By Kyle Childress

• Improvisational Gospel by Kyle Childress (5/3/2016)
  Seventh Sunday of Easter Acts 16:16-34 Theologian David Ford uses the term “improvisation” in his book Self and Salvation to describe our worship and our singing. God gives us God’s good gifts and the church takes those gifts and transposes them, giving them back to God in offering. We take the tune God gives and we improvise with it, playing it in our context, with our particular gifts and our particular voices to bring further glory to God. Or the principalities and powers give us violence, despair, and hopelessness and we take that and improvise, transpose, and turn it into something for God’s glory. This is the meaning of worship and witness. Acts 16 is a story about this kind of impro...
• It's About Jesus by Kyle Childress (2/3/2016)
  Transfiguration Sunday Luke 9:28-36 This is a strange story; we don’t often know what to make of it. What does it mean? What does it do? Jesus on a mountain, a shining moment, a voice from on high? This is the final story we read in this season of Epiphany, the season of revelation, manifestation. In other words, this is the season when things of God should be revealed, uncovered, be brought into the light. This story is no different. So what does it reveal? Up to this moment in Luke’s gospel, there are two dramatic encounters when Jesus Christ is revealed for who he is: Jesus’ baptism back in Luke 3 and this transfiguration on the mountain. In this story, Jesus takes Peter, James, and Jo...
• Living Out of Control by Kyle Childress (11/24/2015)
  First Sunday of Advent Luke 21:25-36 Advent begins with reminding us that we are not in control. Since we are a people who value control, when we begin to feel as if we are losing it, we become fearful. Starting January 1 it will be legal in Texas to openly carry a gun if you have a license. People with a license can openly tote their firearms in places of business, shopping malls, offices, hospitals, mental health centers, colleges and universities, and even in churches (unless the church has the prerequisite official sign posted on every entrance that firearms are not allowed). I know folks who are senior faculty at universities taking early retirement from the fear of being in the classroom ...
• How Much is Enough? by Kyle Childress (9/24/2015)
  The post for this week is from the archives: Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Numbers 11: 4-35 Mark 9:38-50 Years ago in a cartoon in the Houston Chronicle, in the first frame was a man, obviously an American middle-class male, standing next to his car, saying to it, “Because of you, the air is foul. The globe is warming.” In the next frame, the man is pumping gas into the car saying, “Because of you I’m entangled in the affairs of countries that cause me headaches.” Next frame, while he is slumped in his seat in bumper-to-bumper traffic, “Because of you our central cities are emp...
• Inside and Out by Kyle Childress (8/25/2015)
  Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 I was leaving a meeting with several clergy members. Just behind me, close enough that I could overhear their conversation, was the long-time pastor of the leading Baptist church in town and walking alongside him was the moderator of our local ministerial alliance, who happened to be the pastor of the local Unity congregation, fifteen members strong. My own experience with ministerial alliances, especially in other cities, was that they were ecumenical, even interfaith, so I never thought twice about whether our moderator was Unity or Baptist or Muslim. Apparently, not everyone agreed. Since the Unity minister’s el...
• Large Things in Small Parishes by Kyle Childress (6/10/2015)
  Third Sunday after Pentecost Mark 4:26-34 The Texas historian of a generation ago, Walter Prescott Webb, has a wonderful paragraph in his classic book, The Great Plains. He contrasts the West with the East in the raising of cattle and notices that even though the West raised fewer cattle than the farms of the East, it was the West that defines for us what cattle raising is all about. Webb writes, “A thousand farms in the East will each have six or seven cows, with as many more calves and yearlings – ten thousand head. But they will attract no attention ... In the West a ranch will cover perhaps the same area as the thousand farms, and will have perhaps ten thousand head, roundups, rodeos, men on horseba...
• Two Christianities by Kyle Childress (5/13/2015)
  Seventh Sunday of Easter John 17:6-19 During a haircut my barber asked me, “Do you believe that zombies are real?” I said, “What?” not sure if I had heard her correctly. She asked again, “Do you believe that zombies are real?” Realizing that it was a serious question, I said, “No. Zombies are in movies, books, TV shows, and games. But they’re not real.” She said, “My preacher says that zombies are real. He preaches that the Devil reinvigorates dead bodies and that’s where zombies come from.” Trying to avoid public criticism of another preacher I said, “Where in the Bible does he get this?” She shot back, “Well, I don’t know where he gets it. All I know is that he says we’d better ...
• Loving the World by Kyle Childress (3/11/2015)
  Fourth Sunday of Lent John 3:14-21 Likely the most well known verse in the entire Bible is John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever should believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life (which is the way I memorized it in the King James version). In the Texas Baptist life in which I grew up this was the essence of the gospel or as old Luther said a few centuries earlier, it’s the gospel in miniature. Along with the entire story of Nicodemus secretly coming to Jesus during the night and being told earlier in the conversation that he must be born again, this was our canon within the canon and it interpreted everything else. To this day in most Baptist...
• Learning to Squint by Kyle Childress (11/26/2014)
  First Sunday of Advent Isaiah 64:1-9 Mark 13:24-37 When I was a boy I knew an old rancher whose face was permanently sunburned and lined from decades of living outside. People said he had a “perpetual squint.” Daylight or dark, indoors or out, he always looked like he was squinting, looking across some pasture for a stray cow in the face of glaring sun and blowing wind. Squinting, looking into the distance for so many years had shaped his face; it had shaped the way he looked at everything. Walker Percy, tells in his novel Love in the Ruins and its sequel novel The Thanatos Syndrome about a small, remnant church out in the woods of Louisiana. ...
• Priests at Every Elbow by Kyle Childress (10/21/2014)
  I Thessalonians 2:1-8 Indeed, the appeal we make never springs from error or base motive; there is no attempt to deceive; but God has approved us as fit to be entrusted with the Gospel, and on those terms we speak… With such yearning love we chose to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves, so dear had you become to us. (I Thessalonians 2: 3-4, 8).

  Unbelievable! Paul it seems identifies himself, his very person, with the Gospel.‘God has approved us as fit to be entrusted with the Gospel,’ so that we have imparted ‘to you not only the gospel of God but our very selves.’ These are not exactly expressions of humility. What would you think if Kyle said that of himself? ...

• The Greatest of All Shrubs by Kyle Childress (7/23/2014)
  Seventh Sunday After Pentecost Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 What a time in the life of the American church to read this brief parable of Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of …shrubs.” A shrub. Not a towering redwood, not a spreading chestnut, nor a big oak, and not even a nice fruit tree. Just a shrub. At least Ezekiel thought the kingdom of God would be a cedar, about as big a tree as existed in the ancient Middle East. But a shrub? What’s going on here, Jesus?” We American Christians tend to think of God’s kingdom a bit more triump...
• Trusting the Way by Kyle Childress (5/14/2014)
  Fifth Sunday of Easter Acts 7:55-60 Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 Peter 2:2-10 John 14:1-14 Gathered together in an upper room with Jesus, the disciples give Jesus their full attention. They’ve just shared this meal with him and watched him kneel and wash everyone’s feet. They’re shocked to hear that one of them is a betrayer and they’re highly aware that outside the doors of their small ro...
• Asking the Hard Questions by Kyle Childress (3/5/2014)
  First Sunday of Lent Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Matthew 4:1-11 In the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction category was the story from a few days ago about the Kentucky Baptist Convention leading what they’re calling “Second Amendment Celebrations” where churches around the state give away guns as door prizes to lure in nonbelievers in hopes of converting them to Christ. At one such upcoming event organizers are expecting as many as 1,000 people where they will be given a free steak dinner and the chance to win one of 25 handguns, long guns and shotguns. The goal is to “point people to Christ,” says a church sponsoring the event, and the Kentucky ...
• What is the Good News Anyway? by Kyle Childress (11/13/2013)
  Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost Isaiah 65:17-25 Luke 21:5-19 Years ago I heard Walter Brueggemann say that the task of the church is to always proclaim the vision and vocation of God’s reign. Always. But at the same time always be patient with one another as we fail to live up to that vision and vocation. Always. Keeping that tension is part of the task of the pastor. Brueggemann’s statement is a reminder of the work we pastors do: we’re prophetic – always proclaiming the vision and vocation of God’s reign; we’re pastoral – always helping a congregation be patient with one another as we ...
• Amazing Grace by Kyle Childress (9/10/2013)
  Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Luke 15: 1-10 About a year ago I buried one of our church’s founding members. Back in 1968, Archie McDonald and a handful of others started our congregation, in order to have a local church with membership policies that were not segregated. Archie was a professor and historian, ornery and rough-hewn, but he had a profound sense that it was only due to the grace of a loving God that he existed at all and only by God’s grace did our church exist. He knew what the dying priest knew in Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest, “It’s all grace.” The very meaning of the word “grace” is “undeserved favor.” We do not deserve it. If it is deser...
