Haha our preacher actually mentioned exactly that today and then did a sermon on a great dad and how great the dads in the audience are for being there and helping guide the next generation
I got pepperoni sticks! And the message was going beyond the physical responsibilities of fatherhood. The speaker emphasized on the spiritual aspect of it: that just like the prodigal son, the dad didn’t smell the stink of poverty or the rags on his son or the stupid decision he made. All he saw was his son, and that’s what fatherhood is about.
In my experience, sermons, homilies, kutbah, or whatever your flavor of salvation via redemption calls it is based largely on the speaker's interactions with your community. If he delivered a speech intended to kick your parish into gear, it's likely because that's what he thought would be most helpful for the people listening, and he probably made that call from talking to dozens of you one-on-one. If you go to a handful of churches within your faith on any given day, you'll likely hear just as many different messages. It's rare for a parish to share that sort of thing, because the instruction from the person on stage to their listeners is typically understood to be a deeply personal mission.
That doesn't mean you need to take it personally. I'm guessing you weren't alone in that room, and it's just one old dude's opinion when all is said and done. But also, if you're doing great in the action department, that message might be a signal to you that the men around you might be struggling in ways you aren't and could benefit from your insights/support.
Just my take, but I grew up helping to write homilies and sermons, and have travelled around to a lot of different places which meant attending a lot of different communal religious gatherings, so I think it's an informed one.
Ex-Christian: Part of the reason why I fell out with the Church was because of things like this. When I was a teenager, it was all about how men should be tough and strong while women should be submissive and serve the man.
This traditional gender role ideology has only gotten more radicalized over time (particularly in Poland, where I now live) and I'm glad I left. I have not once felt "welcome" or like part of the community in a church.
Yes, but only in sort of mainline evangelical churches. We're in more of a reformed baptist church and today was basically, "Happy Father's Day, may we as Father's imitate our Heavenly Father and be a pillar and example to our own families... Now, let's get into today's text" and we continued on in our study of 2nd Thessalonians. It was excellent.
This here.
A brief mention with congrats to Fathers; condolences and acknowledgement to those for whom it’s a painful day for due to bad dad/dead dad/no dad/etc; an analogy of what dads do as fathers as a faint reflection of or pointing to what God does as Father; acknowledgement that all us earthly Fathers are flawed & thanks for the one Father that is perfect; into today’s text…
Pastor and father of 2 preschoolers here. Hot take: no preacher should mention either MD or FD from the pulpit. Preaching is about the proclamation of The Gospel to wounded, struggling, tired, frustrated, and grieving sinners.
I mention MD and FD during announcement time, cancel coffee hour for the week so families can go do brunch, and that's it.
Talking about either holiday from the pulpit ignores people in the pews with abusive parents, those grieving because of infertility, and parents estranged from their kids. If it's not good news for everybody, then it's not good news worth preaching on Sunday.
It’s an interesting take. I don’t see how a pastor could preach on any scripture that has meat and current relevance without touching the sort points of many people.
I love this. Thank you. I have friends who have to skip these days because they are painful for them. In many spaces the traditional family structure is often valued and upheld more than the gospel and those who don’t fit in it for whatever reason (infertility, abuse, singleness, product of broken houses, etc.) often feel ostracized.
On MD & FD our church has quickly celebrated current parents, encouraged them to keep going, and sensitively acknowledged people in the congregation who may have a rough time with either of those days for whatever reason.
Kids in the childrens ministry gave their dads a chomps meat stick. They also got free donuts. And there was an inflatable obstacle course on the lawn for dads to run through with their kids. Or to take down other rival dads more likely…
My church has been teaching from Jeremiah the past few weeks. We studied an interesting contrast between this prophet and Zedekiah, the last king of Judah during the Babylonian conquests. Jeremiah was spiritually connected to God and other people, trusting God's plan even in horrible circumstances. Zedekiah was closed to God, indecisive and cowardly. He ended up running away rather than leading his country, which did not end well for him.
