Pastors Note – St. Andrew's UMC

From Christmas to Easter

Merry Christmas! As I write this (December 31), we still have 5 more days in Christmastide,

which ends on January 5 before the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. So, depending on when

you are reading this, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I’m still working on one more Christmas-themed sermon for January 5 (weather permitting) and

getting ready for a different sort of Epiphany and Lent sermon series. I’ve not been big on

sermon series in my preaching career, preferring to follow the Revised Common Lectionary. But

working with Marshall and A.J. on their confirmation classes has inspired me to think about why

we do the things we do at St. Andrew’s. And since Epiphany is supposed to be all about how

Jesus was revealed as the Messiah, I thought we might take a look at two of the things we do

together each week which are at the core of our confession of faith: The Lord’s Prayer and the

Apostles’ Creed.

As of this writing, I’m planning two weeks on The Lord’s Prayer and a whopping ten weeks on

the Creed. Those sermons, plus three interruptions, will take us all the way to Easter, by which

time I’ll have figured out what I might do next. Much as I like to preach from the lectionary,

I’ve been doing so for almost 20 years now, so change is in order. Maybe you all have some

requests for topics?

Oh, those interruptions? Well, Connie and I will be on vacation for January 26 and Jackie

Brown will be preaching. On March 2 nd , our whole congregation has been invited to join The

Antioch Baptist Church for their anniversary service. Since Rev. Dr. Benson and I have heard

from both congregations that you all want to worship together, we thought that might be a good

time to start a “home and away” series. We’ll need to find a time to bring the folks from TABC

here to DeSoto in return. And Palm Sunday’s sermon will not be a part of the Creed series.