Shows
West End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastThe Power of StillnessThe Power of Stillness – In our summer look at psalms, today we are considering Psalm 46. Rev. Carol Cavin-Dillon begins with a look at the hymn, “It Is Well with My Soul,” an arrangement of which was sung early in the service by Rebecca and Kyle Collier, and which Carol’s extended family sang three times during their annual reunion and camp meeting last week. The hymn’s author, Horatio Spafford, wrote it in 1873 after unimaginable losses of his son to scarlet fever, and then losses of his wife and four daughters in a shipwreck. The hymn and situation for its writing is...2025-07-2737 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastThe One True ShepherdThe One True Shepherd – In our summer look at psalms, today’s scripture is the very familiar 23rd Psalm. Senior Minister, the Rev. Dr. Carol Cavin-Dillon begins by talking about the familiarity of this psalm as it has landed in the midst of a time of great conflict. The psalms run the gamut of emotions with some full of praise and joy and others expressing despair. While she leads us through the psalm in her sermon, she invites us to explore our own feelings as we explore it, too. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” is a declarat...2025-06-2238 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastThe Wisdom of TreesThe Wisdom of Trees – This morning we travel our Summer of Psalms by reading Psalm 1. The Communion Meditation is delivered by our Senior Minister, the Rev. Dr. Carol Cavin-Dillon. She notes that there are references to trees throughout the Bible. The Genesis story of the Garden of Eden has stories involving several trees, and in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, there is also a tree of life. Carol lists some other familiar stories of trees in the Bible, and here, in the first Psalm, is an example of a tree as a very positive image for us. As po...2025-06-0123 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastLenten Meditation for the Monday of Holy WeekJoin Pastor Carol Cavin-Dillon and Hampton Randall as they lead us thru a liturgy and prayer for the Monday of Holy Week.2025-04-1406 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastGood Will To AllGood Will To All – This traditional Christmas Eve service is one that West End UMC has held for decades. It highlights the reading of the story of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, read by the minister in the center of the sanctuary, among the worshippers. Our Senior Minister, Rev. Dr. Carol Cavin-Dillon, recounts Christmases growing up when their extended family drew names to give gifts, but sometimes after all the gifts were opened, there was yet another gift under the tree, and the question quickly became “Who is this gift for?” She compares that to the experience of the shephe...2024-12-2420 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastGrowing PainsThis is the second Sunday in Advent, and our theme for the season is “Messages of Hope,” during which we are hearing some messages from the ancient prophets. Today’s message is from Malachi. Our Senior Miniter, Rev. Dr. Carol Cavin-Dillon, cites a book, Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead, who says that in the corporate world feedback is important. Carol says that although sometimes feedback is tough for the person receiving the critical input, we all need it, and our response to God’s correction is important for our growth in faith. In some ways the book of Malachi is a scene...2024-12-0826 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastOur Hope Is BuiltOur Hope Is Built – This is the first Sunday in Advent, and our theme for the season is “Messages of Hope,” during which we will hear some messages from the ancient prophets. Today we begin with a passage from Jeremiah, who, while in prison and having witnessed Jerusalem destroyed by the Babylonian army, nevertheless offers a promise from God of restoration and a coming “righteous Branch” to lead justice and righteousness in the land. Today marks the return of Senior Minister Carol Cavin-Dillon after a three months sabbatical, and she delivers the Communion Meditation based on this word from Jeremiah, through wh...2024-12-0123 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastJesus as SabbathThis is the final in a three-weeks series of focus on the Sabbath and rest as Senior Minister, Carol Cavin-Dillon, preaches her last sermons before her three-months sabbatical. Today she begins by reviewing that series on rest. Today’s passage from Matthew is the familiar scene wherein the disciples, being hungry, pick grain on the Sabbath and are confronted by some Pharisees. Jesus responds with some examples from scriptures in an attempt to reorient their understanding of the Divine, and today the sermon focuses on Jesus and honoring the Sabbath. In saying, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabb...2024-08-2534 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastRest as ResistanceThe theme for these three weeks is and has been “Rest” and the significance of the Sabbath, part of the initiative for which is that the Rev. Dr. Carol Cavin-Dillon, Senior Minister, will be on a three-months period of rest and renewal beginning in September. Today she asks us to consider the factors that might prevent our resting. In today’s scripture, the voice of Pharaoh resisting the request of Moses and Aaron to let the Hebrews go