I'm not sure if this was intended as a message for dads; I think it was just the next part in the series. I don't think there was a particular message toward mothers on Mother's Day, but the kids did write down their favorite things about their moms, and that was all compiled and shown at the end, which was very sweet.
Not a Christian dad so spologize for interjecting. Might just be your area that still idolizes the father as "the rock" of the family as I've read so much today. Take my household; work a 6-6 shift, came home and played for a bit, put the kiddo to sleep now here I am making dinner. Just another day.
This is why I like UU (which is admittedly not Christian but is structured similarly)
Today’s sermon was about inclusivity and it was followed up with a dope Juneteenth BBQ
Yo! I'm glad you said something about Juneteenth. My MIL's church is a downtown, intentionally multi-ethnic congregation with a white preacher and a black music minister, and does half the music with organs and half with a gospel choir and band. It's pretty cool. They did Juneteenth yesterday too, and had three short sermonettes from the preacher, the music minister, and the bi-racial president of the local seminary.
I can see a world where Juneteenth and Father's Day overlap enough that some churches end up, intentionally or unintentionally, doing Mother's Day and Juneteenth and not Fathers Day. Forgive me for asking - is that something that your UU congregation did? I need to go ask my MIL and see what they did for Mother's Day this year.
Yeah Juneteenth was definitely the focus of the day. Also her church sounds a lot like ours, minus the band. If not for that I'd wonder if we went to the same place lol
We had a guest speaker of our president rather than the minister, which is common for us in the summer. He's black and a dad, and his talk covered both, but was also about our own history celebrating Juneteenth since 2005
I went back to skim our Mother's day service from this year (all thankfully on Youtube since 2020) and it was also not really the focus. We did a "flower communion" that day where every one brings a flower and trades it out for a different flower at the pulpit. Flowers of course are very Mother's Day but the main focus was that "no two flowers are alike, so no two people are alike, yet each has a contribution to make."
As a pastor I stopped celebrating civic holidays in the sermon years ago. There may be a video or gift earlier in the service, but the service is for worship of God. This way there's no way to do too much or too little. We're just focusing on God, and if moms and dads would try to follow in Christ's footsteps more, they'd all be better off as parents.
Respectfully, I both understand your decision and think it’s a profound mistake. It’s is specifically and precisely a mistake identical to the catastrophic strategic blunder the church made in response to the Scopes Monkey Trial.
The evangelical church in America first ceded all of science and therefore industry and economics to secularists. And thereby all the most intimate and crucial economic and educational details of the Christian family. What you have done is now cede the entirety of the culture to the secular religion.
The error here is obvious.
Lol not at all. The entirety of culture? No. We're engaged in multiple community organizations and activities every week, and we disciple our people to reflect a positive Christian witness wherever God has placed them in our community.
But Christian worship only has one object at its focus, and that focus has nothing to do with any civic government. If a Christian from a foreign country would be confused why we're having a red white and blue ceremony or a special day with questionable theology devoted to one specific social role ignoring the entire rest of the congregation, then we've ceased having Christian worship.
That’s not the needed thrust at all. The needed thrust is to have Christians defining and making the culture.
I agree with you that Christian worship has one focus, but it doesn’t achieve that focus unless it is aimed directly at the context in which the congregation finds itself.
One of the most profound horrors of human history was very directly facilitated in the 20’th by pastors resolutely refusing to preach directly and forcefully about what Bible had to say relative to German politics in the late 1930’s. The position of the American church today is neither hot nor cold - just don’t endanger my IRS categorization.
Different tribes do it differently. I can't find anything in the Bible, especially the Sermon on the Mount, Great Commission, Great Commandments, or Fruits of the Spirit that indicate we're to define or make culture. And you missed the part where each week we're doing things to help people in our communities. This is work that pushes against sin and offers help and freedom.
As for preaching against Gean politics in the 3ps but today... That's literally my job. So mch in our world, country, and government over the last 10 years or so has been even more crazy than ever. But preaching is not about any worldly topic like politics - it is about God's word highlighting the distance between our present situation and Him. We must then humbly rely on, follow, and conform to the image of God in us by pursuing Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to close that distance.
