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Rian Adams
The Blessing of Hardships. Sermon 10th Sunday After Pentecost Intro: Since this Gospel reading is intense, I thought I’d begin by admitting something kind of funny about it. When I read it this week, I pictured Jesus at a Charlie Daniels concert singing, “Fire on the mountain run boys run.” It also made me wonder, “… how am I supposed to preach this?” It speaks of fire consuming the earth, and about teenagers hating their parents. Well, maybe that one’s not a stretch. But I’d rather preach about the prince of peace than a man who…
Overcoming Fear: Sermon for The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost Overcoming Our Fears and Anxieties Back when Dolly Parton toured, she said that she slept with her makeup on. A reporter from the New York times asked her why, and she said, “You never know if you’re going to wreck the bus, you never know if you’re going to be somewhere in a hotel and there’s going to be a fire. So I leave my makeup on at night and clean my face in the morning to reapply.” It’s okay; you can go ahead and…
What Will You Do if You Win the Lottery? The Gospel lesson this morning is about greed, which is not the easiest subject to preach. Especially when we’re going to ask for your money when the offering plate comes around in a few mins. I noticed something about greed, it is almost like a fog. Fog is dangerous; it distorts vision and easily confuses us. I experienced the confusion of fog one morning in the Hollywood Hills… I couldn’t see where to go. It was so thick even the GPS was lost too. Every morning in…
Paris… sigh. I’ve been flirting with this blog post for weeks. I hesitated to write it because I wanted to adequately describe the experiences. Then I realized blog posts are never really finished… Last spring, my wife and I visited Paris. The culture there is unlike any city I’ve visited: Creme Brule, croissants, and espresso shots in the afternoons were blissful. I had the best sleep of my life in a quiet hotel that, two hundred years before, served as a convent for Catholic sisters. Fourteen hours… if you wondered. Of course…
Hearts Wide Open: Sermon for the Sixth Sunday After Pentecost. By The Rev. Rian Adams Intro: Australian author Nikki Rowe said, “The greatest asset you could own is an open heart.” Open hearts compel doctors to give free medical care in the inner city. Open hearts lead Christians to live out their baptismal vows and serve Christ in all people. Open hearts cause us to rise early to feed the hungry. Open hearts make the world a better place for the wounded, hurting, and outsiders. However, when people hurt us, it’s natural to shy away and guard…
After diligent work, generous assistance from friends and family, and some help from God, the dream of Love, War, and Soul: Poems of Passion, Darkness, and Light is now a reality. I’m very happy to announce that after a year and a half of intentional work, Love, War, and Soul is now available for purchase on Amazon. This volume contains poems written over the past decade, most notably the past two years, that speak to the universal experience of love, disappointment, failure, and spiritual growth. This project was especially meaningful to me because it served as the…