Acts 8: 5-8, 14-17
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Resources from 2019 to 2022
Sermon Starters (Baptism of the Lord)(C)(2022)
Simon’s mysterious story reminds me of the perhaps equally mysterious story of Emad Jamil Al Swealmeen. He killed himself and wounded his taxi driver when he detonated an improvised explosive device outside the Liverpool Women’s Hospital on November 11, 2021. Police believe he was what Daniel Pipes on the November 21, 2021, Middle East Forum Blog calls “an Islamist and a jihadi.” Yet Swealmeen’s story is somewhat complicated. When he legally arrived in Britain from Iraq, a retired British army officer took the refugee under his wing after he visited Liverpool’s Cathedral and expressed interest in converting to Christianity. The officer led him through an Alpha Course and into his confirmation in March 2017...Baptism of Jesus (C)(2019)
In her January 19, 2010 commentary on Acts 8:14-17 on the Preach This Week website Karoline Lewis tells about her experience with preaching a sermon about baptism. “After the church service, she writes, “a long-time member of the church, 90-years-old, came up to us and the other pastors and asked, ‘Is it really true? That God is the one who baptizes you?’ “We soon learned that her older sister was born extremely ill. There was neither hope for her survival, nor for her to be able to leave the house. As a result, the grandmother baptized her. “When the baby died, and her parents approached the pastor about the funeral, the pastor refused to perform the funeral in the sanctuary because he had not baptized the baby. The funeral for our member’s 3-month-old sister was held in the church basement. Ninety years later, she wondered, she prayed, ‘So, my sister is OK?’ The sister she never knew; the sister for whom she still shed tears.”
Resources from 2011 to 2018
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Water, Fire, Faith
("Some years ago the town fathers of Providence, Rhode Island were desperate to find a way to revitalize the city's downtown, and especially its dangerous waterfront. So what did they do? They hired an artist. The artist they chose was a multi-media public artist named Barnaby Evans, who is known for combining science and art, nature and the senses, especially soundcapes, to generate something magical....")