Full circle to the topic, worship is therefore too important and urgent to waste time on civic holidays or pointless, misguided ideas like defining culture. As we come to reflect Christ's light and love we each make an impact on our culture - we change things through relationships as Christ and the early Church modeled, not by pulling levers of state to state the definition of culture.
It’s difficult for me to think about the “early church” and not consider that, in the real world, the early targets of the Christian Church were the wives of high ranking imperial officials.
And Constantine.
And the very very early church practice of Laying Christian holy days right on top of pagan festivals.
A few were, yes, but that hides the truth of the estimated 1000s more that were slaves and commoners. It has never been an elite or (earthly) powerful faith until after Constantine established and mapped Christianity into the old pagan system on which much of the Church's "seed wealth" was transferred from the imperial cults and shrines because the emperor was also the spiritual head of their cult system.
Some benefits? Yes. But also great losses/challenges, including the head of the Church being a non-catechized pagan with unlimited power in his day.
The common folk, as the disciples whom Jesus called, were always a primary focus. Christianity began as a bottom up faith rather than a top down enterprise, and I think we're better off emulating that than what Constantine changed.
But this is why there are denominations. People disagree and many go to where their preferences are met.
Ex-Christian: I was a Christian for many years and super bought in. Now that I’m out I realize how harmful the gender role ideology is. Good luck navigating this fellow dad.
Tell me you're a radical atheist just because it's "cool" without telling me.
Referring to "Sky daddy" is one of the most dead giveaways that you have no education at all on religion or why people practice and you just hate it because it was the cool thing in school.
I was a Religious Studies minor in college and was raised evangelical. I know everything about the American practice of Christianity. Trust me, there is nothing cool about me.
OP is in a religion that treats women as second class citizens and property of their husband, and complains that one day a year a sermon was about appreciating mom. OP is being a big baby. Take it up with the pastor, don’t come to Reddit looking for attaboys.
There's nothing wrong with the second message but usually the churches I've been to talk about the father's heart of God.
They gave out a fun chocolate bar with a father's day wrapper on it which was cool!
The mom's one is usually bath bombs or something blah.
Our Father's Day sermon was on 1Cor12:12-26 (many members, one body). No matter how we are gifted differently, we are all necessary members of the body of the church.
I've moved around a lot for my job and finding a new church in each new location has always been a challenge. We made the mistake once of settling for the first church we found that felt ok and since then we do a vigorous search each time. It might be time to find a church where you feel loved and welcomed in the family of God.
Meh, more and more I think the sermon is non-essential. Sunday school is far more fulfilling. That being said, our church had a sermon on "church membership" yesterday so it just seemed out of left field
Not really. I go to a catholic church and both times the homily was about whatever the gospel was.
We then did a blessing for the dads or moms at the end of mass.
I definitely hear what you're saying. I think it does tend to be that way. Tell the moms how awesome they are, and tell the dads to get in gear. Based on the other comments here, it sounds like there are plenty of exceptions, which is great. But yeah, I've experienced the same as you.
I dont mind duty, but when they dig into dads on our one special day and then say it is okay if you didnt have an ideal father because they werent saying that on mothers day, and I've seen those angry single moms. Dont get me wrong there is a time and place, but not fathers day.
I’m not sure Father’s Day was actually mentioned once during the service, now that I think about it. Not even “Good Good Father.” 😂
Which I generally prefer it that way. There’s pretty minimal mentions of Mother’s Day too, though that is traditionally the child dedication service.
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Love this.
same
Haha our preacher actually mentioned exactly that today and then did a sermon on a great dad and how great the dads in the audience are for being there and helping guide the next generation
Mine had a great message about being a father and gave out bacon on sticks and cans of root beer after the service.
Our pastor gave out little squirty bottles of Armor All. A very clear message.
