The various scriptures for this Sunday are HERE.  The sermon is from the Luke with touches from the Psalm and the (unread) Jeremiah.  

I wonder if the title doesn't give the big idea to us:  "Blessed to be a Blessing."  

Our District Superintendent preaching on Kick Off Sunday.  Great Sermon.  Great!  Looks at what the church really is supposed to be and then ends with an enormous question.  The silence in the podcast was the silence that morning.  

Ephesians 1 -- this is Mother's Day and we look at being a parent as a church.

Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 (Taken from Eugene Peterson's The Message) 

This week during our Unafraid series, Pastor Dennis asks the question: Do we trust each other enough to be able to deal with our differences in a way that does not lead to schism? How much is due to a lack of trust in God and between one another. Paul's call to the community is to be reminded that if God is for us, who can be against us? We are reminded and comforted, that although challenges are always before us, it's nothing new under the sun. 

Bob Scarborough vulnerably reflects on his own life experiences to recap Hilltop's Unafraid series. He elaborated on the fear of being alone and the fear of failure. He reminded us that the Lord who calls us to be fearless is for us and with us. 

This was a look at Fear of the Other.  Connect with each other.  Quite a bit of reference back to the music we sang this day.  The reprise I used was a little play off an acronym of FEAR -- Face Everything and Rise with some words from Dr. King on moving from fear to knowing and meeting.

Question is "how often do we let our fear of the stranger drive us to not connect."

Some continuation of the previous week's theme of connectedness, but here the connectedness is getting past the dikes that hold us in our own flood of fear of the other.  Dikes of courage (among other things) are needed (a quote i thought about using, but didn't.)

I am currently listening to Isaac Asimov Robots of Dawn and wonder how much of this might be helpful ... if you are not familiar with the book, do not worry.  If you are, the conversation Daneel and Elijah in Chapter 2 is what I am thinking.  Elijah has to see Robots differently on Aurora than on Earth.  On Earth, they are an object of scorn and subservience.  On Aurora (a fictitious planet) they are near equals, if not precisely equals.  Elijah has to be taught this, as it does not come naturaly to him.  Yes? 

Quotes from Dr. King: 

• "People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other."
• "We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear."

― Martin Luther King Jr.

Question is "what keeps you from getting connected with others?"

But two prong:  we ourselves must open ourselves up to others but others must also look at us and be willing to attempt to connect with us.  Not an either/or but both/and. 

Music focusing on community (invite the stranger) but also recognizing the need for solitude.  Mixed. A balance.  Not exclusively hang out with others all day/every day.  We need to be together, in fact, we are made to be in community but on the other hand, it is natural, and biblical to seek moments alone. 

This series springs from the well dug by the Reverend Adam Hamilton, Church of the Resurrection, Leawood, Kansas. 

This is getting started with the idea of Unafraid.  We actually live in a time of borderline irrational fear.  The numbers are good.  We are healthy, wealthy, and longest lived people and for some reason, we are more and more afraid.  

Sermon draws from Isaiah 41: 1-10, Psalm 56: 3-4 and Philippians 4: 6-7.  

This starts a six week series on Fear.  The first sermon is on how much of fear is more imaginary than real.  Question is "what are you afraid of".  I know FDR is not Jesus but "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself" is part of the idea if not the message. 

FEAR can at times be False Events Appearing Real.  At times we live in a world where smoke detectors are going off but it is because their batteries are low, not because there is anything to really fear.  Topical sermon so form will roughly be:  The element of the human condition we are going to look at (Unnecessary Fear), exegete that element of the HC, what does scripture say about it (the Isaiah, Psalm, Philippians and of course Jesus (sermon on the mount)), and then application. 

We do live in times where Auden's "Age of Anxiety" is incomplete and for whatever reason we live in an "Age of High Anxiety."  Real?