South Arm United Church's Podcast

Send us Fan Mail The Annual Christmas Pageant is always a lot of fun. I sometimes wonder who has the most fun? Is it the children, the grown up's involved or all who attend and get to listen in, watch and giggle at the costumes, props and multiple pieces that come together? This year the pageant was interspersed with song throughout which made the event especially interactive and added an ext...

Send us Fan Mail Alpha is the 1st letter of the Greek alphabet and Omega is the last. So today we explore what it means that God is the first, the last and everything in between. From A-Z, Alpha to Omega, God is God over all, in all and through all.  Music between the scripture and sermon "Come to My Heart" (Voices United Hymnal #661). Words & Music: Joe Pinson, 1979. Copyright Joe P...

Send us Fan Mail This 1st Sunday of Advent we enter a series that will take us through to Christmas Eve called, "On the Way to Bethlehem". We explore what it means to journey in hope, peace, joy and love towards the manger and Emmanuel (God With Us). We start today in Rome: A Place of Longing. As we pilgrimage through this series, we will consider what transformation happens within each...

Send us Fan Mail Grab some juice and bread/cracker and join us as we Celebrate the Open Invitation to God's Table.  After 23 years of serving as our Music Minister, Ron Stevenson is retiring at the end of December, 2024 (the month of this service). As a kick-off to his final month, we invited Ron to sit in the church and let us minister to him. We also invited Ron to be the first to come forw...

Send us Fan Mail The phrase "Do not fear" is mentioned 98 times throughout scripture. "Fear not" comes up 169 times. And the topic of 'Fear' comes up 515 times. In today's passage, a widow going home to prepare the last meal for herself and her son is approached by a prophet and asked to make some for him. The promise she is told, is that God will bless that givi...

Send us Fan Mail Today we discuss the Temple. Actually, there were 2 great Jerusalem temples built and both were destroyed. While we may marvel at great architectural wonders and some things of this world, our true home is in the heaven and earth to come in God's good time. In the meantime, we are to: (1) Discern whether what we are being told fits with the larger story of the God we know, lo...

Send us Fan Mail This portion of our service 10 Nov 2024 was dedicated to honouring Remembrance Day. There are words of Remembrance, Poems, Lighting of Candles, a Slideshow of veterans, a moment of silence and Ian Cohen on Trumpet plays throughout the service and here particularly, "The Last Post". 0:00-4:26 Words of Remembrance 4:27-7:43 Silence while a Slideshow of Veterans pictures pl...

Send us Fan Mail Our Minister Lauren was away on vacation this week so Rev. Maggie Watts-Hammond generously stepped in to offer this beautiful Communion/Eucharist liturgy on the 1st Sunday of November, 2024. 

Send us Fan Mail This 1st Sunday of November, 2024 our Minister Lauren was away and we were fortunate to have Rev. Dr. Ray Aldred leading service and preaching. Ray is the Director of Indigenous Studies at Vancouver School of Theology, He is a husband, father and grandfather, ordained in the Anglican Church of Canada. He is status Cree from Swan River Band, Treaty 8 in Alberta. Born in Northern Al...

Send us Fan Mail This was a Big day at South Arm with plenty of reasons to celebrate! In the service as we spoke about God having a remnant of people seeking to follow Godself, we welcomed 7 new people into membership (Baptizing a family of 4 and Re-affirming the Baptismal vows of 3 others). The choir was with us to celebrate this big day. And John Yu was with us to take professional photos of the...

Send us Fan Mail Today we learn about an important and much lesser known person in The Bible, Melchizedek. In Rabbinic tradition, it was Melchizedek who bestowed priesthood on Abraham. And it is from Abraham that the story of Israel really begins. The first of the Patriarchs of our faith. Melchizedek's very name means King of RIghteousness. Melchizedek was both King (of Salem) and High Priest...

Send us Fan Mail Today we learn about the role of the High Priest and why it matters that Jesus is our Great High Priest (among many other roles Jesus fulfills). Music between the scripture and sermon "This is God's Wondrous World" (Voices United Hymnal #296). Words: Malthie Davenport Babcock, 1901. Music: English traditional melody, adapt. Franklin L. Sheppard 1915, adapt. Stanley...

Send us Fan Mail Today we welcomed back to the South Arm pulpit the wonderful, Rev. Sally McShane. Hear what Rev. Sally had to share with the church this World Communion Sunday.  Music between the scripture and sermon "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say" (Voices United Hymnal #626). Words: Horatius Bonar, 1846. Music: English & Irish traditional melody. arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906....

Send us Fan Mail This Sunday we explored the Psalms as Hebrew Bible poetry. The Psalm in the Revised Common Lectionary for this week was Psalm 19. The Psalm opens with a broad perspective and call for all of Creation to praise God. And then the Psalm gets more specific to us. There is a Christian music artist who plays piano, sings and composes beautiful songs for praise and worship whose name is...

Send us Fan Mail Jesus Loves the little children. Whoever welcomes a child welcomes Jesus and not just Jesus, but the One who sent him. That's too easy. What's the catch? Lots of people love children. That's not counter-cultural, world changing, Kin-dom in-breaking news. There must be a catch. And there is. Children were seen as not-yet-persons and the property of their Father. Not...

Send us Fan Mail The tongue is a small but mighty part of our body. WIth it we Bless God and with it we sadly, say unkind things to one another, whom God also created and loves. That ought not to be so James tells us. As we bridle a horse and steer with a bit and reigns, so too we need to find a way to bridle and keep our mouth in check so we use our words for Good and not for ill. That's eas...

Send us Fan Mail Proverbs is 1 of 3 books of Wisdom literature in The Bible (along with Ecclesiastes & Job). The wise sayings are meant to help us live a good life in alignment with God. Mom said, "Eat your vegetables. Look both ways before crossing the street. Don't run on the pool deck". Proverbs says, "It is better to have a good reputation than to be rich. The rich and...

Send us Fan Mail This special service was to be held outdoors but due to rain the night before and the soggy field, we chose to do "Church in the Wild" in the sanctuary. The sanctuary was decorated with plants and throughout the service were references to Creation and Nature. The message written by Lauren and delivered by Rev. Kerry Child revolved around the topic of Discernment. As the...

Send us Fan Mail The temple that King David wanted to build for God for worship and where's God's presence would dwell (including the housing of the Ark of the Covenant with the 10 Commandments) was completed by his son, Solomon. With the temple complete, King Solomon offers up to a God a most humble, worshipful prayer. We breakdown that prayer and examine what we can learn from Solomon&...

Send us Fan Mail Song of Solomon (also known as Song of Songs) contains a number of poetic songs. Today we examine the one offered in this week's Lectionary readings and discuss whether it is written between two earthly figures (King Solomon and a peasant Bride) or as a metaphor for God and God's Bride (the church), or some combination of both. Whatever interpretation we gravitate toward...

Send us Fan Mail Jesus says, "I am the Bread of Life, those who come unto me will never be hungry or thirsty again". But our bodies need food and water to survive. So that doesn't on the surface, make sense. Jesus must mean something more than nutrition. Listen as we explore the depth of Jesus' words (In the title of the sermon and this episode, "I Am" has been capita...

Send us Fan Mail Today we look at a series of miracle stories featuring the prophets Elijah and Elisha where God multiplies the small offering of someone who is on the margins and has little to offer. God invites them to give what they have and trust that they will be provided for. Not subtraction, but addition and multiplication somehow happen time and again, just as God promises through the prop...

Send us Fan Mail In the Beginning God made the heavens and the earth and declared each piece of creation, "Good". Today we remember that God will again bring all things into harmony with Godself at some future date and time unknown to anyone but Godself. The story will come full circle one day when all will be "Good" again and God will walk amongst the Created. Until then, made...

Send us Fan Mail In Mark 5 we look at 3 healing stories: Jesus heals a possessed man, a young girl (12 years old) who was dying & a woman who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years. To the possessed man Jesus says, "Go tell of your healing by God throughout the diaspora" (10 cities). To the young girl's family Jesus says not to tell anyone. We examine these stories, look at what the...

Send us Fan Mail Fresh off 3 healing stories, Jesus heads to his hometown of Nazareth. We find him teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. At first the listeners are astounded at the wisdom of this great teaching. But it isn't long before they question the source - the teacher. It's just Jesus who grew up here. His family are here. How can he be so special? So Jesus moves on, gathers t...