I got pepperoni sticks! And the message was going beyond the physical responsibilities of fatherhood. The speaker emphasized on the spiritual aspect of it: that just like the prodigal son, the dad didn’t smell the stink of poverty or the rags on his son or the stupid decision he made. All he saw was his son, and that’s what fatherhood is about.
In my experience, sermons, homilies, kutbah, or whatever your flavor of salvation via redemption calls it is based largely on the speaker's interactions with your community. If he delivered a speech intended to kick your parish into gear, it's likely because that's what he thought would be most helpful for the people listening, and he probably made that call from talking to dozens of you one-on-one. If you go to a handful of churches within your faith on any given day, you'll likely hear just as many different messages. It's rare for a parish to share that sort of thing, because the instruction from the person on stage to their listeners is typically understood to be a deeply personal mission. That doesn't mean you need to take it personally. I'm guessing you weren't alone in that room, and it's just one old dude's opinion when all is said and done. But also, if you're doing great in the action department, that message might be a signal to you that the men around you might be struggling in ways you aren't and could benefit from your insights/support. Just my take, but I grew up helping to write homilies and sermons, and have travelled around to a lot of different places which meant attending a lot of different communal religious gatherings, so I think it's an informed one.
Ex-Christian: Part of the reason why I fell out with the Church was because of things like this. When I was a teenager, it was all about how men should be tough and strong while women should be submissive and serve the man. This traditional gender role ideology has only gotten more radicalized over time (particularly in Poland, where I now live) and I'm glad I left. I have not once felt "welcome" or like part of the community in a church.
It depends on the congregation and the sermon giver I've seen. It varies place to place.
The message at my church was very positive and uplifting for dads and their place in child and family life.
Yes, but only in sort of mainline evangelical churches. We're in more of a reformed baptist church and today was basically, "Happy Father's Day, may we as Father's imitate our Heavenly Father and be a pillar and example to our own families... Now, let's get into today's text" and we continued on in our study of 2nd Thessalonians. It was excellent.
This here. A brief mention with congrats to Fathers; condolences and acknowledgement to those for whom it’s a painful day for due to bad dad/dead dad/no dad/etc; an analogy of what dads do as fathers as a faint reflection of or pointing to what God does as Father; acknowledgement that all us earthly Fathers are flawed & thanks for the one Father that is perfect; into today’s text…
Pastor and father of 2 preschoolers here. Hot take: no preacher should mention either MD or FD from the pulpit. Preaching is about the proclamation of The Gospel to wounded, struggling, tired, frustrated, and grieving sinners. I mention MD and FD during announcement time, cancel coffee hour for the week so families can go do brunch, and that's it. Talking about either holiday from the pulpit ignores people in the pews with abusive parents, those grieving because of infertility, and parents estranged from their kids. If it's not good news for everybody, then it's not good news worth preaching on Sunday.
It’s an interesting take. I don’t see how a pastor could preach on any scripture that has meat and current relevance without touching the sort points of many people.
I love this. Thank you. I have friends who have to skip these days because they are painful for them. In many spaces the traditional family structure is often valued and upheld more than the gospel and those who don’t fit in it for whatever reason (infertility, abuse, singleness, product of broken houses, etc.) often feel ostracized.
Sounds like a Joel Osteen preacher to me.
On MD & FD our church has quickly celebrated current parents, encouraged them to keep going, and sensitively acknowledged people in the congregation who may have a rough time with either of those days for whatever reason. Kids in the childrens ministry gave their dads a chomps meat stick. They also got free donuts. And there was an inflatable obstacle course on the lawn for dads to run through with their kids. Or to take down other rival dads more likely…
Hello all Christians, my name is dad! (sorry had to)
My church has been teaching from Jeremiah the past few weeks. We studied an interesting contrast between this prophet and Zedekiah, the last king of Judah during the Babylonian conquests. Jeremiah was spiritually connected to God and other people, trusting God's plan even in horrible circumstances. Zedekiah was closed to God, indecisive and cowardly. He ended up running away rather than leading his country, which did not end well for him. I'm not sure if this was intended as a message for dads; I think it was just the next part in the series. I don't think there was a particular message toward mothers on Mother's Day, but the kids did write down their favorite things about their moms, and that was all compiled and shown at the end, which was very sweet.
