<font color='black' size='4' face='Times New Roman, Times, serif'><font size="4" color="black" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
<div> She, who rocks the cradle, rules the world. --Anonymous
</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt;color:black"><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid blue; padding-left: 3px;">
<div><strong>May 8th: Special Mother's Day Resources on DPS:</strong></div>
<ul>
<li>Free Mother's Day Annecdotes, Prayer's and Poems shared by a variety of
DPSers. Click this link: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.desperatepreacher.com/mothersday.htm">http://www.desperatepreacher.com/mothersday.htm</a> (as
well as other resources)
</li></ul></blockquote></div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div style="clear:both"></div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div> <br>
</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: DesperatePreacher.com <help@DesperatePreacher.com><br>
To: DPS Newsletter Recipient <despreacher@comcast.net><br>
Sent: Sat, Apr 30, 2011 10:45 am<br>
Subject: DPS resources for Mother's Day, free sermon for 2nd Sunday of Easter<br>
<br>
<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_1859779e-48fc-4a37-a4af-9b6ab2127afb">
<div>Dear colleagues in ministry,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Just because Easter Sunday is behind us, doesn't mean the Alleluiahs have
to fade! We need to remind our people that Easter is a Season, not just a
single day of celebration! Here are some DPS resources that are intended to help
your congregation keep the celebration going:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong>Contents:</strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div><strong>1. May 1st: Free full-text DPS Sermon from the
archive:</strong></div>
<div><b>The "Doubting Thomas" in All of Us,</b> John. 20:19-31, by Rev.
Heather McCance (see below)<em> <br>
Check out the newer sermons, kids messages
and other resources for Easter 2 by using this link: </em><a target="_blank" href="http://desperatepreacher.com/a_2ea.htm"><em>http://desperatepreacher.com/a_2ea.htm</em></a></div>
</div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong>2. May 8th: Special Mother's Day Resources on DPS:</strong></div>
<ul>
<li>Free Mother's Day Annecdotes, Prayer's and Poems shared by a variety of
DPSers. Click this link: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.desperatepreacher.com/mothersday.htm">http://www.desperatepreacher.com/mothersday.htm</a> (as
well as other resources)
</li></ul>
<div>
<div><><br>
Frank
Schaefer,<br>
director/developer<br>
<a>DesperatePreacher.com</a><br>
<a href="mailto:help@desperatepreacher.com">help@desperatepreacher.com</a><br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<div>_________________________________________</div>
<div> </div>
<div><strong>Free DPS Sermon from the archive:</strong></div>
<div>
<div><b>The "Doubting Thomas" in All of Us</b><br>
a sermon based on John.
20:19-31<br>
<i>by Rev. Heather McCance</i></div>
<i></i>
<div><b><font size="5">P</font></b>oor old Thomas, Doubting Thomas, who on this day
every year is put down in churches around the world for his lack of faith, his
inability to believe in something he had not yet seen. I feel sorry for him,
really, especially considering that earlier on, while the other disciples were
trying to discourage Jesus from going to Jerusalem where there were people who
wanted to kill him, it was Thomas who said, Let's go with him, let's go and die
with him if that's what it takes. How did Thomas the Brave become Doubting
Thomas?</div>
<div>Most of us, if we're honest with ourselves, have to admit that there are
times when we have doubts of our own when it comes to our faith. When we've
wondered to ourselves whether there really is, in fact, anything after this
life. When we've wondered whether the bread and wine we share week by week is
anything other than bread and wine. When we've felt that there was no one even
listening to our prayers, never mind answering them.</div>
<div>Yes we all have doubts. Which leads to the question of why, when we have
doubts, do we stay in the church, why don't we turn around and walk the other
way in those times when we can't, for whatever reason, believe?</div>
<div>Thomas could well have gone the other way. After hearing the story of the
other disciples, he might well have disbelieved them. After all, the past few
days hadn't exactly proven them to be the most trustworthy bunch. After Thomas
had expressed his willingness to die with Jesus, he watched one of the disciples
betray him into the hands of his killers, he saw another deny ever having known
him, he watched most of the rest of them run away, abandoning Jesus to his
death. Thomas could hardly be blamed for his reaction. Sorry, folks, but you're
all nuts. Jesus is dead. You're just victims of your own wishful thinking.</div>
<div>So, believing Jesus to be dead, what was it that kept Thomas around? Why
didn't he just go back to whatever his life was before he'd left it to follow
this wandering preacher from Nazareth? Because it was a week later that Jesus
appeared to him, and Thomas had evidently stuck around.</div>
<div>Well, I'm not sure why, but reading the story I believe that Thomas stuck
around because of his ties to the rest of the disciples. After all, they'd spent
a lot of time together, some three years according to John's gospel. They'd
grown to know and love one another, and even with their leader gone, that bond
was still there.</div>
<div>And as for the other disciples, they might well have given up on Thomas.
