Christians often inherit words before they inherit meaning. Over time, essential gospel language becomes distorted, weaponized, moralized, or flattened. In our Lenten series, we're taking time to to slow down, return to Scripture, and recover the life-giving, Jesus-centered meaning of the words we use to describe God, ourselves, and the work of salvation.

Christians often inherit words before they inherit meaning. Over time, essential gospel language becomes distorted, weaponized, moralized, or flattened. In our Lenten series, we're taking time to to slow down, return to Scripture, and recover the life-giving, Jesus-centered meaning of the words we use to describe God, ourselves, and the work of salvation.

*The first few seconds of the scripture reading are cut off due to technical difficulties.

Christians often inherit words before they inherit meaning. Over time, essential gospel language becomes distorted, weaponized, moralized, or flattened. In our Lenten series, we're taking time to to slow down, return to Scripture, and recover the life-giving, Jesus-centered meaning of the words we use to describe God, ourselves, and the work of salvation.

Christians often inherit words before they inherit meaning. Over time, essential gospel language becomes distorted, weaponized, moralized, or flattened. In our Lenten series, we're taking time to to slow down, return to Scripture, and recover the life-giving, Jesus-centered meaning of the words we use to describe God, ourselves, and the work of salvation.

Christians often inherit words before they inherit meaning. Over time, essential gospel language becomes distorted, weaponized, moralized, or flattened. In our Lenten series, we're taking time to to slow down, return to Scripture, and recover the life-giving, Jesus-centered meaning of the words we use to describe God, ourselves, and the work of salvation.

Christians often inherit words before they inherit meaning. Over time, essential gospel language becomes distorted, weaponized, moralized, or flattened. In our Lenten series, we're taking time to to slow down, return to Scripture, and recover the life-giving, Jesus-centered meaning of the words we use to describe God, ourselves, and the work of salvation.

The church is not a building or an event—it is a people called together around Jesus. This series invites us to rediscover why the local church matters and how we are formed through shared life, practice, and participation.

The church is not a building or an event—it is a people called together around Jesus. This series invites us to rediscover why the local church matters and how we are formed through shared life, practice, and participation.

The church is not a building or an event—it is a people called together around Jesus. This series invites us to rediscover why the local church matters and how we are formed through shared life, practice, and participation.

The church is not a building or an event—it is a people called together around Jesus. This series invites us to rediscover why the local church matters and how we are formed through shared life, practice, and participation.

The church is not a building or an event—it is a people called together around Jesus. This series invites us to rediscover why the local church matters and how we are formed through shared life, practice, and participation.

The church is not a building or an event—it is a people called together around Jesus. This series invites us to rediscover why the local church matters and how we are formed through shared life, practice, and participation

Assembly Required explores what it means to be the Church—not a building or an event, but an assembly of people called together around Jesus. Drawing on the biblical vision of ekklesia, this series invites us to rediscover why the local church matters, why participation is essential, and how faith is formed through shared life and practice. Our 2026 prayer series, Assembly Required, invites us to become a Jesus-centered people who actively join God’s work of renewal in our community and beyond

Spiritual growth often feels like walking backwards—moving toward the future while facing our past. We can’t see exactly where we’re going, yet faith invites us to trust that Christ walks with us in it all. This series explores how looking back with compassion and forward with hope can shape a deeper, truer, more grounded faith.

Spiritual growth often feels like walking backwards—moving toward the future while facing our past. We can’t see exactly where we’re going, yet faith invites us to trust that Christ walks with us in it all. This series explores how looking back with compassion and forward with hope can shape a deeper, truer, more grounded faith.

Spiritual growth often feels like walking backwards—moving toward the future while facing our past. We can’t see exactly where we’re going, yet faith invites us to trust that Christ walks with us in it all. This series explores how looking back with compassion and forward with hope can shape a deeper, truer, more grounded faith.

Spiritual growth often feels like walking backwards—moving toward the future while facing our past. We can’t see exactly where we’re going, yet faith invites us to trust that Christ walks with us in it all. This series explores how looking back with compassion and forward with hope can shape a deeper, truer, more grounded faith.

