Rev Chris Roth

  1 Peter 3: 13-22 Christianity is sometimes presented as a cure-all for the problems of life. If you just have enough faith, then all your personal issues and personality problems will just vanish. Sometimes it’s presented as a get rich quick philosophy. If you just believe then you will receive the abundant material blessings of God. Because God loves you, and if God loves you he wants you to have nice things, right? If you just have faith and pray then God will give you the job you want, the husband or wife you want, the children you want, the car you want, the house you want. If you just believe strongly enough, then you will not be sick. Life will be smooth and joyful and perfect. And the only thing standing in your way is your doubt. This is sometimes called the Prosperity Gospel. The people who Peter was writing to (around 30 years after Jesus died and was resurrected) would not have recognized what I just described as Christianity. The people Pete...

John 14:1-14 In the midst of an incredible diversity of cultures and religions, Christianity claims to know the exclusive path to God. In John 14:6 Jesus says,  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”   In Acts 4:12 Paul says about Jesus,  “there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”  To the modern person this all might seem pretty intolerant and offensive. There are some who think that Christianity should change its tune if it doesn’t want to be considered bigoted and close-minded. There is an important detail that is worth teasing out. Christians are saying that Jesus said of himself that he is “the way, and the truth, and the life. [and that] No one comes to the Father except through [him]”. We aren’t making the claim about Christianity. We are saying Jesus made this claim about himself. We aren’t saying only Christians are saved. We aren’t claiming to know who populat...

  Come in from the road and sit by the hearth. Here, in the quiet of weathered stone and creeping ivy, learn the slow rhythms of prayer, the disciplines, and a life quietly hidden in Christ. An app for exploring the disciplines and creating a rule of life https://spiritual-formation-compass.lovable.app/ Please consider supporting the app financially. It does cost something to keep it live.

This app is designed to help busy Sunday School teachers with their lesson. It gives a number of options for how to approach the Gospel with object lessons, crafts, songs, prayers, custom coloring pages, and a deeper study for your own soul — all shaped for your classroom. https://lectionary-lesson-lab.lovable.app/ Please consider financially supporting the app so I can keep it live

I designed this app helps you select music for Sunday services https://lectionary-song-guide.lovable.app/ It does cost something to keep it up, so please consider financially supporting it

Ezekiel 34: 7-15; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2: 19-25; John 10: 1-10 The readings today center around the image of shepherds. The image of the shepherd is a beloved way for Christians to think about Jesus. My family wasn’t particularly religious when I was growing up, but I remember having a picture of Jesus holding a lamb on a wall in our house. I’m sure that was a pretty common image in many homes. So, when we look at a reading like Psalm 23 and read “The Lord is my shepherd” we rightly feel comforted by the reality that God is looking out for us like a shepherd would look out for the sheep. That pastoral image is good and beautiful, but there is actually a lot of depth to the image of the shepherd, and we can miss the depth of what Jesus is saying if we don’t see how the image of shepherds and sheep are used in the Bible. What might be surprising is that the image of a shepherd is often used in a negative way. We heard that in our Old Testament reading today, where the image of the Shep...