God Must Laugh

Thank you to everyone who shared ideas and suggested texts for the world’s first open source sermon. It’s so cool to watch the ideas come together. Your depth of thought and respect for each other give me hope that this experiment will produce something worth preaching.

Here’s the full list of texts you all suggested: Romans 12:3-8, Hebrews 10:25, Matthew 28:16-20, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, 1 Corinthians 9:22, Ephesians 4:1-16, Acts 2, 2 Cor 5:9-10, Luke 7:31-35

Based on your comments and the principles of the project, I’ve chosen two. Not that we’re limited to these texts, but these are foundational. I keep hoping that someone will add insight from other faith traditions or schools of philosophy, but there’s plenty of time for that as we continue to piece this thing together.

And the winners are….

• Primary Text: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

• Secondary Text: Hebrews 10:23-25

Now comes the really fun stuff. Go to the Open Source Sermon wiki and start writing! (What’s a wiki?) The first thing you’ll notice is that I’ve locked the sermon workspace and created a “start here” link asking us to define our purpose. No sense trying to collaborate if half of us want to build a hot rod and the other half want to build an eco-cruiser. Once the purpose is clear, we’ll crack the workspace and then it’s edit, edit, edit, straight through to the deadline, Sept 20.

I’ll lock the wiki at noon, Central Standard Time (GMT-6) and present the result to my senior minister. That’s when we find out if this experiment is a success. Can the net produce a preachable sermon? I seriously don’t know. But it’s going to be a blast finding out.

Here’s our beautiful new wiki!