Jesus' jacked-up family tree

Sunday's message was probably one of the more interesting one's I've ever preached. Which is pretty ironic, considering I was preaching on the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew. But the 'dullness' of the passage forced me to amp-up the creativity. I titled the sermon, Jesus' Jacked-Up Family Tree.

Josh Vance read the passage and just one verse into his reading, I jumped up out of my chair and interrupted him, "are we really reading a genealogy today...?" I then explained how Jesus' genealogy would likely be a list of upstanding, Jewish men. Everytime Josh read the name of a woman (some non-Jewish and rather shady), I interrupted and told her story.

I certainly kept people's attention on Sunday and there was even a nervous energy when I first interrupted Josh, "was that planned, what's going on?" I love that type of dissonance at the beginning of a sermon!

The last few minutes of my message was driving home the point that whether you feel like an insider who ought to have their act together or an outsider that feels judged by those who look like they have their act together, "there's room in Jesus' family tree for you."
I really let it rip toward the end of my message and I heard that Joe Kumor was walking around the kids area telling people, "Donnie's really preaching it today!"

You can listen to the message here.

Valerie Sass and the worship band played this song as our response:

Valerie Sass and our band did this song as the response.



By far, the BEST part of Sunday morning was that a good friend of Erin and mine, who doesn't have a lot of church background was there that morning and told me several times that afternoon, "church was great, I paid attention the entire time and got a lot out of it."

What really amazes me about Sunday is that the service (at least the passage and the response song) was planned in October of 07, during my sermon planning retreat. While I was seeking God's guidance as to what to preach each Sunday of 2008, God already knew the people that would be at TFC the morning of Dec. 14th, needing to hear this message. In October of 07, I didn't even know a lot of the people that were in worship on Sunday.

Wow, what a coincidence...