This Sunday's Worship Materials can be found in the "Featured Sermon" below. We meet in person at Harper Park Middle School, and the service is also livestreamed on our YouTube channel.

What Makes a Mother a Mom?

May 8, 2016 Speaker: Dr. David Silvernail

Topic: Sermons

Well, this week I’m going to do one of those things I’ve previously said I stopped doing. I’m going to preach a topical sermon (horrors!). But I’ll still use the Bible (I promise, no, really)! This Sunday is Mother’s Day and so this will be a Mother’s Day sermon.

In a recent post by Scott Sauls (A PCA pastor in Nashville), he wrote, “Family is the chief biblical metaphor to describe how God relates to us. God is our Father and we are His children. Jesus is husband and we are His Bride, the Church. ”uc">We are our Beloved’s, and our Beloved is ours, says Solomon’s Song. The marriage between a man and a woman, in the purest sense, is a pointer to and picture of the love between Christ and the Church. In our shared union with Christ, we are also sisters and brothers to each other. At its best, the nuclear family can serve as a pointer to the love between God and his people. But like any good and beautiful thing, when family becomes the main thing, it can create more harm than good. In the modern west, some churches have been known to elevate the nuclear family as the apex of human existence. When this happens, it can lead to unanticipated wounds and alienation for those whose family narratives are broken ones. For example, when on Mother’s Day a church centers its attention on mothers instead of Jesus, there is an unseen shame and sorrow that emerges for others who are present. As those whose “happy mother stories” are put front and center, those with more painful mother stories sit in observation, silent and often overlooked, as memories of an estranged mother/child relationship, a recent miscarriage, an infertility situation, or some other pain overtakes them. In short, churches should thoughtfully honor and affirm the calling of motherhood, while also acknowledging the pain and sorrow of other people’s stories."

Well, these week, I’m going to try and dignify mothers without hurting others. I’m guessing that’s easier said than done. We do need to remember that one of the Ten Commandments is to “Honor your father and your mother.” That’s not a suggestion. Nor is it dependent on the relationship you had with your mother, or on how deserving or worthy she was. And the command is in effect for the length of your life, not just the length of her life. And if you think about it, you’ll realize that for some people, that’s a really hard command. So how, and more importantly, why, should we obey it? Let’s work through that together this Sunday. I hope you’ll be there! Dr. Dave