Lagniappe Podcasts

Sermon: Of Chickens and Country Music (1 Jn 4:7–9)

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 21:29:37 -0500

This message is another autobiographical sermon stemming from my college days. The summer before college I worked at the Marshal Durbin Poultry Factory in Hattiesburg, MS as a painter. That was an experience I’ll never forget. I was “saved” by William Minter, a private painting contractor of Petal, MS.

Sermon: The Lost Son (Lk 15:11–32)

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 20:56:58 -0500

The parable of the prodigal son is poorly titled. The parable is not about the younger son who squanders his father’s inheritance. Jesus began the sermon, “A certain man had two sons . . .” The question is, Who is really lost here? Like a guy trying to drive his way around an unfamiliar city without a GPS navigational system and the person in the passenger seat is complaining, “We’re just going in circles!” to which the driver responds, “Well who is really lost here? You’re the one with the map!”

Sermon: Keep Yourselves From Idols (1 JN 5:1–21)

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 20:48:06 -0500

When I first arrived on the seminary campus I was asked to preach a chapel message. After thinking long and hard about possible topics, I chose to do an autobiographical sermon, because the journey back to the New Orleans campus was more a spiritual one than a physical move. I learned a priceless truth about how we handle the call of God on our lives.

Sermon: The Whispering Wind (JN 3:1–21)

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 20:26:29 -0500

Often my sermons are stories. I invent fictive plots based upon features of a biblical text to bring out dramatically points from the text. One example is “The Whispering Wind.” This sermon is based upon John 3 and the encounter of Jesus and Nicodemus. The picture is the Garden of Gethsemene on the slopes of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. The olive trees in the background may be thousands of years old.

The Third Nativity

Wed, 10 Dec 1997 10:00:20 -0600

This sermon is the product of an insight into what John is doing in Revelation 12. The story of the birth of Jesus is retold in Revelation 12, but not like in Matthew or Luke. The Christmas story in Revelation 12 is cloaked in apocalyptic language. John subverts ancient redeemer myths traditionally told in dragon language to speak of the world’s true Redeemer.