’s doubt transformed.”

The landscape is different now – literally.

  • We celebrate the Wragg Square Park Renovation this Sunday.

  • The halls of the church resound with activity.

  • The sanctuary hosts weddings, concerts, lectures.

The center that holds – us (this congregation in its third century), our community, and the world (in our chaos and our malaise) – is Jesus.

Come in anticipation and expectation –  come worship!

 

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Source: sermons

Easter Sunday

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 31, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

“Christianity is simply good news. It is the news that something has happened as a result of which the world is a different place."
- NT Wright

God became enfleshed.

Walked among us.

Taught, healed and loved extravagantly.

In the Gospels, the reports of his life, "Jesus doesn't explain why there is suffering, illness, and death in the world. He brings healing and hope. He doesn't allow the problem of evil to be the subject of a seminar. He allows evil to do its worst to him. He exhausts it, drains its power, and emerges with new life."

This is the God, Jesus, worthy of our worship!

SUNDAY’S COMIN’.

In anticipation –

 

Festival Service of the Resurrection with guest trumpeter Katie Banish, a senior trumpet major at the College of Charleston.


Please bring flower clippings for the flowering of the cross.


The adult choir and children’s choir have been hard at work preparing for a combined piece for Easter Sunday. Please bring children early on Sunday morning (9:45 a.m. in the sanctuary) to join the choir rehearsal prior to worship. Please contact Melody, our children’s choir director if you have any questions.

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Source: sermons

Palm Sunday

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 24, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

“I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”

– Bob Seger, "Against the Wind"


Have you ever wished you didn’t know something? Maybe a friend had confided that they felt their marriage was over, or you saw someone cheating on an exam or on their expense account, or you noticed the signs of an addict in denial.
 
The texts for this Sunday can be Palm or Passion. Do we focus on Jesus entry into Jerusalem - palms waving, coats cast on the road, shouts of Hosanna – Save Us!? Can we celebrate knowing the end of the story? Yes! Because we know that crucifixion isn’t the end of the story. Jesus has already said he is the resurrection and the life. The end of our story is yet to be written, but we know it includes us and Jesus and life!
 
This Sunday the children will process. We will welcome Melody Butcher and Nate Grav into membership here at the Second Church. We will celebrate the fulfillment of ancient scripture and the promise of life in Jesus.
 
Let’s worship together this Sunday. Bring someone you love. Invite someone you’d rather not. Let’s share the joy that is ours –

 

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Source: sermons

Resolute

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 17, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

We will continue our "Long Obedience in the Same Direction… in pursuit of a life worth living" series... but this Sunday we’ll see how Jesus, Godself, demonstrates resolve- unwavering obedience.

In the 9th chapter of Luke Jesus is resolute, encounters the inhospitable, accompanied by the immature and is undaunted in his trek to the act of our redeeming and the miracle of new life, not new living, but new life. Join us this Gospel Sunday!

In great anticipation,

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' with Worship

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 10, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

We continue in our "Long Obedience in the Same Direction". We’ve engaged Perseverance, Repentance, and Obedience – seeking to understand how these concepts may work through/with God’s Spirit that we might, through grace, achieve lives worth living.

This Sunday we will worship and we will engage Worship. Is there a right way to worship? Yes, through orthodoxy. (Before anyone gets too excited, let me say that orthodoxy is from two Greek words – ortho meaning right, and doxia, meaning praise.) And in the years of the Reformation, one of the fathers of this denomination and of the Reformation, John Calvin, looked around and realized that there were many groups who would call themselves Christian, so how was one to know? He came up with this: “wherever we find the Word of God surely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a church of God."

Join us this Sunday. Together we will worship and Jesus will be glorified. Yes, that’s what we get to do!

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' with Obedience

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 3, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

As I was preparing for this Sunday I ran across this prayer:

“Dear God,
You have called us to love, which sounds easy but is often hard.
You have called us to obedience, which sounds hard but is sometimes easy.
You have called us to obedient love, which sounds like an oxymoron, but really isn’t.
You have called us to loving obedience, which sounds crazy but leads to peace.
So help us, dear God, to love, and help us to obey.
Help us, that is, to look to the needs of others and respond with the compassion we see in (you) Jesus.
Help us to ask whether what we are called to do, choose to do, or want to do is motivated from love.
If it is, give us the power to do it and keep at bay those forces that would hinder us from obeying your command to love one another.
If it is not, prevent us.
It’s that simple, and that difficult. Help us, dear God.
Amen.”
 
