Sermons by Pastor Michael Church (Page 2)

Sermons by Pastor Michael Church (Page 2)

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Powerful or Vulnerable?

Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us online Saturday, January 30 at 5:30 pm for a prerecorded online only service (Facebook Premier) and on Sunday, January 31, 2021 at 10:00 am via Facebook Premiere! This special service of Morning Prayer and song will be online only due to the impending winter storm and potentially unsafe travel condition.  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. Join…

Third Sunday after Epiphany

‘The Miraculous Draught’ of Fishes, art by John Reilly, UK Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us online Saturday, January 23 at 5:30 pm for a prerecorded online only service (Facebook Premier) and on Sunday, January 24, 2021 at 10:00 am via Facebook Livestream!   Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. Join your prayers with the…

Baptism of Our Lord

Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us online for worship on Sunday, January 10, 2021 at 10:00 am via Facebook!   Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. Join your prayers with the community! During the live stream of the service, you are invited to type into the Facebook chat any prayer requests for those you want…

The Word Became Flesh
2 Christmas

Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us online for worship on Sunday, January 3, 2021 at 10:00 am via Facebook!   Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. Join your prayers with the community! During the live stream of the service, you are invited to type into the Facebook chat any prayer requests for those you want…

The Presentation of the Child
1 Christmas

Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us online for worship on Sunday, December 27 at 10:00 am via Facebook!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. Join your prayers with the community! During the live stream of the service, you are invited to type into the Facebook chat any prayer requests for those you want included…

Christmas Eve and Day Worship Services

Christmas Eve Worship—Thursday, December 24 Family Worship @ 4:00 pm Click here to access the online bulletin for this service.) Sermon I Love your more than Toilet Paper; thus, it’s the Best Christmas Ever! Sermon for Christmas Eve 2020, 4pm Drive in WorshipLuke 2:1-20; Covid-19 Coronavirus ResponseOur Saviour Lutheran Church, Warrenton, VA. The Reverend Terri E.L. Church Do you suppose Jesus could have had colic? That’s what snobby little Alice Wendleken wondered in that classic tale by Barbara Robinson, The…

Build Up the Ancient Ruins
3 Advent

December 12-13 Third Sunday of Advent, Year B Readings and Psalms: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11Psalm 126Luke 1:46b-55 (alternate)1 Thessalonians 5:16-24John 1:6-8, 19-28 Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, December 12 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, December 13 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who…

Prepare the Way of the Lord
2 Advent

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, December 5 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, December 6 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. Join on Facebook For those who prefer to stay safer at…

Apocalypse Now
1 Advent

First Sunday of Advent, Year B Readings and Psalms: Isaiah 64:1-9Psalm 80:1-7, 17-191 Corinthians 1:3-9Mark 13:24-37 Saturday 5:30 pm Contemporary Service  Sunday 10:00 am Traditional Service Altar Flowers are on hiatus throughout December but will resume the first weekend in January 2021. If you would like to donate flowers in memory, honor or celebration of a loved one or special date, please sign up on the chart in the church office hallway or call the church office at (540) 347-3224…

Thanksgiving Service (Online)

This year’s Thanksgiving Service will be different. Our Pie Fest has been re-imagined as a chance to provide pies and baked goods as well as turkey dinners for people in need. Look in the news for how to help our local neighbors in advance of the service. The worship service itself will be completely online and interactive at the link below. Let us gather online to share what we are thankful for and to celebrate God’s blessings in the past,…

Who’s the King?

