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Our Relationship with What the Lord Teaches - 2 - Individual Experience
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - July 11, 2021
Last week we talked about some general principles as to what makes for a healthy or unhealthy relationship with what the Lord teaches. This week we’re going to talk about what it’s like to be an individual navigating the ups and downs of our individual relationship with what the Lord teaches. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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Our Relationship with What the Lord Teaches - 1 - General Principles
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - July 04, 2021
Here’s one expression of our relationship with what the Lord teaches: “God said it. I believe it. That settles it!” It’s not quite that simple, is it? What should our relationship with statements in the Lord’s Word be? What if we don’t understand them or don’t believe them? Do we reject them? Do we tell ourselves to believe them anyway? There are big ramifications to how we hold our relationship with what the Lord teaches so let’s talk about it this Sunday. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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Overcoming Avoidance
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - June 27, 2021
Avoiding is something we all do. We do it with small things, like when we ignore our body’s signals that it’s time for bed or when we procrastinate on the dishes. We do it with bigger things, like when we put off that important but difficult conversation we need to have or when we put future decisions out of mind. And we do it even with the most important things in our spiritual lives, when we know we have an issue but it is to challenging to face. But if we are to grow spiritually we cannot put off or ignore our flaws. We need to address them head on. This Sunday we will look at some of the reasons we avoid spiritual challenges and what we can do to overcome that tendency. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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What is the New Church - Part 3 - Picturing the New Church
Worship Service: Informal Family - June 20, 2021
Every June, as New Church day approaches, we turn our attention to the book of Revelation. Revelation presents fantastic imagery of plagues and warfare, of dragons and angel armies, of a colossal city and a lake of fire. What it does not appear to do is lay out nicely and clearly what the New Church will be. Why did the Lord choose imagery over rational explanation to paint a picture for us of the New Church? This Sunday’s talk for the whole family will dive into what we can learn of the New Church through understanding John’s visions. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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What is the New Church - Part 2 - Being Different
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - June 13, 2021
In talking about what the New Church is we could focus on how the New Church is different from other churches but this Sunday I’m more interested in talking about how we hold those differences. Are we meant to be trying to be different? Do we feel embarrassed to be different or maybe superior? Let’s work to have the Lord guide our thinking about being different. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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What is the New Church? Part 1
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - June 06, 2021
Every year on 19 June we celebrate “New Church Day.” We treat this day as the birthday of our church. But what is it that we actually are celebrating? What is the New Church? How does the New Church fit into the broader world of religions and faith? How widely does it extend? How does it differ from any other faith? This June we will spend time looking at exactly what the New Church is, and especially how it fits into the world around us. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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Being Born Again
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - May 30, 2021
Have you been born again? Or, to ask the same question in a different way, have you been significantly changed by trying to follow the Lord? That’s the point, right? To become a less selfish, more loving, more wise and useful person. Who could you become if you really gave yourself over to loving the Lord and loving other people? Sometimes it can feel like we’re not making much progress in that direction. Is that because we’re not trying hard enough or not letting go enough or just because it’s hard and it takes a long time to change? These are the questions that we’re going to wrestle with on Sunday. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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Confirmation of Baptism
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - May 23, 2021
Last week we witnessed a baptism. Malcolm talked about the importance of baptism as a mark of committing to a certain way of life. But he also mentioned how rarely many of us reflect on our own baptisms. In the New Church we practice infant baptism, meaning many of us were not even conscious of what was going on when it took place, and have no memory of it. How do we confirm and affirm that we as adults accept the promises made when we were infants? Or if baptised as adults, how do we confirm and affirm the promises made years ago when younger? This Sunday we will look at various ways of confirming the promises of baptism and making sure the commitment of baptised remains with us. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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Circumcision and Baptism
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - May 16, 2021
This Sunday we get to witness a baptism. The teachings of the New Church tell us that the sacrament of baptism was instituted by the Lord to replace the ritual of circumcision. We might prefer not to think too much about circumcision but, if we spend a bit of time reflecting on the purpose and function of circumcision, it can give us a different and useful angle from which to get a better understanding of the sacrament that replaced it, baptism. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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Honouring Mothers
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - May 09, 2021
The 4th Commandment directs us to “honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which Jehovah your God is giving you.” I hope you have a chance today to do some of that honouring. But of course, this commandment goes far beyond just one day of the year and beyond just one earthly mother. More broadly we can reflect on how we honour motherhood in general, and how those qualities of motherhood come into our spiritual practices. Whether your mother is still here or has passed on, whether your relationship with your mother is deep, conflicted, or non-existent, it is possible to honour spiritual motherhood. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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When Having the Ark of God Doesn't Help
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - May 02, 2021
We’re going to look at a story this Sunday where the Children of Israel are facing a powerful enemy and they decide to bring the ark of the covenant into battle with them. But then they get absolutely slaughtered by their enemy. There are other stories in the Bible where the presence of the ark of the covenant with the people brings about a miraculous victory for the Children of Israel. There are also times in our lives where we’re facing something difficult and we feel like we’re making an effort to follow the Lord but He doesn’t seem to be helping at all. What’s going on? | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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Education, Part 3 - Learning the Lord's Way
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - April 25, 2021
So far we have seen why education is a necessary part of life and how education is really an opening up of a path to the Lord. This Sunday we will look at some of the ways that we do the actual practice of learning and teaching. For learning to be useful we have to make sure we are taking account of all that the Lord says about our minds and how they grow. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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Education, Part 2 - An Opening of the Path
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - April 18, 2021
Last week Joel talked about the necessity of education. This week we will be talking about a model of what education does for a person and how a New Church worldview can inform what we educate people in and how we educate them. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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Education, Part 1 - The Necessity of Education