• Listening to the Word by Kyle Childress (7/16/2013)
  Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Luke 10: 38-42 Jesus is getting close to Jerusalem and confrontation. Luke says that Jesus goes to the home of Mary and Martha, which we know from John is also the home of Lazarus, which is located in the village of Bethany, just over the hill from the outskirts of Jerusalem. Luke says they welcome him into their home and Martha gets busy doing the many things a good hostess does: preparing food, setting the table, straightening the room, picking up the newspapers that have piled up, and on and on. Meanwhile, sister Mary sits in front of Jesus listening to what he has to say. Martha, understandably frustrated says, “Lord, don’t you care...
• Our Place Redeemed by Kyle Childress (4/29/2013)
  Sixth Sunday in Easter John 14:23-29 Revelation 21:10, 22:1-5 In our contemporary world, it is difficult to belong. We are so busy and on the move, it seems to be better to keep commitments to a minimum. 20% to 30% of all Americans move each year and the average American moves fourteen times over a lifetime. Poet, essayist, and editor of Poetry magazine Christian Wiman remembers that when he was thirty-six years old, he had moved forty times in fifteen years. He said he owned nothing that would not fit easily into his car. When talking about this with some friends, all of whom were in their twenties and thirties, all smart, well-ed...
• Saying "Yes" and Saying "No" by Kyle Childress (2/13/2013)
  First Sunday in Lent Luke 4: 1-13 I was ordained over 30 years ago by a small, rural Texas Baptist church who had called me as their new young pastor a couple of months before. I invited to preach my ordination service a retired preacher whom I knew from my college church. He was in his mid-80’s, gentle and kind, as attentive to others as anyone I’d ever known, had a deep prayer life, and rumor had it that he had memorized the entire King James Bible. He preached a fine sermon on loving God, loving the Bible, and loving God’s people. After the service, of course, we all joined in a country church dinner on the grounds of which legends are made. Soon thereafter, I escorted the old preacher to his ca...
• Outside the Inn-siders by Kyle Childress (12/5/2012)
  Second Sunday of Advent Luke 3: 1-6 The word of God came to John out in the wilderness, so says Luke. After giving us the names and offices of the powerful in his day – Tiberius Caesar, Governor Pontius Pilate of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, and Annas and Caiaphas the high priests – Luke says the word of God comes to none of them. Bypassing the centers of power, the word comes to one outside. This is no small thing with Luke. In the previous chapter, the well-known and much beloved Christmas story of Luke 2, Mary and Joseph are told there is no room in the Inn and they must go outside, to somewhere else to h...
• How Much is Enough? by Kyle Childress (9/25/2012)
  Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Numbers 11: 4-35 Mark 9:38-50 Years ago in a cartoon in the Houston Chronicle, in the first frame was a man, obviously an American middle-class male, standing next to his car, saying to it, “Because of you, the air is foul. The globe is warming.” In the next frame, the man is pumping gas into the car saying, “Because of you I’m entangled in the affairs of countries that cause me headaches.” Next frame, while he is slumped in his seat in bumper-to-bumper traffic, “Because of you our central cities are empty and I waste half my life in traffic to the burbs.” Next frame, kids are...
• Discerning What Displeases the Lord by Kyle Childress (7/31/2012)
  Tenth Sunday After Pentecost Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2 Samuel 11: 26 - 12: 13a Our Old Testament lesson brings us to one of the most dramatic moments in this extraordinary narrative of David when he is confronted by Nathan the prophet. It is high drama in this narrative and it is a high drama in the history of prophetic speaking truth to power. David stole Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, committed adultery with her, and then when it was discovered that Bathsheba was pregnant, he used his power to have Uriah killed by the Ammonites. The last sentence of chapter 11 says, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” The next sentence, which begins chapter 12, says, “...
• Following Jesus One Step at a Time by Kyle Childress (2/29/2012)
  Second Sunday in Lent Mark 8: 31-38 This Second Sunday of Lent we come face to face with the hard news of following Jesus. Last week we read of Jesus in the wilderness facing Satan and wild beasts. That was hard, but that was about Jesus. This week there is no skirting the issue; Jesus is talking to us about what it means to follow him. This is hard and it’s about us. It’s interesting to notice in the paragraph introducing our particular passage that verse 27 says while “on the way” Jesus was talking with his disciples. This was not a lesson for which they had set aside time; no appointments or class schedules had been made. They were on the way, in the middle of following Jes...