We are in a sermon series called “The Trouble With Strangers.” We live in a world where belonging is both deeply longed for and painfully difficult. Political divides, cultural differences, personal wounds, and busy schedules all work against community. And yet, research and Scripture agree: we flourish when we belong. This Sunday Jonny preached on restoration.

We are in a sermon series called “The Trouble With Strangers.” We live in a world where belonging is both deeply longed for and painfully difficult. Political divides, cultural differences, personal wounds, and busy schedules all work against community. And yet, research and scripture agree: we flourish when we belong. This Sunday Heather preached on the practice of trust.

We are in a sermon series called “The Trouble With Strangers.” We live in a world where belonging is both deeply longed for and painfully difficult. Political divides, cultural differences, personal wounds, and busy schedules all work against community. And yet, research and Scripture agree: we flourish when we belong. This Sunday Jonny preached on the practice of forgiveness.

We are in a sermon series called “The Trouble With Strangers.” We live in a world where belonging is both deeply longed for and painfully difficult. Political divides, cultural differences, personal wounds, and busy schedules all work against community. And yet, research and Scripture agree: we flourish when we belong. This Sunday Heather preached on the practice of peacemaking.

We were made for connection, but forming a meaningful community is harder than we expected. We long for belonging but often feel like outsiders. In this series, we’ll explore the tensions of loneliness and the good news of a Jesus-centered community. Together, we’ll learn the everyday practices that help strangers become friends and form a household of faith marked by peace, forgiveness, and trust.

The Apostle Paul uses the metaphor of a body to describe the church. In the Roman world, this metaphor reinforced hierarchy—some parts were “more important” than others. Paul flips this: every member is indispensable, and the “weaker” members are given special honor.

The church, Bonhoeffer reminds us, is “Christ existing as community.” We represent Christ to one another (through forgiveness, prayer, burden-bearing) and to the world (as Yoder said, the church is the “hermeneutic of the gospel”).

We are not called to unhealthy codependence (“I can’t be okay unless you are okay”) or counterdependence (“I don’t need anyone”), but to godly interdependence: “I need you, and you need me.”

We live in a world where belonging is both deeply longed for and painfully difficult. Political divides, cultural differences, personal wounds, and busy schedules all work against community. And yet, research and Scripture agree: we flourish when we belong.

Paul writes to the Ephesian church, a community divided by culture, tradition, and class, to remind them that God’s story has always been about creating a family of blessing. Through Christ, Jew and Gentile are united into one household of faith—a place where rhythms, resources, and responsibilities are shared.

Households of faith are not perfect, but they are where we practice belonging, learn forgiveness, and display God’s wisdom to the world.

In the book of Colossians, the Apostle Paul gives us a cosmic vision of Christ—Creator, Sustainer, and Reconciler of everything. Colossians is filled with big ideas and wondrous descriptions. But Paul’s theology isn’t just big ideas or idle theories, it's also deeply practical, both cosmic and grounded––expanding our imaginations and at the same time offering practical direction for our daily life. How can it be both? Because for Paul, Christ is at the center of it all holding the universe and everything within it, even our daily lives, together.

Paul and Timothy’s letter to the Colossians moves between the biggest, boldest thoughts about God and the very ordinary realities of daily life. This week, we explore how cosmic truths—Christ’s victory, reconciliation, and kingdom—crash into everyday spaces like relationships, households, and work.

The theme for this week is tension:

• The tension of the already and not yet kingdom.
• The tension of cultural codes vs. kingdom ethics.
• The tension of difficult passages (slavery, submission, authority).

Rather than resolving all tensions, Paul invites us to live faithfully within them, letting the future kingdom of Jesus shape our present lives.

In this part of Colossians, Paul moves between the cosmic and the everyday—from grand visions of Christ as the center of all things to the ordinary details of life. He reminds the Colossians that everything we believe about God shapes how we live. But Paul also warns that there are competing stories, powers, and philosophies that try to pull us away from Jesus as our true center.