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - April 11, 2021
We are beginning a series on education, specifically New Church education. Education is more than just what you learn in school: it is a process of growing from ignorance into wisdom, from selfishness into selflessness, from hell into heaven. This Sunday we will look at the reasons that we all have to learn, and why we need to keep on learning into eternity. Education is something that we can never be done with, especially if we want to follow the Lord and be part of His Kingdom. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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From Disbelief to Joy
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - April 04, 2021
Easter is an opportunity to reflect on the Lord’s life, death, and resurrection. But what if you’re not sure what you believe about all of that? Or what if you believe that it happened but it doesn’t feel particularly relevant to your life? In either case, you’re in good company. On Easter morning the disciples did not immediately believe that the Lord had risen from the dead. It took them a while and a number of experiences to get to the point where they believed that it was true. On Sunday we’ll look at some of the stories after the Lord’s resurrection from the Gospel of Luke and what we can learn from them about the process of growing in our belief in the Lord. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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The Coming Kingdom
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - March 28, 2021
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey the onlookers took it to be an ancient symbol of kingship. And indeed, it was. Yet their expectations of that coming kingdom were far removed from the kingdom that Jesus sought to establish. Jesus knew that the people expected an immediate overthrow of oppression and the onset of an earthly kingdom with Jesus as their benevolent ruler. The kingdom Jesus actually established was one of hard work and repentance, in other words, a spiritual kingdom. This Sunday we will look at how our own expectations are contrary to what the Lord actually intends for us. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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Finding Jesus in the Lives of the Prophets - Ezekiel
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - March 21, 2021
The role of the prophets was to communicate God’s messages to the people. They did that by speaking and writing but also by embodying the message they were communicating in one way or another. The prophet Ezekiel was often commanded to do some rather weird things to embody the messages he was communicating. This Sunday we will be trying to understand why he did these things and what that can reveal to us about why Jesus did the things that He did as the Word made flesh who dwelt among us. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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Finding Jesus in the Lives of the Prophets - Jeremiah
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - March 14, 2021
This week we continue to look at how the Old Testament prophets reflect the life of Jesus. This Sunday we turn to Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived in a time when impending invasion and doom hung over the people of Israel, and yet the prophets promised peace and prosperity. Jeremiah's role was to proclaim the reality that things would get worse before they got better unless they changed their ways. This seemingly pessimistic message echoed the spiritual message that Jesus brought hundreds of years later: this time a spiritual doom threatened, and Jesus urgently pushed people to repentance lest they be overcome by sin. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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Finding Jesus in the Lives of the Prophets - Isaiah
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - March 07, 2021
The teachings of the New Church say that the whole of the Word relates to the Lord Jesus Christ and what He went through while on Earth. And so we’ve done sermon series in the past on finding Jesus in the life of Abraham, Joshua, and Elisha. This time we’re going to focus on three of the major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. This will be a chance to learn a bit about these prophets, about what the Lord went through on Earth, and about the role of a prophet in difficult times. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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Stories from Heaven and Hell
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - February 28, 2021
In the New Church we talk a lot about the afterlife. A few weeks ago we talked some about the structure and process of the afterlife. But raw information never shows the full picture. Stories of daily interactions and interesting anecdotes flesh things out. That is why we are looking to the stories from the Teachings of the New Church that lay out just a glimpse of what we can expect in the afterlife. This week we will hear stories that take place in heaven and in hell. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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Stories from the World of Spirits
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - February 21, 2021
Two weeks ago we talked about what life is like after death. We discussed the structure of the afterlife and the succession of states that we go through. This week and next week we want to flesh these ideas out with stories. The teachings of the New Church contain lots of stories about things that happened in the spiritual world. Why were these stories included and what can we learn from them about how things work after death? | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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Preparing for Easter - the Road to Jerusalem
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - February 14, 2021
Easter is still pretty far away (7 weeks, more or less). But the time from Ash Wednesday (17 February this year) until Easter Sunday is generally seen as a time of preparation for the holiday. You may remember that last year we suggested giving up a bad habit or picking up a new spiritual practice in this time period. This year we'll suggest similar ways to prepare. Specifically, this Sunday we'll look at how Jesus' steady ascent from the backwater of Galilee along the road up to the metropolis of Jerusalem and His own death can help us prepare for our own celebration of His resurrection at Easter. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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What Do People Do After Death
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - February 07, 2021
A lot of people have lost loved ones recently. When someone we love dies we can have a lot of questions. First, how do we know that they are still alive somewhere? If they are alive somewhere, what is their experience like? What do they do with their time? Is it a pleasant experience; is it an unpleasant experience? There is a lot of information about the afterlife in the teachings of the New Church. This Sunday we will scratch the surface of that body of teaching and try to cover some of the important basics of a New Church understanding of what life is like after death. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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False Virtues
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - January 31, 2021
We put great pride in certain virtues, both as individuals and as a society. When we embody these virtues it is a sign that we are spiritually growing. But virtues are not as easy to identify as we like to believe. Certain qualities that we view as virtuous are in fact unrelated to meaningful virtue. To take a simple example, many people take busy-ness to be a virtue, as if always being busy reflects on their character. In actual fact, being overladen with work says nothing about one’s character: it may be a sign of love for others, but it could just as easily be nothing of the sort. We need to evaluate where we put our worth, and if it is in false virtues then we need to look to the Lord to find the virtues that truly reflect a good spiritual life. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
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Practicing to Be Spiritual Through Meditation
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - January 24, 2021
How do we get better at being the kind of people we want to be? How can we get better at catching ourselves before we do the mindless or hurtful things that we find ourselves prone to doing? The same way that we get better at most things: by practicing. Practicing meditation is one way to practice being more spiritually awake. This Sunday we will talk about a New Church Christian approach to meditation and then we will practice it together. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
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