Member Mission

When the members are the missionaries. 24/7/365

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Sermons by Title

  • “Biblical Faith, Fanatics, and Extremists”
    John’s story of the man born blind leads to addressing both our own mission to see to our own spiritual health and our mission to build spiritual health in the wider world.
    By The Rev. Roger Alling
  • “The Common Good”
    The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you.” No part of the body is inferior.
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “Coping with Two of Today’s Temptations”
    Cope with avoiding the “deeper things” by sharing what each of us is doing to make life better in our daily places. Avoid the separation of worship and life by, each Sunday, “putting” your present concerns “into” the bread that is offered, blessed, broken, and given.
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “Daily Arenas as Mission Fields”
    Four people, including the preacher’s son, discover the arenas of their daily lives to be mission fields.
    By The Rev. Dr. Meredith Woods Potter
  • “Faith + Works = Mission”
    To move out of complacency about how we are living as Christians, see how worship helps us to live as missionaries.
    By The Rev. Dr. Meredith Woods Potter
  • “Faith and Works”
    “My life here at St. Paul’s [has helped me to see] we are God’s people everywhere we are and are his ministers and missionaries to the world wherever we are.”
    By Donna B. Coulich
  • “Filled with Grace”
    Preached on Consecration Sunday to culminate a stewardship teaching, the preacher tells of experiences of grace in a variety of contexts and concludes that all her listeners are filled with grace for all of their living.
    By Gloria Young
  • “Finding Our Daily Missions”
    “Loving and being just are our job as Christians. Members on mission can do even more than congregations on mission.”
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “For Economic Equality”
    Does the Bible describe not just some safe historical past but also who we are now; the kind of people we have been, the kind of people we are becoming? Is the Bible talking about us?
    By The Rev. Anne Michele Turner
  • “From Four Directions”
    How St. Matthew’s / San Mateo, Auburn includes participating in the First Nations “four directions prayers.”
    By Dianne Aid
  • “Good Friday”
    Crucifixion is a horrible death, the body writhes to relive pain, and death comes by suffocation.
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “How Big is Whatever?”
    How residents of a retirement community might “do business,” live with the others around them, and use their spare time.
    By William David Thompson
  • “Justice and the Common Good”
    Summer gifts: the sheer abundance of blossoms on the rhododendron – a blossom on every branch! A fresh meeting with our Creator and our Creator’s handiwork.
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “Living Our Faith”
    I had the good fortune to do some intensive work on the ministry of Christians in daily life with Professor Louis Weil, an authority on Christian formation.
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “Member Missions – the Next Step in Mission”
    “So St. Anthony on the Desert, maybe it is time to take the next step in mission . . . to say we are here to help our members live better wherever they are Monday to Saturday . . . to make this the rule of life for St. Anthony on the Desert.”
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “Missio Dei”
    Three sections: SSJE member Fr. Benson re what to center on; God’s mission has a church, not vice versa; and mission is what we are all about. [Correct spelling of Newbigin not Newbigen]
    By The Rev. Kevin Hackett
  • “Mission, the Church, and You Sermon” (Slideshow)
    Helping members to see that God’s mission has a church rather than the church has a mission; and to discover their part in God’s mission in each area of their daily life.
    By Elizabeth S. Hall
  • “Moral Animal, The”
    “Not survival of the fittest” but building a community and supporting the common good make a species survive. “Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age.”
    By Johnathan Sacks
  • “Not Members, but Missionaries”
    “Friends in Christ, I believe that I stand on firm ground when I say that ‘to be an Episcopalian is to be a missionary, not a member of a particular denomination of the Church of God.'”
    By The Rev. Irving Gagnon
  • “Our Six Mission Fields”
    “Our lives have six arenas we are in every week – our homes, our work, our local community, the wider world, and our leisure, as well as our church. We are called to be on mission in each of them.”
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “Palm Sunday is Always a Favorite Day”
    I discovered this verse recently. The RSV has it right – “deeds of power” – dunamis – our word “dynamic” comes from it. “As he was … Luke 19:37.
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “Proclaim the Good News”
    The familiar lighthouse parable leads to the story of a man who cannot read finding a tutor.
    By The Rev. Louis Tonsmiere
  • “Repent to live more justly”
    A fresh way in repentance – being more loving and just in every part of daily life; especially in deciding how to cast your votes and in raising children
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “Saint Mary the Virgin”
    Give up the idols of money, power and success; hold fast to the real power, God, and God’s ways for us.
    By The Rev. Anne Michele Turner
  • “Seeing Jesus”
    Seeing is one of the first ways we connect with the world around us. We have to be careful about what we look at and what our children and teens and we ourselves look at.
    By The Rev. A. Wayne Schwab
  • “Start living your missions now!”
    For any Sunday in Lent or Easter-tide – a lay person talks of the new life to be found in being part of God’s mission now.
    By Elizabeth S. Hall
  • “Stewardship as Loving and Just Living”
    Thinking about your missions in the church; we’ll expand that thinking into what happens out in the world because that’s where we all spend the vast majority of our time.
    By Elizabeth S. Hall
  • “To Serve Society” – A Talk
    Shared values build a society; self-interest does not; secular language for “common good” or “love your neighbor.”
    By Robert Reich
  • “Transfiguration Sunday”
    Moments of transfiguration seen in today’s world as moments when we or others make some part of life more loving or more just. These are evangelizing moments and they connect easily with Ignatian spirituality.
    By The Rev. Mark Norris
  • “Two Sermons with Member Mission Homework”
    A two-part sermon: Part One today you help me by sharing some of your experiences; Part Two is to highlight our Monday to Monday Ministries as individuals.
    By The Rev. James L. Gill
  • “Way of God We Strive to Follow, The”
    From Isaiah: seeking justice. Psalm 50: proper worship is not the problem. Hebrews: follow the path God lays before us, even if we never live to see the promises fulfilled. Luke: God has the future well in hand; we are responsible for the present.
    By The Rev. Sandra Lee “Raggs” Ragan
  • “We are the ’70 Others’”
    When you heard about these “70 others,” these “70 others” are never named. They are not called “the 70 best;” simply “the 70 others.”
    By Rev. Louis Tonsmeire
  • “We Joined Jesus’ Mission in Our Baptism”
    Our baptism calls us to become part of the mission. We are not to become members of the Church and then stop. We are to become missionaries along with Christ, in bringing reconciliation, justice and love.
    By Frank Walter, III
  • “When is Sunday?”
    “Sunday is given to me as a day to remember that God’s grace and the Son’s resurrection goes ahead of me that this divine work proceeds and supports my work when I work well.”
    By The Rev. Armand E. Larive