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How Long, O Lord?
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - June 10, 2018
There are times when the state of things in this world can seem pretty bleak - when things at a national, international and even local and personal level seem pretty bad. Too often it seems like evil and selfishness are winning, despite genuinely good people doing all that they can to try to do what's right. This Sunday we will reflect on a vision from the book of Revelation that captures this feeling - the vision of souls under the altar crying out to the Lord, "How long, O Lord?" - and we will see what the Lord has to tell us about what to do when it seems like things are really bad and will never get better. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (21m 38s)
Where Did We Go Wrong?!
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - June 03, 2018
Have you ever found yourself in a bad place and wondered how on earth you got into this mess? Things were once so great! Life was sailing along smoothly and you were proud of how much growth you'd seen in yourself. Yet here you are, back to your crabby, unhappy, selfish self. What went wrong? This pattern is common not just in individuals but in communities and even across history. Luckily, it does not happen by chance. This Sunday we'll look what Revelation can tell us about this cycle and how we can avoid it. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (25m 03s)
A Friend in Need
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - May 27, 2018
How do you love someone who is committing evil? What about when that person is your best friend? Is it our place to correct him? Do we distance ourselves from him? Jesus, through His teaching and His example, calls us to remain close with those who do evil (which is frankly all of us), and also to have the courage to stand up for them by opposing what they are doing. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (17m 02s)
Finding Jesus in the Life of Joshua - Part 3 - The Conquest
Worship Service: Sermon only - May 20, 2018
In this series so far we have looked at what the early years of the life of Joshua can show us about the early years of Jesus' life and we have looked at what the turning point in Joshua's life when he took over command of the Children of Israel can show us about a similar turning point in Jesus' life. This Sunday, in the final part of the series, we will look at what Joshua's conquest of the land of Canaan can show us about what Jesus was fighting against and fighting for during His three years of active ministry. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (18m 22s)
Finding Jesus in the Life of Joshua - Part 2 - The Turning Point
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - May 13, 2018
Joshua was the military commander of the people of Israel, who led them across the Jordan River into the land of Canaan, where he violently claimed the land in the name of Jehovah his God. Jesus was a spiritual leader, who came to the Jordan River to be baptised and begin His ministry of love and repentance. Yet these two stories, so different on the surface, are the same story. This Sunday we will explore what Joshua crossing the Jordan can tell us about Jesus and His ministry. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (23m 09s)
Finding Jesus in the Life of Joshua - Part 1 - The Early Years
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - May 06, 2018
People have been drawing parallels between the stories of Joshua and Jesus for a long time (which makes sense considering that Jesus is the Greek version of the name Joshua). But the teachings of the New Church indicate that the connections between the stories go much deeper than a shared name and some intriguing similarities. Every detail of the story can be read as a way for us to get a deeper understanding of the Lord's experience while He was on earth. This Sunday we will explore the early stories of Joshua, before he became the leader of the Children of Israel, and what those stories can show us about the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (30m 49s)
Correspondence - The Relationship Between Physical and Spiritual Things
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - April 29, 2018
How do physical things relate to spiritual things? What is the connection between our body and our spirit? How do we make sense of the confusing imagery in the Bible, a book that is supposed to be about spiritual things? New Church teachings explain these things using a fascinating concept called correspondence. This Sunday we will explore this concept and how it can change how we look at everything in the Bible and the world around us. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (26m 48s)
Freedom from Anxiety
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - April 22, 2018
Fear and anxiety are inevitable in life. Nor is that a bad thing. Fear of failure motivates us to succeed, anxiety brings our attention to problems that we need to overcome. But when we are crippled by these things, and our choices are limited by our fears, we cannot grow the way we would want. The Lord tells us what we can do then: seek first the kingdom of God. If we manage to get our priorities right, then our anxieties, although still present, will be longer control us. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (25m 04s)
What Dreams May Come
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - April 15, 2018
Dreams play an important role in many stories of the Word. Joseph, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, and others had dreams sent by the Lord that revealed His will to them. Today we rarely put much importance on dreams. And yet they remain a universal experience. Is there a way that dreams still connect us to the Lord and the spiritual world? This Sunday we will explore what dreams can mean for us today and how they can reflect a spiritual influence on our lives. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (23m 19s)
Failure, Frustration and Transformation
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - April 08, 2018
In the Gospel of John, after the Lord rises from the dead, He interacts with Peter a few more times and gives him some important final directions. This Sunday we will reflect on what this story can show us about the failure, frustration and transformation that we're likely to go through as we try to follow the Lord. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (24m 40s)
An End and a Beginning
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - April 01, 2018
Jesus mission in life was both incomprehensible massive and truly simple: to save all people, for all time, from the threat of hell. Throughout His life He accomplished this mission by fighting against and overcoming every last evil impulse that hell could throw at Him. By the end of His life, on the cross, He had so completely overcome hell that nothing of it remained in Him. On Easter Sunday we celebrate this victory because of what it means for us today: just as Jesus overcome hell in His own life, He can overcome every bit of hell that shows up in ours. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (20m 55s)
Practicing Forgiveness - Transformation
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - March 25, 2018
This Sunday is Palm Sunday and the last Sunday of our Practicing Forgiveness programme. Throughout these past few weeks we've talked about the difference that forgiveness can make - in an individual's life and in society in general. We understand the before picture and we like the after picture but how do we get from one to the other? This Sunday we'll try to understand more of what comes in between in the process of being transformed by forgiveness. The sermon was written by John L. Odhner, read by Malcolm Smith. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (27m 14s)
Practicing Forgiveness - Forgiveness within Ourselves
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - March 18, 2018
We have talked about how we are called to forgive those who have hurt us, and to seek forgiveness from other people and from the Lord for the things we have done. This Sunday we will consider another important aspect of forgiveness: forgiveness within ourselves. There are times when other people may have forgiven us and the Lord certainly has but we still beat up on ourselves and we can't seem to let it go. The Lord can help us to understand why this happens and help us to get free. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (23m 47s)
Practicing Forgiveness - Being Forgiven
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - March 11, 2018
We have all needed to be forgiven at one time or another. It's tempting at these times to think a simple "I'm sorry" will suffice. But when it comes to forgiveness "sorry" just doesn't cut it. Although when we say sorry it may be heartfelt it does nothing to change us or our situation. It is when we recognise our fault and make an effort to change that we can receive real forgiveness. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (23m 52s)
Practicing Forgiveness - Why Forgive?