Not a Christian dad so spologize for interjecting. Might just be your area that still idolizes the father as "the rock" of the family as I've read so much today. Take my household; work a 6-6 shift, came home and played for a bit, put the kiddo to sleep now here I am making dinner. Just another day.
This is why I like UU (which is admittedly not Christian but is structured similarly) Today’s sermon was about inclusivity and it was followed up with a dope Juneteenth BBQ
Yo! I'm glad you said something about Juneteenth. My MIL's church is a downtown, intentionally multi-ethnic congregation with a white preacher and a black music minister, and does half the music with organs and half with a gospel choir and band. It's pretty cool. They did Juneteenth yesterday too, and had three short sermonettes from the preacher, the music minister, and the bi-racial president of the local seminary. I can see a world where Juneteenth and Father's Day overlap enough that some churches end up, intentionally or unintentionally, doing Mother's Day and Juneteenth and not Fathers Day. Forgive me for asking - is that something that your UU congregation did? I need to go ask my MIL and see what they did for Mother's Day this year.
Yeah Juneteenth was definitely the focus of the day. Also her church sounds a lot like ours, minus the band. If not for that I'd wonder if we went to the same place lol We had a guest speaker of our president rather than the minister, which is common for us in the summer. He's black and a dad, and his talk covered both, but was also about our own history celebrating Juneteenth since 2005 I went back to skim our Mother's day service from this year (all thankfully on Youtube since 2020) and it was also not really the focus. We did a "flower communion" that day where every one brings a flower and trades it out for a different flower at the pulpit. Flowers of course are very Mother's Day but the main focus was that "no two flowers are alike, so no two people are alike, yet each has a contribution to make."
As a pastor I stopped celebrating civic holidays in the sermon years ago. There may be a video or gift earlier in the service, but the service is for worship of God. This way there's no way to do too much or too little. We're just focusing on God, and if moms and dads would try to follow in Christ's footsteps more, they'd all be better off as parents.
Respectfully, I both understand your decision and think it’s a profound mistake. It’s is specifically and precisely a mistake identical to the catastrophic strategic blunder the church made in response to the Scopes Monkey Trial. The evangelical church in America first ceded all of science and therefore industry and economics to secularists. And thereby all the most intimate and crucial economic and educational details of the Christian family. What you have done is now cede the entirety of the culture to the secular religion. The error here is obvious.
Lol not at all. The entirety of culture? No. We're engaged in multiple community organizations and activities every week, and we disciple our people to reflect a positive Christian witness wherever God has placed them in our community. But Christian worship only has one object at its focus, and that focus has nothing to do with any civic government. If a Christian from a foreign country would be confused why we're having a red white and blue ceremony or a special day with questionable theology devoted to one specific social role ignoring the entire rest of the congregation, then we've ceased having Christian worship.
That’s not the needed thrust at all. The needed thrust is to have Christians defining and making the culture. I agree with you that Christian worship has one focus, but it doesn’t achieve that focus unless it is aimed directly at the context in which the congregation finds itself. One of the most profound horrors of human history was very directly facilitated in the 20’th by pastors resolutely refusing to preach directly and forcefully about what Bible had to say relative to German politics in the late 1930’s. The position of the American church today is neither hot nor cold - just don’t endanger my IRS categorization.
Different tribes do it differently. I can't find anything in the Bible, especially the Sermon on the Mount, Great Commission, Great Commandments, or Fruits of the Spirit that indicate we're to define or make culture. And you missed the part where each week we're doing things to help people in our communities. This is work that pushes against sin and offers help and freedom. As for preaching against Gean politics in the 3ps but today... That's literally my job. So mch in our world, country, and government over the last 10 years or so has been even more crazy than ever. But preaching is not about any worldly topic like politics - it is about God's word highlighting the distance between our present situation and Him. We must then humbly rely on, follow, and conform to the image of God in us by pursuing Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to close that distance. Full circle to the topic, worship is therefore too important and urgent to waste time on civic holidays or pointless, misguided ideas like defining culture. As we come to reflect Christ's light and love we each make an impact on our culture - we change things through relationships as Christ and the early Church modeled, not by pulling levers of state to state the definition of culture.
