Sun. June 21, 2009 (John Neufeld)

John provided two messages: one about his 10-year experience with cancer, the other on three images of church. John lives with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and has had several series of chemo treatments. Surprisingly, he has remained quite healthy throughout the treatment and he acknowledges that his minimal reaction to treatment is unusual. He continues to cycle and is active as a speaker, writer and consultant. In his message from Corinthians he suggested we seek a more profound, mysterious, and challenging world rather than one where we trivialize the gospel and reduce it to a few simple truths. John encouraged the use of poetic speech where a familiar text is permitted a fresh hearing, and where (poetic) language moves one toward new, dangerous, and imaginative possibilities. In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul affirms the foundation of Jesus Christ and then turns to images a field, a building (foundation) and a temple. Each image opens the possibility of imagination and reflection on faith and on the church and its diversity. (HN) Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday June 21st, 2009 using your browser's preferred media player.