• And it was sufficient by Kyle Childress (12/13/2011)
  Fourth Sunday of Advent Luke 1: 26-38 I love the way Luke and Matthew begin their Gospels. Both tell us of these plain, ordinary people, Mary and Joseph, who obeyed God, and through whom God begins the extraordinary work of salvation for all people. Traditionally, the church has called Mary the first disciple. She was the first to believe and obey. And even though Luke tells her story with a bit more drama than Matthew’s telling of Joseph’s, we still get the message that here was an ordinary young woman – really a teenage girl – who embodied extraordinary courage and faith in God to be able to say, “Let it be to me according to your will.” Or to put it more mundanely, Mary said yes.by Kyle Childress (10/11/2011)

  18th Sunday after Pentecost 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time Isaiah 45:1-7 OR Exodus 33:12-13 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 Matthew 22:15-22 Our Gospel lesson is the well-known but short debate between Jesus and the Religious Authorities over rendering taxes to Caesar or to God. It is common for us to hear Jesus saying, “Give unto Caesar that which is his and give unto God that which is his,” as a statement on the separation of Church and State. Only in the most indirect way is this a statement on church and state. It sounds l...
• Mustard Seeds and Evangelism by Kyle Childress (7/20/2011)
  Matthew 13: 31-33, 44-52 Being a Baptist in Texas the very air that I breathe is full of evangelism, growth, outreach, and marketing.  Everything is either big or needs to be bigger and it seems that the church is no exception.  Here in Big Texas (and America seems to be just a bigger version of Texas) it’s all about Big Business and trans-national corporations, mega-churches, and mega-plexes.  We want Big Answers and Big Solutions to Global Problems and we want to super-size everything from fries to storage buildings to football stadiums.  Politicians and economists of every persuasion keep telling us that a bigger economic pie is the answer to everyone’s concerns.  Closer to home, e...
• Seeing the Lord by Kyle Childress (4/26/2011)
  John 20:19-31 The Gospel Lesson the Second Sunday of Easter is always John 20:19-31 and the story of Thomas missing out on seeing the risen Christ that Easter evening.  When told, by the other disciples, that they had seen the Lord, Thomas says, “I won’t believe it until I can touch his scars.”  A week later he made sure he was present with the community of disciples, and sure enough he saw the Lord. Thomas did not see the risen Lord the first time, because the resurrection of Christ makes no sense apart from the community of his disciples. Early in the movie The Big Lebowski, Walter is talking to Dude.  Donny, their other close friend, keeps trying to interrupt and ask a question.  Walter dismisses Donny with a line that has become famous, “Shut-up Donny, you’...
• God Abstracted by Kyle Childress (3/8/2011)
  Matthew 4:1-11 Lent begins with Jesus fresh from the waters of his baptism, being led by the Spirit into the wilderness.  At baptism, Jesus is reminded that he is called as God’s anointed, the Messiah.  But what kind of messiah is he going to be?  It is in the wilderness, where everything is stripped away, in prayer and fasting that Jesus seeks to clarify who he is and what he is going to do. Satan, the Great Deceiver, shows up to steer Jesus away from God’s call upon him and uses three of the greatest temptations for those who want to change this world: economics/money – turning stones to bread; religion – spectacular religion which will make the crowds want to follow you anywhere; and politics – to get the power to make things turn out the way you want. <...
• Truth Dazzles Gradually by Kyle Childress (1/12/2011)
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  John 1: 29-42 At age 51, Noah Adams, a host on National Public Radio, abruptly decided he had to have a piano so he invested in a new Steinway upright – a financial commitment that provided extra incentive to practice. Adams tells this delightful story of his first year of learning to play the piano in his book, Piano Lessons.  Yet learning to pl...
• Signs, Sheep, and Shepherds by Kyle Childress (9/8/2010)
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  Luke 15:1-10 Our church’s logo is a shepherd’s staff, based upon the parable of the lost sheep, along with Psalm 23 and the Good Shepherd of John 10. We’ve had this shepherd’s staff with our congregation’s name written beside it out front on our sign since 1979 and it is on our letterhead, Sunday order of worship, and website. This...
