I just caught Minnesota pastor Jin Kim's sermon in place of Greg Boyd for my weekly fix of Woodland Hills sermons. Interesting sermon. Kim is Presbyterian and if you'd have told me that beforehand, I might have skipped over listening to his message in favor of some yet-unlistened-to Rob Bell. The sermon even has a nice Presbyterian title to it: "The Fruit of Repentance." After listening to him, though, I'm already picking out a few sermons for further listening.

My favorite line of the whole sermon was as follows: "When Jesus wasn't present, the disciples got stupid." It's a comparison to how far we fall away as a church when we're left to our own devices. If you're easily offended, the sermon might not be up your alley. Kim's is a very prophetic style and he's not afraid to call out the church as a whole, seminary schools, his own Presbyterian church, and even lead us into calling ourselves out where we need to.

This probably ties into the William Stringfellow booklet I've yet to make a dent in, so I'm hopeful that I'll be unearthing that when I get home later in the day. I'll try and add some additional thoughts on the sermon then, as well. And maybe I'll have a few additional thoughts from the other sermons of Kim's that I'm downloading.

In slowly catching up with my podcast-listening habit, I finally got around to listening to this sermon as I dozed off last night. It's not uncommon that I'll nod off before the end of a sermon, or that listening to it through to the end will put me in a pretty good frame of mind to catch some Zs. And normally, when my pastors of choice have a replacement filling in for them, I have to confess to not exactly being terribly motivated to sit still for the better part of an hour to soak up a message. Yet, here we are, with me getting around to a 2-week old message, listening to Efrem Smith fill in for Greg Boyd. Oh, and I'm pretty sure I could have played a full game of hockey after getting a jolt of energy from Smith's sermon.

I'm convinced that the final 12 minutes of this probably the best message I've heard this year, but I strongly suggest sitting through the 30-minutes of setting it up. In any event, it definitely qualifies as the best use of Van Halen in a sermon. Ever. Of course, I say that without another point of reference, but I feel safe in doing so.

This guy's electric ... I may need to add his sermons to my weekly routine. Enjoy, or download and take it with you.

11/1/09 : Compassion And The Kingdom from WHChurch on Vimeo.

Woodland Hills Church starts up their online community thingamajig today: The Bridge. Interestingly, it's based on the social network site Ning, which I've given up on due to a glitch in their video processor.

I've already started up a group for Houston folk, so if you're interested in growing the experimental online group, join up. The sermon from this past weekend is already posted as a video. That has to be record time: