When Even Empathetic Churches Hit Their Limits

by | Sep 22, 2017 | Opinion

I may have pushed too hard in my sermon last Sunday. For three weeks after white nationalists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, I mentioned racism in my sermons and how we need to root it out of our hearts and out of our nation. I received an email from one...

How Your Church is Like a Coffeemaker Factory

by | May 28, 2015 | Opinion

Usually, before I go to bed at night, I make coffee, or maybe I should say I get my coffeemaker ready to make coffee. I empty the carafe, rinse it and put it in place. I grind the beans and measure them into the filter. I fill the reservoir with cold, clean water. And...

What All Faith Groups Can Do to End ISIS

by | Feb 19, 2015 | Opinion

At one point on my recent trip to the Middle East, a U.S. Army chaplain said to me with tears in his eyes, “We are at the beginning of something like the Protestant Reformation, and Father Nabil Haddad is like Martin Luther.” Father Nabil Haddad is the...

Good Try, Peter!

by | Aug 14, 2014 | General

A sermon by Jim Somerville, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va. August 10, 2014 The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Matthew 14:22-33 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he...