One Foot in the Kingdom
I have a passion for the Kingdom of God. Some might say it’s an obsession. It doesn’t take much to get me talking about it. So what is the Kingdom? “In the beginning God created…” What did he create? Everything! God’s sovereign will was in all he created. And what do we call the place…
Read More 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…
Read More 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…
Read More 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…
Read More Walking Humbly
I preached this sermon at Trinity United Methodist Church in Hackettstown, NJ on April 21, 2013. Everywhere he turns he sees people slipping away from God. The leaders just take more and more land and taxes, making the poor poorer. Wickedness prevails but the spiritual leaders have been cautioned not to preach against it and…
Read More Healing and Wholeness in the Kingdom of God
I preached this sermon on February 23, 2013 at Trinity United Methodist Church in Hackettstown, NJ. I was born in West Virginia and raised in a small town in the mountains of Appalachia in western Maryland called “Westernport”. The sense of community that we had was incredibly strong. Indeed, I did not even realize how…
Read More Is Worry Sinful?
I preached this sermon on August 26, 2012 at Trinity UMC in Hackettstown, NJ. When I was a boy, my mother had the Serenity Prayer at the edge of one of our mirrors. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. It’s attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr and goes like this: God, grant me the serenity to accept…
Read More Gone Fishin’
I preached this sermon on July 22, 2012 at Trinity United Methodist Church, Hackettstown, NJ. When I learned that I would be delivering the final sermon in Frank’s fishing sermon series I thought about trying to switch to avoid the topic. I’m not much of a fisherman. I don’t have the patience required and never…
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.