Puppets or Pinocchios?
[ I started this sermon by walking a marionette down the church aisle.] I always feel a little silly with these things, because I’m not very good with them, but they are fun. It’s a bit of a challenge to tug the string the right way at the right time to get the puppet to…
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Wounded Healers
[I preached this sermon in June, 2009 at Timonium UMC for the commissioning of our first class of Stephen Ministers. I am also a Stephen Leader and Minister at TUMC. This is a great ministry. To learn more visit Stephen Ministries.] In his book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”, Rabbi Harold Kushner tells the…
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Godly Examples
[I having been posting some fairly old sermons recently, so I thought I post one that is fresh. I preached this one today at Timonium UMC in Timonium, MD.] Children have a way of pointedly putting the ball in our court to show them Christ. Noted theologian, Rodney Atkins, tells a story around the same theme…
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Do You Need a New Year?
[I should have posted this last week, but I have been on a posting sabbatical and didn’t think about it. It still has relevance. I preached this on December 31, 2000.] I am a mathematically impaired attorney. It’s not that I can’t do math, but that I just don’t care about numbers (except my golf…
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Kingdom Alignment: My Plans And Desires
Reading Time 3.5 Minutes “God bless my plan.” For a very long time I have said this mockingly as an example of exactly the type of prayer we should not pray. Living a Christian life requires us to surrender our lives to Christ, which means we live according to his plan and not ours. I…
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Getting the Message
The grocery seems to be a place where I find the Kingdom more easily. My most recent experience occurred a few days ago. As I entered the checkout line I saw that the young woman bagging the groceries had an almost rigid mask for her face. That was when I could see her face at…
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New Release Contributes to the Popular Appalachian Literature Genre
“Over the past couple of decades, Appalachian literature has developed a strong and close relationship with independent publishing, showing the latter to be an important medium for the expression for Appalachian voice,” writes Kristopher Clifford in a master’s thesis in 2007. A new release, Former Things Forgotten, by Thomas Trezise, published by the hybrid Redemption…
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Pray Like Tevya
In high school, I had roles in two productions of Broadway musicals. I didn’t even sing, but they gave me the bug. Since then I’ve had a love affair with Broadway. One of my favorite musicals is Fiddler on the Roof. If you are unfamiliar with it, the musical tells the story of a Jewish…
Read More Welcome, I'm Tom
I'm Tom Trezise a retired lawyer and corporate executive with over twenty years of experience as a Methodist lay preacher. Raised in Appalachia, I proudly call myself a hillbilly at heart. I'm the executive director of The Everyday Kingdom, a non-profit devoted to fostering a community that helps people find and experience the peace, purpose, and joy available from living every day in Christ’s kingdom.
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