The 25th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A Readings and Psalms: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24Psalm 95:1-7aEphesians 1:15-23Matthew 25:31-46 Saturday 5:30 pm Contemporary Service Sunday 10:00 am Traditional Service   Altar Flowers were loveling donated by the children of Jim and Sharon Wood – Jeremy, Carriann and Kevin – in honor and celebration of their parent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations Jim and Sharon! And wishing you many more years together in wedded bliss and good health!   Liturgical material © 2017 Augsburg Fortress; used by…

Keep Awake: The Parable of the Mean Girls

The 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, Year A November 7 and 8, 2020 Readings and Psalms: Amos 5:18-24 Wisdom of Solomon 6:12-16 (alternate) Psalm 70 Wisdom of Solomon 6:17-20 (alternate) 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Matthew 25:1-13 Saturday 5:30 pm Contemporary Service Sunday 10:00 am Traditional Service Liturgical material © 2017 Augsburg Fortress; used by permission of Augsburg Fortress, #SAS009239. Copyright Acknowledgments (CCLI License # 2800659 and One License # 710443-A) for print and broadcast.

All Saints Day: Olga Warrior Princess

All Saints Day, Year A October 31 – November 1, 2020 Readings and Psalms: Revelation 7:9-17 Psalm 34:1-10, 22 1 John 3:1-3 Matthew 5:1-12 Watch the recorded service from Saturday, October 31, 2020 Watch the recorded service from Sunday morning, November 1, 2020. Altar Flowers have been donated by Fred Koozer in honor and loving memory of all four of his grandparents.  If you would like to donate flowers in memory, honor or celebration of a loved one or special…

Reformation Sunday, Year A

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, October 24 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, October 25 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us on Facebook live. Worshipping…

The Power to Love

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, October 17 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, October 18 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us on Facebook live. Worshipping…

We Love to Win

18th Sunday After Pentacost, Year A Readings and Psalms: Isaiah 5:1-7 Psalm 80:7-15 Philippians 3:4b-14 Matthew 21:33-46 Watch the recorded service from Sunday morning, October 3, 2020. Watch the recorded service from Saturday, October 4, 2020 Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, October 31 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, November 1 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button…

“Good Thing Nobody Listens to Jesus”
(The third in a three-week sermon series on reconciliation)

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, September 19 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, September 20 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us on Facebook live. 16th Sunday after…

Forgive 70×7
(The second in a three-week sermon series on reconciliation)

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, September 12 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, September 13 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us on Facebook live. 15th Sunday after…

The Keys to the Kingdom
(The first in a three-week sermon series on reconciliation)

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, September 5 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, September 6 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us on Facebook live. 14th Sunday after…

The Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, August 22 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, August 23 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us on Facebook live. 12th Sunday after…

Was Jesus a Time Traveler?

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, August 15 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, August 16 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us on Facebook live. 11th Sunday after…

Lord Save Me

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, August 8 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, August 9 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us…

Something to Eat

Come Worship Together Live & In-person! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Nave and Sanctuary on both Saturday, August 1 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, August 2 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us…

Weekly Worship – July 11-12, 2020

Worship Together Live & In-person — Indoors! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to have you join us for live in-person worship back inside the Sanctuary on both Saturday, July 11 at 5:30 pm and Sunday, July 12 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details including how to reserve your spot, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible. For those who prefer to stay…

Weekly Worship – June 27-28, 2020

Worship Together Live & In-person — Indoors! Our Saviour is incredibly pleased to hold our 1st live in-person worship back inside the Sanctuary on Sunday, June 28 at 10:00 am!  Please click the “Read More” button below to get all the details including how to reserve your spot, which will help ensure all who wish to worship together in person stay as safe as possible.   For those who prefer to stay safer at home, join us on Facebook live. 4th Sunday…

The Eleventh Hour: A Sermon for Veterans’ Day

The first time I visited France, some thirty-five years ago, I noticed a curious sign posted on the Paris subway. In each car, next to a couple of seats, it said: “Reserved for disabled ex-servicemembers.” Well, that’s the translation. Really, the seats were reserved for mutilés de guerre, literally those who had been mutilated by war, who had lost limbs or eyes or organs. Those simple signs were a sobering reminder of the fact that there were, all around us in…