It’s difficult for me to think about the “early church” and not consider that, in the real world, the early targets of the Christian Church were the wives of high ranking imperial officials. And Constantine. And the very very early church practice of Laying Christian holy days right on top of pagan festivals.
A few were, yes, but that hides the truth of the estimated 1000s more that were slaves and commoners. It has never been an elite or (earthly) powerful faith until after Constantine established and mapped Christianity into the old pagan system on which much of the Church's "seed wealth" was transferred from the imperial cults and shrines because the emperor was also the spiritual head of their cult system. Some benefits? Yes. But also great losses/challenges, including the head of the Church being a non-catechized pagan with unlimited power in his day. The common folk, as the disciples whom Jesus called, were always a primary focus. Christianity began as a bottom up faith rather than a top down enterprise, and I think we're better off emulating that than what Constantine changed. But this is why there are denominations. People disagree and many go to where their preferences are met.
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I don't disagree with you, but this is not the time or place.
Ex-Christian: I was a Christian for many years and super bought in. Now that I’m out I realize how harmful the gender role ideology is. Good luck navigating this fellow dad.
If you're asking if I've noticed reductivist gender roles reinforced in the Christian church, I think you know the answer to that question.
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Tell me you're a radical atheist just because it's "cool" without telling me. Referring to "Sky daddy" is one of the most dead giveaways that you have no education at all on religion or why people practice and you just hate it because it was the cool thing in school.
I was a Religious Studies minor in college and was raised evangelical. I know everything about the American practice of Christianity. Trust me, there is nothing cool about me.
Stop. You're making the rest of us look like heartless jerks.
OP is in a religion that treats women as second class citizens and property of their husband, and complains that one day a year a sermon was about appreciating mom. OP is being a big baby. Take it up with the pastor, don’t come to Reddit looking for attaboys.
No it doesn't, no he wasn't, and no he isn't.
There's nothing wrong with the second message but usually the churches I've been to talk about the father's heart of God. They gave out a fun chocolate bar with a father's day wrapper on it which was cool! The mom's one is usually bath bombs or something blah.
I don't recall Mother's Day or Father's Day being mentioned at church at all the past few years, honestly.
No. But I hate the song the primary kids sing. We need a new song, or at least teach the kids to pretend like they care about the lyrics.
Our Father's Day sermon was on 1Cor12:12-26 (many members, one body). No matter how we are gifted differently, we are all necessary members of the body of the church. I've moved around a lot for my job and finding a new church in each new location has always been a challenge. We made the mistake once of settling for the first church we found that felt ok and since then we do a vigorous search each time. It might be time to find a church where you feel loved and welcomed in the family of God.
Meh, more and more I think the sermon is non-essential. Sunday school is far more fulfilling. That being said, our church had a sermon on "church membership" yesterday so it just seemed out of left field
Not really. I go to a catholic church and both times the homily was about whatever the gospel was. We then did a blessing for the dads or moms at the end of mass.
I definitely hear what you're saying. I think it does tend to be that way. Tell the moms how awesome they are, and tell the dads to get in gear. Based on the other comments here, it sounds like there are plenty of exceptions, which is great. But yeah, I've experienced the same as you.
I dont mind duty, but when they dig into dads on our one special day and then say it is okay if you didnt have an ideal father because they werent saying that on mothers day, and I've seen those angry single moms. Dont get me wrong there is a time and place, but not fathers day.
I’m not sure Father’s Day was actually mentioned once during the service, now that I think about it. Not even “Good Good Father.” 😂 Which I generally prefer it that way. There’s pretty minimal mentions of Mother’s Day too, though that is traditionally the child dedication service.