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - February 25, 2018
This Sunday we begin the Practicing Forgiveness programme with a question: "Why Forgive?" Why should we forgive people who have hurt us? What is it about forgiveness that is so essential to spiritual life that all the major world religions teach about how important it is? And - most importantly - how do we do it? How do we grant and seek forgiveness in a genuine way? Come on Sunday as we begin to try to find answers to these important questions. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (26m 51s)
Putting Others First
Worship Service: Informal Family - February 18, 2018
The world tells us that to be great we must be better than others. We must be stronger, richer, more skilled and so on. If someone is ahead of us we are not, obviously, the best. The Lord redefines greatness. Greatness is not to excel others. Greatness is putting others first. Not only does putting others first make us great; it removes the competition. When we put others first we do not need to feel superior to anyone. We can be content that we have done our part to make the world a better place. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (11m 11s)
Collected, One by One
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - February 11, 2018
There's a verse somewhere in the middle of Isaiah that says, ...."you shall be collected, one by one...." Someone recently showed me this verse and pointed out that it has important implications for how we approach our relationships with other people and the Lord. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (33m 52s)
Your Life is Not Your Own
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - February 04, 2018
Who does your life belong to? We know that at least some of it belongs to the Lord so we make man effort to give Him His due share. But what if all of your life, every last bit of it, belongs to the Lord? At first this might seem like a constraining idea. But in fact it can be freeing. We do not have to balance out whit is mine and what is His; when we give it all to Him we free ourselves to live our best lives possible. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (24m 48s)
Rebuilding the House of the Lord - Part 3 - Taking it to Heart
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - January 28, 2018
When we have made the Lord a priority and started to work on living better we often expect things to change dramatically. Sadly, that is not the case. Changes in our external lives are an important beginning but we will not see real change until the change happens in our hearts. When the children of Israel built a house for the Lord not just as a place of worship but also as a state of mind, then the Lord could begin to bless them again. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (20m 52s)
Rebuilding the House of the Lord - Part 2 - How to Keep Working
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - January 21, 2018
When the people obey the Lord and rebuild the house of the Lord it doesn't meet their expectations of what it should be. The Lord's response to them, through the prophet Haggai, can be very useful for us when the results of our spiritual efforts aren't quite what we think they should be. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (21m 56s)
Rebuilding the House of the Lord - Part i - Is it Time?
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - January 14, 2018
At this time of year we're often taking stock of who we are and where we are in our lives and thinking about what we might need to do to improve our lives. This Sunday and next we will be exploring the somewhat obscure but very relevant story in the book of Haggai of the Children of Israel being called to rebuild the house of the Lord and what it can teach us about the process of trying to do better about prioritising the Lord in our lives. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (21m 19s)
Forgiveness as Opportunity
Worship Service: Informal Family - January 07, 2018
No matter what you have done or will do in your life, the Lord has already forgiven you. So what's the point of thinking about the Lord's forgiveness? He has already given it to us. That does not mean we have it yet though. The Lord's forgiveness comes in the form of never-ending opportunities to repent. It is up to us to take advantage of those opportunities and make changes. That is how we take in the Lord's forgiveness. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (17m 22s)
Simeon
Worship Service: Informal Family - December 31, 2017
When Jesus was only a few weeks old His parents brought Him to the temple, as was the custom. There they were met a man, Simeon, who held Jesus in his arms, blessed Him, and gave thanks. The image of the old man Simeon holding the new-born Jesus is a useful one to start the year off with. On the one hand we have someone reaching the end of his life. On the other a life just beginning. When we reach these important transitions it is important that we, like Simeon, can recognise the hope for the future and trust the Lord is creating something good even if we will not live to see it. | By Rev. Joel C Glenn | Westville, RSA
See Event (11m 10s)
And His Name Will Be Called
Worship Service: Family (may include music) - December 25, 2017
This Christmas Day, as we celebrate the Lord being born into this world, we will be reflecting on the significance of some of the many different names that that little baby was called. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (11m 00s)
How to Receive the Lord's Light in Our Lives
Worship Service: Childrens Talk & Adult Sermon - December 17, 2017
This Sunday we'll be talking more about the Christmas story according to the Gospel of John, with a focus on theme of darkness and light. | By Rev. Malcolm G. Smith | Westville, RSA
See Event (22m 37s)