After all, Jesus had prophesied that he would rise from the dead, they were
reporting nothing that Jesus himself had not told them. Why should this doubter
be allowed to continue to be a part of this special group if he didn't believe
them?</div>
<div>But Thomas didn't give up on the other disciples, and the other disciples
didn't give up on Thomas.</div>
<div>I know a priest who grew up on the prairies, who with her sister used to
spend summer evenings catching fireflies to put into a jar. She told me that if
you caught enough of them, you could read by them when your parents thought that
you should be sleeping. he jar full of fireflies created a nice, steady,
constant light. But if you looked at the jar carefully, you could see that the
individual fireflies were twinkling on and off again. None of the fireflies were
on all the time, but the light of the fireflies that were on kept the light
steady for the fireflies that were off.</div>
<div>Thomas, once so brave, couldn't be on all the time. But the community of
disciples upheld him when he was weak, when he had trouble believing, until he
found that he, too, could believe, until he, too, experienced the presence of
the risen Christ in his life and could cry out with the others, My Lord and my
God!</div>
<div>When I have doubts about the things I believe, it is often you, my fellow
Christians on the journey, who keep me going. Just when I feel that God can't
possibly answer prayers, someone will tell me about a prayer that was answered.
Just when I find myself bitter that human beings will ever do any good, one of
you tells me of a complete stranger doing some good deed. Just when I find
myself questioning God's very existence, someone will tell me about the deep
sense they have of the presence of God in their life.</div>
<div>Like the fireflies, like Thomas, none of us can be shining all the time. All
of us will have times when we can't shine, when for whatever reason we cannot
believe. But that's when we have to count on the light of all the others in the
community to shine for us, to lighten our life until we find our way back and
are able to shine again.</div>
<div>So when we say the Nicene Creed in the new version of our service, it begins,
"We believe." And someone once told me that even though he can't believe all the
things in the creed all the time, that "we" makes it possible for him to say the
creed without feeling like he's lying, because he's speaking for the whole
community and not just for himself.</div>
<div>And this is also why every time someone is baptized or confirmed, the whole
gathered people of God are asked to make a promise, to support the person in
their life in Christ. This is why one of the promises we make when we are
baptized, or that we make on behalf of a small child who is baptized, is that we
will continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread
and in the prayers. Because none of us can be a Christian on our own. All of us
need the community of believers to be there, to shine for us in our dark times,
just as we do our best to shine for others in the community when they need our
support.</div>
<div>Thomas's story has, if not a happy ending, than a powerful one. After this
experience with the risen Christ, he became Thomas the Brave once again. And
when the apostles went out from Jerusalem to spread the news about Jesus, Thomas
went to India. Many people there came to believe in Jesus through Thomas's work,
and in the 1700s when Christian missionaries arrived in India, they found there
a thriving if small group of Christians known as the Mar Thoma church, a church
that continues to this day. But Thomas himself met the same fate as many of his
fellow apostles, for the teachings of Jesus that the last should be first and
the first should be last flew in the face of the strictly enforced Hindu caste
system and Thomas was put to death around the year 50. Thomas the Brave to the
very end.</div>
<div>You and I might not be as brave as Thomas, and we might not have had the
chance Jesus offered to him, to put our hands in his side, to touch the wounds
on his hands and his feet. But we do have the same strength that he did, the
strength that kept him around until he could feel Christ's presence in his life
again, the support of a community of people of faith, who will shine for us
whenever we feel our own light faltering. Amen.</div>
<div>_____________________________________________</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<!-- end of AOLMsgPart_1_1859779e-48fc-4a37-a4af-9b6ab2127afb -->
</div>
</font></font>