Big Church Week 3: "Tabitha's Tale"
This week I am preaching the third installment of the sermon series, "Big Church." The entire foundation of this series is grounded in the notion that the Church is not an institution, it's a movement. Jesus did not create a mission for the Church, he created a Church for His Mission. The text for the sermon this week is a strange little story embedded in Acts chapter 9 immediately following the dramatic conversion of Saul. Here's it is: 36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas ); she was always doing good and helping the poor. 37 About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. 38 Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!” 39 Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other...