Wellshire Presbyterian Church Sermon Archive

Like the Great Commission, Dr. Seuss makes the assumption that we WILL go into the world, that it will not be easy, and that we will face dangers and toils, but that ultimately we will be triumphant. Christ calls us into the world to places of need, places of hopelessness, and places of pain and loneliness. Oh, the Places You WILL Go!

In this sermon, Dr. Bell uses Dr. Seusss story of The Sneetches to talk about the evil of racial segregation but then moves on from there to discuss other ways that we create unhealthy walls or barriers. In contrast, he makes the point that God desires unity, for in Christ, there is no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one.

In this short homily, Dr. Bell suggests that The Cat in the Hat Comes Back leans on the spread of pink communism, the Cold War, and the threat of nuclear disaster. However, the main lesson for us today is to find the God-given courage to live in spite of our fear.

This sermon seeks to define The Good News of the Gospel in terms of joyous victory. Several definitions of The Gospel and pertinent Bible stories are shared by Dr. Bell. The sermon includes a humorous story about church softball.

In this sermon, Dr. Bell mines Dr. Seusss book The Lorax for applicable lessons about greed, waste and consumerism, as well as Christian faith.

This sermon draws a couple of important Christian lessons from Horton Hears a Who!. The first is about the importance of learning to act on what we hear from those in need or distress the second is learning to say you are sorry when you are to blame and to confess your sins to God.

Messianic Monarchy is a sermon based on I Samuel 8, the passage in which the people of Israel request a king. Dr. Bell suggests that the main difficulty here was a failure to listen to God, as he exhorts faithful Christians to listen only to God.

On June 3, Dr. Bell left the lectionary to preach topically on the subject of worship. He spoke about differences in what motivates people before pleading for a spirit of humility and unity.

This Pentecost sermon by Dr. Bell focuses on the power of prayer in the life of the church.

John Calvin, Rachel Carson and Psalm 19 help expand our concept of the Holy Spirits sometimes surprising work in the world, broadening our respect for all of Creation - that of humanity and of The Cathedral of the Natural World.

In this sermon, True North, Dr. Bell notes the importance of joy in the Christian life and questions the apparent lack of joy in the church. Echoing a famous sermon by Paul Tillich, Dr. Bell asks whether a lack of joy is the result of being Christian or of not being sufficiently Christian.

In this message from Youth Sunday 2012, four of Wellshires seniors (Marta Olson, Kari Day-Lucore, Jack Greene, and Sam Viseur) explore the concept of forgiveness and how we respond to it.

This sermon focuses on the image of the Good Shepherd. Dr. Bell makes two points in general the comfort that the Good Shepherd offers and the religious diversity of the one flock.

Ghost Busted is a sermon on Luke 2436ff. Dr. Bell discusses the importance of the resurrection and how one comes to faith.

Thomas and doubting are often considered synonymous. Thomas, however, was not alone in his doubts, and they did not prevent him from a rich ministry in the early Church. Our reasonable doubts can lead us to deeper faith as we acknowledge them.

On Easter Sunday, Dr. Bell's sermon was on the greatest love of all Jesus' willingness to lay down his life for us. He challenges the congregation to go and do likewise.

This sermon goes into some detail on the strange, old story about serpents in the Hebrew encampment in the wilderness (Numbers 214-9), as it is crucial to understanding the beloved 3rd chapter of John. It is a continuation of the Lenten series on salvation.

This sermon, simply titled The Savior, again focuses on Jesus. Focusing on the topic of personal salvation, Dr. Bell suggests that Jesus saves us from and to.

On Palm Sunday, which fell on April Fools Day this year, Dr. Bell shares some serious thoughts about humor.

Greg Allen-Pickett, former interim Youth Director at Wellshire, took a break from studying for his Master of Divinity degree at Austin Seminary to ask Wellshire, Do you think that Jesus ever got the hiccups? In this sermon, Greg examines John 213-22, the scripture in which Jesus reclaimed the temple as a place of worship instead of a place of commerce he posits that Jesus' righteous anger points to his full range of human emotion and that he was fully God and yet fully human. This paradox shows how Jesus' empathy with people presents him as the perfect example of and hope for humanity while making faith and a relationship with God accessible for all.