into the desert to worship their God may well tell us something about the things that prevent our own rest and worship. Pharao...2024-08-1832 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastTo Show or Not To ShowIn contrast to our Shrove Tuesday Jazz Mass, which is a celebratory service, on Ash Wednesday we turn our hearts and minds to the introspection and meditation of the Lenten season, using the sign of the cross in ashes on our foreheads as a symbol of that shift. The Rev. Carol Cavin-Dillon gives the homily, “To Show or Not To Show,” initially asking whether when we leave the service we will wipe the ashes off our foreheads or will leave the ashes there for others to see. The scripture for the service, from the Matthean version of the Sermon on the...2023-02-2224 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastThe Joy of the IncarnationThis is that rare year when Christmas Day occurs on a Sunday. As we have cited the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew in the two Christmas Eve services, now is the time to celebrate the joy of the arrival of the baby. The scripture is from the first chapter of John, those familiar and mysterious verses about “the Word” and its identification with God. “The Word” is described as life, the light shining into the darkness, becoming flesh and dwelling among people. Rev. Carol Cavin-Dillon points to the element of joy in our Advent trek to the nativity, recalling that the...2022-12-2524 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastReady or NotThis is our traditional Christmas Eve Service, late on Christmas Eve, the end of the Advent period of waiting. The four Advent candles have been lit through the season, and at the end of this service the Christ candle is lit. The gospel reading, Luke 2.1-20, is read from the midst of the congregation rather than from the lectern, and Senior Minister Carol Cavin-Dillon’s Communion Meditation focuses on how, much as things must have happened for Joseph and Mary as they went to Bethlehem, many of us have experienced grief and other down times and struggles recently, but in th...2022-12-2415 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastEternal InvestmentsThe scripture for today is a difficult section of Luke 16 where Jesus tells a parable of a rich man about to fire his manager who has been squandering his property. The parable’s “solution” seems to be odd and difficult to interpret because the rich man ends up judging the manager to have acted “shrewdly” and the parable clearly praises that shrewdness. Maybe in this case Jesus is saying that to use one’s wealth to benefit others is a way to benefit the kingdom. It is a complex parable, and Carol Cavin-Dillon confesses that it is, but she deals with it in h2022-09-1816 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastKeep WatchNancy Parker was scheduled to preach today, but she was taken ill, and Carol Cavin-Dillon is preaching. We are in the midst of a sermon series using selections from chapters 9 through 14 in the Gospel of Mark, and today’s reading has Jesus and the disciples coming out of the temple, and the disciples are admiring the temple’s structure. Jesus, however, gives them warning that at some point the temple will be completely demolished. We, too, know the awe of experiencing certain things, and, especially since the COVID pandemic, we know that a lot of those things can be taken away...2021-11-1418 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastWest End UMC's Annual Town Hall MeetingThis is our annual gathering to hear reports on the state of our church. Leaders of various groups in the church give updates, and those include specific areas of ministry and financial reports: the current status and the upcoming budget. It also includes a report from last week’s meeting in Kansas City about the issues surrounding the United Methodist denomination and what to do about maintaining unification. Senior Minister Carol Cavin-Dillon moderates the session and gives some of the reports. The Town Hall Meeting was held in the Fourth Floor Theatre during the Sunday school hour on October 31, 2021, and a...2021-10-3149 minWest End UMC Podcast Audio PodcastA Time of ReckoningCarol Cavin-Dillon delivers the Chidren's Moment. Dr. Paula Smith, Senior Pastor at Gordon Memorial UMC, delivers the sermon. We continue our sermon series from Matthew with the description of the judgment wherein the sheep and goats are being separated. One lesson from this is that what we do every day matters. The question posed here is ours: When have we done these things for the least of these? We all have a little bit of sheep and a little bit of goat in us. And who are “the least of these,” those who are in need? Do we settle for char...2020-11-2228 min
Worship MattersWorship Matters Episode 22 - Rev. Carol Cavin-DillonSenior Pastor Carol Cavin-Dillon, of West End United Methodist Church, joins with Dr. Derek Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries, for this episode of Worship Matters. Following the last episode where Diana Sanchez-Bushong and Derek Weber discussed some of the issues related to the re-opening of churches for in-person worship, we now have a practitioner’s view and a little bit of insight into the working of a local church during this pandemic. Short answer: it’s complicated! Listen in as we share in learnings and experiences from Pastor Carol.
“Worship Matters” is a podcast from the worship team of Discipleship Ministri...2020-07-2029 min