“THAT’S A GOOD QUESTION!”
Sermon Series for November 2008 

         “Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts – not only their own but their friends and neighbors’.  It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them.  Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive.” -- Timothy Keller from “The Reason for God” 

         Too often, people in the church treat questions and doubts as foreign and hostile to faith.  Yet questions and doubts have always been part of faith.  Indeed, faith only exists where there are doubts.  Rather than run from them or attack them, people of faith must face the honest questions and doubts that are raised.

         “That’s a Good Question!” is an ongoing, periodic series that will face the questions and doubts that people have.  The set of questions in this first installment all revolve around the challenges raised by the explosive increase of scientific knowledge concerning the beginning of the universe.

         Does science provide answers that either disprove Christianity or make it irrelevant?  The secondary question that begs to be asked is about the trustworthiness of the Bible and how to read it.  Faith doesn’t need to be afraid of science . . . ultimately science will explain “how” and faith will explain “why.”

         We will celebrate the magnificence of God’s creation with a viewing of Jaquie Tomke-Bosch’s beautiful photography.  The St. Andrew Singers will share an inspired setting of Psalm 121 by Allan Robert Petker and communion well be served.

         When it comes to the origins of life, which is correct, Evolution or the Bible?  “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” . . . that’s the starting assumption of the Bible.  And we are called to share in the unique responsibility of caring for God’s creation.

         The awesomeness of God’s creation is celebrated in the St. Andrew Singers’ anthem “My God is an Awesome God!”  The Drama Team brings us a laugh-out-loud sketch with two older gentlemen discussing creation and evolution.

         If God did create the world ‘Good’, then why is there so much suffering in the world?  Why isn’t life fair is the underlying question.

         This question inspired Hal McCown to write a sketch several years ago called “The Question Box.”  Ed and Debra Vaughn will reprise this drama for us today.  The Festival Bells will also play and the Band will lead our singing.

         If God wanted more people to believe in Him, why doesn’t He make His existence more obvious?  But are we looking?  Are we expecting to see God?  Do we recognize God’s “voices?”

         During World War II, Allied troops found a written on the walls of a basement in Cologne, Germany.  Someone hiding from the Gestapo had written it there.  The St. Andrew Singers will bring us a setting of this poignant poem, an extraordinary testimony of faith under horrible circumstances.

“I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love even when feeling it not.

I believe in God even when God is silent.”