This Sunday we continue our pilgrimage to lives worth living, committing to a long obedience in the direction of God’s purpose, in God’s love.

See you Sunday –

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' with Repentance

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 25, 2024

Dear Friends in Christ –

Repentance has been identified as the first word in the Christian life. I’m not sure that I would agree.  I would offer sweet surrender instead, but certainly the New Testament gospel is filled with the mandate.

  • John the Baptist – “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

  • Jesus’ first preaching was the same – “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

  • Peter concluded his first sermon with “Repent and be baptized.”

  • And in Revelation, the message to the 7th church is “be zealous and repent.”

This Sunday we will continue our pilgrim journey in ‘A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.’ We’ll look at what it means to change course in each moment of our lives to bring us into alignment with the purpose of our creation, an abundant joy filled life in Jesus.

Gospel (Good News) Sunday.

With great joy in being your pastor –

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' with Perseverance: From Helplessness to Hopefulness

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 18, 2024

Guest preacher Rev. Marion Platt delivers a message on Psalm 131 on hope and perseverance as part of the "Stickin' with It" Lenten sermon series.

Pastor Marion is the sixth Executive Director and Pastor of Star Gospel Mission’s 120 year history. When he isn’t serving others, he can be found fishing in a local creek, running long distances in the sun, fussing over his vegetable garden, or quietly listening to jazz music.

 

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Source: sermons

Stickin' With It

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 11, 2024

Gore Vidal was a prolific American novelist, essayist and provocateur who identified at the beginning of this century a ‘condition’ he articulated as “today’s passion for the immediate and the casual.” One could say that this passion for instantaneous information, access or gratification in a culture that is saturated with hits and bits of contact makes for relationships with each other and with our God a “hit and run” affair that is incapable of depth and richness.

What a state! It’s so much easier for me to observe this in others and in the world around me than to see it in the mirror. I don’t have the time to… what?! You fill in the blank. Care for and love my family? Read scripture? Pray? Or do I? Our time allotted is the same – it’s how we choose to use it that differs.

Eugene Peterson addressed this issue over 25 years ago: “There are some things that don’t change. God doesn’t change: God seeks and saves. And our response as God is revealed in Jesus doesn’t change: we listen and we follow… or we don’t.” Peterson insists that to follow Jesus, to be agents of God’s justice and love, requires what used to be known as apprenticeship. It is by this apprenticeship that we come to know Jesus and that is where faith begins. 

Come this Sunday as we welcome new members Catrina and Adam Murphy, baptize Thomas Noel Mellen, and imagine what it is to be apprenticed to the bearer of the greatest power of the cosmos – the love of Jesus. 

 

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Source: sermons

Communion Sunday

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 4, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

I often speak of the narrative sweep of the Bible as God’s love song to God’s people. And so this Sunday I’ll reference the 40th chapter of Isaiah known as the beginning of Consolation. A fresh voice speaks of comfort, of promise, of restoration by the cosmic God who is “everlasting, the creator of the ends of the earth."

We focus on Mark, continuing in the first chapter, as Jesus has returned from the desert, taught in the synagogue, and exorcised a demon. He leaves the synagogue. He and his disciples stop by Simon and Andrew’s house. Simon (soon to be renamed as Peter) discovers his mother-in-law feverish and in bed. Jesus restores her.

 “He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. […]
                                           
"That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons… And the whole city was gathered around the door. […]
                                                 
“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”

The cosmic God, the comforting God, the flesh and blood Incarnate God in need of renewal and refreshment are all one.

From across the centuries, we are given hope, inspiration and evidence of the one who creates, who does not abandon, who meets us at our point of need and lifts us up.

Aren’t we in need of a little lift? Come worship our never-failing God of the ages.

In anticipation –

 

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Source: sermons