• Knowing the One Thing by Kyle Childress (7/15/2010)
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  Amos 8: 1-12; Luke 10: 38-42 Luke tells us that Jesus goes to the home of Mary and Martha.  They welcome him into their home and Martha gets busy doing the many things a good hostess does: preparing food, setting the table, straightening the room, picking up the newspapers that have piled up, and on and on.  Meanwhile si...
• Courage to be Whole by Kyle Childress (5/5/2010)
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  John 5: 1-9

  Jesus is in Jerusalem and he goes by the Pool of Bethesda. This pool, fed by an underground spring, is down, off of the street, and is surrounded by porticoes offering some shade and shelter. Legend said that on occasion an angel would trouble the waters of the pool and the first person into the water would...
• Sooner or Later by Kyle Childress (3/5/2010)
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  Luke 13: 1-9 Many years ago I heard Walter Brueggemann say to a room full of preachers, “We must always hold before our people God’s commands to obedience.  Always.  But we must also always be patient with one another as we fail to heed those commands.  Always.” The...
• God in Particular by Kyle Childress (12/23/2009)
    Luke 2: 1-20 My college church organized a big evangelistic training and event. We went through two nights learning how to “win people to the Lord” using handy little tracts organized around “the four spiritual laws.” (#1 God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. #2 Man is sinful and separated from God. [Yes, only men.] #3 Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. #4 We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. – I still remember them after all these years.) Each spiritual law had a verse of Scripture attached to it to give it biblical validity. On the third night we were given the assignment of going out to neighborhoods and college dorms, knocking on doors, and if the person answer...
• Thanks, but No Thanks by Kyle Childress (10/8/2009)
  [image] Job 23: 1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22: 1-15; Hebrews 4: 12-16; Mark 10: 17-31 Around our church some of us have undertaken the simple task of teaching our children basic manners, especially things like speaking clearly, looking a person in the eye, standing straight, and shaking hands with a good firm grip. One 9-year-old boy, who came to church when he was four from an abusive...
• Kings? by Kyle Childress (8/13/2009)
  [image]I Kings 2: 10-12, 3: 3-14; Psalm 111 or Psalm 34: 9-14; Ephesians 5: 15-20; This Year in Jerusalem! by Kyle Childress (3/27/2009)

  I’m back from the Holy Land; tired and exhausted yet inspired, challenged, and eager to share the stories with you. My experience of pilgrimage to the Holy Land was almost overwhelming. Every day, everywhere we went, there were biblical sites, holy sites, and historical sites, piled upon one another and impossible to see them all. Galilee was beautiful. We were there during the rainy season and everything was green (green by Galilean standards). Standing on the top of the Cliffs of Arbela overlooking the western edge of the Sea of Galilee (which is no more than a modest-sized lake) one can see the very route from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee that Jesus walked. Furthermore, clustered along the lake’s coastline, all within view because they are no more than a few miles from one anot...
• Why Share? by Kyle Childress (9/27/2008)
  [image]You may remember the Garrison Keillor story of why shopping at Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery in Lake Wobegon is preferable to shopping in St. Cloud at the new Higgledy-Piggledy. Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery has just gotten in a case of fresh cod. “Frozen, but it’s fresher than what’s been in his freezer for months. In the grocery business, you have to throw out stuff sometimes, but Ralph is Norwegia...
• Getting Small by Kyle Childress (8/5/2008)
  [image]About the time I was in college, young comedian Steve Martin had a routine called “let’s get small.” Playing on the mid-seventies countercultural “let’s get high” Martin invited everyone to come to his house and “get small.” Martin said that “getting small” was dangerous for children because they would get “really, really small” and it was also impossible for the police to pu...
• Walking with God Slowly by Kyle Childress (8/1/2008)
  Many of us remember the experience of having someone, usually a parent or grandparent, tell us when we were young, “You know, when I was your age I had to walk to school and it was uphill both ways.” That old saying has been echoing in my head a lot lately. At least since I’ve been walking from my house to the church occasionally and then back again. When I used to drive the same route I knew it was uphill both directions but not in the same way I now know. To be more specific, it is more uphill going than it is coming back and the tilt to one side is hard on the ankles. Noticing things, paying attention to details is a recurring wonder to me the more walking I do. My preferred walk is the Tucker House trails behind the SFA Native Plant Center. There’s no traffic, not many pe...