Sermon Audio 9/13/2015, Acts Series Week 15

Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo 

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary Year B

Acts 13:1-5 

Our Acts sermon series for the summer of 2015 ends with the commissioning of Barnabas and Paul as they are set apart and sent forth from Antioch. On this "God's Work. Our Hands." Sunday, what can we learn about being set apart and sent forth? 

As always, listen here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by searching "Tengwall."

Sermon Audio 9/6/2015, Acts Series Week Fourteen

Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo 

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary Year B

Mark 7:24-37 

This Sunday we were blessed to hear the Word proclaimed by none other than the Rev. Sarah Friesen-Carper, Assistant to the Bishop for Congregational and Leadership Excellence of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod of the ELCA. She preached a powerful message about the Syrophoenician woman as part of "Confession, Repentance and Commitment to End Racism Sunday."

As always, listen here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by searching "Tengwall."

Sermon Audio 8/30/2015, Acts Series Week Thirteen

Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo 

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary Year B

Acts 11:19-26 

The Holy Spirit does not work on our schedule. We can dwell on the past or worry about the future, or we can look and see what God is doing right now.

Yes, I recognize the irony of posting this sermon audio a week late.

As always, listen here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by searching "Tengwall."

Sermon Audio 8/16/2015, Acts Series Week Eleven

Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo 

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary Year B

Acts 11:1-18

The story of Peter and Cornelius may be the apex of our series on Acts, when God changes the rules to allow even Gentiles - like me - to receive baptism and the Holy Spirit. What can this transformational moment in the earliest church teach us about how God is acting today?

As always, listen here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by searching "Tengwall."

Sermon Audio 8/2/2015, Acts Series Week Nine

Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo 

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary Year B

Acts 8:1b, 4-8, 14-17

The crisis that scattered the first church from Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria became an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to spread the gospel. Recent news that the Lutheran tradition is the whitest religious tradition in the US presents a very different kind of crisis. Will we be open to how the Holy Spirit can use our weakness as means to share the gospel?

As always, listen here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by searching "Tengwall."

Sermon Audio 7/26/2015, Acts Series Week Eight

Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo 

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary Year B

Acts 7:51-60 

Prophetic grief is the public lament that challenges the injustices that have led to violence against God's people. The death of Stephen in our Acts sermon series is an excellent lens through which we can explore prophetic grief as the work of following Jesus today. For more on prophetic grief, search the hashtags #PropheticGrief and #SlateSpeak (the online church conversation that inspired this sermon, by @TheSlateProject) on Twitter. 

As always, listen here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by searching "Tengwall."

Sermon Audio 7/19/2015, Acts Series Week Seven

Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo 

8th Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary Year B

Acts 6:1-6

The Holy Spirit will mess with you. Thus I learned anew when a series of technological circumstances led me to preach this sermon from memory. Of course that was also the intended point of the sermon, on how the apostles' establishment of the diaconate in Acts 6 did not go as planned. Funny how that works.

As always, listen here or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes by searching "Tengwall."