Brian's Sermons

Haggai 2:1-5 When I was in college, Northwestern University had a big observatory on the shore of Lake Michigan. It was really cool – it kind of looked like a giant alien bug. It was right by the intramural soccer fields, where I spent a lot of my time on the weekends, and it was even part of the logo for the college of arts and sciences. There was just one problem. Our proximity to Chicago rendered the observatory ineffective. You couldn’t see much of anything because of the light pollution. So they took out the telescope and sent it to Arizona or somewhere, and they tore down the observatory. Actually, that was a story in itself – the strange design of the observatory ended up causing the demolition team fits trying to destroy it. They tried to implode it with explosive charges, but instead of imploding, it just leaned. Then they tried to pull it over with big tow trucks, but that didn’t work either. They finally got it down and out of there, and a campus landmark was gone. ...

Today is the Day to Choose… Joshua 24:1-24 It was the Fall of 1985; I was 14 years old, it was halftime of the last soccer game of the season, and we were tied.  I can remember the scene vividly, how our coach gave us a rousing pep talk. I can still remember the words he said to us, but they’re not really appropriate for a Sunday morning talk!  We went on to preserve the tie, the only game that season that we didn’t lose.  The halftime speech did what it was intended to do. What makes a good halftime pep talk?  A reminder of who the team is – their history, maybe even their past failures as well as their successes.  A reminder of what has brought them there; what hardships they’ve overcome to get there and what has defined them as a team.  Do you think the New Orleans Saints mentioned Hurricane Katrina before or during the Super Bowl? During times of transition or difficulty, it is always important to be reminded of what’s most important and of who you ...