Ephesians 3: 14-21
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
Today, we continue reading from the book of Ephesians. If you look at the outline included in your program this morning, you will notice that our reading today is a prayer that closes out the first half of the letter. The prayer serves to signal a transition in the letter from a section focused mostly on doctrine to a section that focuses more on action.  Doctrine simply means a teaching of the church.  Doctrine focuses on information and knowledge.  Doctrine is about ensuring that you know the right things.  The next section of the letter is going to focus on practice.  Instead of focusing on what you should know, the letter will begin to focus more on what you should do. (more…)

Ephesians 2: 11-22
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
For the next several weeks, we are going to be reading the letter to the church in Ephesus. We began the letter last week by reading the introductory blessing that, if you recall, was one long sentence of blessing that spoke about the graceful nature of our God. I want to just quickly remind you of a couple of key points from last week that are important to keep in mind as we read this letter. In your program this morning is an insert that you can take home with you that covers some key information about Ephesians. On the back of the insert are a few questions for you to discuss if you would like – they are intended to be provocative questions that will hopefully get you thinking a little deeper about the lesson today and perhaps provide for some lively discussion over lunch. The two key points to keep in mind are, first, we don’t know who the author was. Probably it was written by students of Paul, but it was probably not written by Paul himself. Second, we don’t know who the audience was. It is addressed to the Ephesians in the version you have in the pew Bibles, but the earliest original manuscripts don’t have that address in them, and there is nothing else in the letter to tell us for whom the letter was intended. (more…)

Ephesians 1: 3-14
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
For the next several weeks, we are going to be reading and I’m going to be preaching from the letter to the Ephesians. Today, I want to introduce the letter to you so that you know a little bit about it. And I want to talk about one of the themes in the letter. (more…)

Mark 6: 1-13
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
A while back, I was reunited with some of my high school friends.  I had been away from our hometown for several years – I’d lost most of my hair, and at the time, I had this big scraggly beard.   Needless to say, I looked very different from how I looked in high school.  Most people didn’t recognize me at all – they remembered me, but they didn’t see me when they saw me.  So I had to introduce myself and, a flash of recognition would come over them and suddenly they would see me and they would say “My how you have changed.”  After that initial shock of my appearance and after catching up on where life had taken us in the years since our last meeting, our conversations quickly turned to romantic memories of our youth.  We told ourselves funny stories that we recalled about each other, and we laughed.  And soon – very soon – we were right back there- each one of us started to return to the old personality we had in high school – each one of us began to relate to each other as we did in high school.  It took a few minutes, but after a little while we all reverted back to our old, familiar roles. (more…)

Mark 5: 21-43
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
When I was a kid, we used to go out to the country for the Fourth of July where it was legal to shoot off fireworks. I had an older cousin who was particularly fond of fireworks. He would order up a bunch of fireworks and then he would customize them with things like gunpowder and flash paper – so we always had a really good fireworks show. Until one time…when my cousin launched a bottle rocket. The bottle rocket shot up into the air, and then took a strange curve, and darted right into my mother’s lap. My mother panicked, naturally, and my dad rushed over to her. We all expected a terrible moment when the bottle rocket would explode right there in her lap. (more…)

The Chancel Choir adds wonderful music to enhance our worship services. Consider joining our choir when it resumes in the fall.  The only requirements are that you are able to match pitch (sing in tune), and that you attend Thursday evenings and Sunday morning rehearsals.  If you would like to learn more, or wish to join up, please speak with Nancy Robbins, our Director of Music.