Shameless Prayer

Who changed the Lord’s Prayer? That’s a question that many people ask pastors when they get us alone. At first, it used to confuse me. But I think, nowadays, I have some sense of what they mean. Most of us grew up saying the Lord’s Prayer in one particular form, with all the archaic verbs and pronouns – Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, all the way down to the kingdom, the power and the glory,…

The Book of Nature

On a summer night just before the first grade, my mother woke me up and led me downstairs. My younger brothers and my sister must have joined us, but I don’t remember. I do remember that my father had made cream puffs, my favorite dessert, but that on this particular might he insisted that we call them Moon Puffs. And I remember sitting in front of our small black-and-white TV, with tin foil on the antennas, struggling to make out…

The Valley of the Uz

Let the dead bury their dead, says Jesus. And I thought of this a few months ago, when the battle erupted over a graveyard in Transylvania. In the part of Romania where I used to live, there are whole counties that do not think of themselves as “Romanian” at all. Before the First World War, they were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they sometimes think they still are. The people speak Hungarian, their children are schooled in Hungarian; if…

Let’s Kill Jesus!

Let’s kill Jesus. That’s an ugly sentence. Jesus, who hurt nobody and loved even the most wretched. How could we hurt him? How could anybody, but much less his followers? But: Let’s kill Jesus. It’s what one of his followers – one of his closest, one of the Twelve Apostles — came away muttering, just after the events of today’s Gospel reading. They were at Bethany, a few miles from Jerusalem. Mary, not his mother but the sister of Martha…

The Counterinsurgency Paradox

Ol’ Blue Eyes, Mr. Francis Albert Sinatra, was a good friend of Mr. Jack Daniels. Nor was he unacquainted with the occasional martini. He renewed these friendships on regular occasions in barrooms nationwide — gallivanting with the Rat Pack, drinking until all hours. Sinatra was such a beloved regular, in fact, that he had his own tables and barstools reserved for him, whenever he might show up, in nightclubs all across America. Which is not to say that he did…

Love Comes to Life

I was in talking to an atheist the other day. (Pastors meet more atheists than you might imagine.) This fellow had a question – “What should I expect, as an unbeliever, if I go to a church for the first time?” Without saying it directly, he was a little apprehensive. He was afraid, I think, of being judged, or mocked, or simply told “You aren’t welcome.” I told him not to worry. “Remember,” I said, “that you are going to…

An Execration of Pews

Wouldn’t it be great if, when you came to church, you could always sit in your favorite spot? I mean, most of us do have a favorite spot. The one we prefer, the one we sit in if nobody gets there first. Wouldn’t it be great if that seat were always reserved for you, ready and waiting? If you could leave your stuff in it from week to week – your Bible, your reading glasses, your package of Tic-Tacs, and…

A Scary Place – Easter Sunday, 2018

My life, I sometimes think, really began when I was twenty-three years old. I was working a desk job in the city, living a life of quiet desperation. One day I quit, stuffed some clothes into a backpack and flew to the Caribbean. Not one of the nice islands, either. I went to Haiti, the poorest and most violent nation in the hemisphere, the land of voodoo and secret police. I had no friends; I didn’t speak the language; I…

Upside Down – Palm Sunday, 2018

There was a game that people used to play, back in the Middle Ages. On certain days, they would reverse their roles. Kings might dress up like peasants, and vice-versa. One version of this game was called “The Boy Bishop.” On the Feast of the Holy Innocents, in some places, a choirboy would be chosen as bishop for the day; he would be given a peaked hat and a shepherd’s staff, he would enter the cathedral and even lead some…

How Will You Die This Week?

I saw a pizza truck at the grocery store. On the side, it said, “It’s not delivery – it’s DiGiorno.” But it was delivering the pizzas. So was it really DiGiorno? I met a man once who always told lies, who never told the truth. How did I know this? Why, he told me so himself. These are paradoxes, logical games beloved of philosophers and grade-school students all through the ages. (Will Achilles ever catch that tortoise?) A paradox, say…
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