Modern voices, like David Foster Wallace, echo Paul’s concern: “Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.” Paul insists that Christ—not empty religion, cultural pressures, or worldly powers—must be at the center, because only Christ offers real belonging, forgiveness, and freedom.

For Paul, this freedom isn’t just about independence—it’s about living rooted in Christ, participating in his life, and giving ourselves for the sake of others.

This week begins our new series, Cosmic Thoughts for Everyday Life, where we explore how the vast, sweeping truths about Christ connect directly to the smallest details of our daily living.

Paul’s letter to the Colossians moves between cosmic-scale theology—Christ as the center of creation, redemption, and the future—and very practical issues like family relationships, work, and community life. For Paul, you can’t separate theology from everyday ethics.

Through the storm narrative in Jonah 1, we meet a prophet who runs from God, a group of pagan sailors who respond with surprising faith, and a God who responds not with punishment but with compassion. Jonah descends—literally and symbolically—as far from God as one can go, yet God meets him there. Abby reminds us that God’s love is not performance-based. It’s present in the mess. It pursues us in our failure. And yes, it's scandalously extended even to our enemies.

Romans 8 reminds us that even in the groaning of creation, the ache of uncertainty, and the absence of easy answers, God is with us. Not through domination or certainty, but through loving presence, secure attachment, and patient hope.

This passage invites us to live as co-laborers with God—not by escaping the tension, but by rooting our identity in God’s love and letting that shape how we wait, pray, and participate in the healing of the world.

To love is to be vulnerable. And to be vulnerable is to share in the very heart of who God is.

This loving community doesn’t just exist within God’s self but extends outward to us. God invites us to be part of the divine family—not based on biology, merit, or obligation—but through the freedom of love. This is the kind of love we call “chosen family.” And it’s the kind of love God shows us—risky, vulnerable, self-giving—and ultimately, transformational.

The first 5 minutes of this sermon (introduction) were not recorded.

*there was a bit of technical difficulties at the beginning of the audio that cut part of the the introduction but the rest of the teaching is there*

Also, during service we provided a bit of a 2023 in review which you'll hear before the sermon.

Throughout our series, Party Crasher, we’re going to explore the 10 parties in the Gospel Luke. Sometimes Jesus is hosting, other times he’s attending and yet in each of them, Jesus is crashing expectations, cultural norms, and religion to show us what the gospel looks like. 

Throughout our series, Party Crasher, we’re going to explore the 10 parties in the Gospel Luke. Sometimes Jesus is hosting, other times he’s attending and yet in each of them, Jesus is crashing expectations, cultural norms, and religion to show us what the gospel looks like.

Party Crasher part 6 - Throughout our series, Party Crasher, we’re going to explore the 10 parties in the Gospel Luke. Sometimes Jesus is hosting, other times he’s attending and yet in each of them, Jesus is crashing expectations, cultural norms, and religion to show us what the gospel looks like. 

Throughout our series, Party Crasher, we’re going to explore the 10 parties in the Gospel Luke. Sometimes Jesus is hosting, other times he’s attending and yet in each of them, Jesus is crashing expectations, cultural norms, and religion to show us what the gospel looks like. 

Throughout our series, Party Crasher, we’re going to explore the 10 parties in the Gospel Luke. Sometimes Jesus is hosting, other times he’s attending and yet in each of them, Jesus is crashing expectations, cultural norms, and religion to show us what the gospel looks like. 

In our series, I am not, we will be looking at common identity stories. Then we will counter those false, small, or reduced stories with the good news of God’s story. We are not our hustle, our production, or our image. We are not how responsible we are nor are we our mistakes. We are image bearers, created in goodness and named loved. Nothing, not anything, can change that. 

In our series, I am not, we will be looking at common identity stories. Then we will counter those false, small, or reduced stories with the good news of God’s story. We are not our hustle, our production, or our image. We are not how responsible we are nor are we our mistakes. We are image bearers, created in goodness and named loved. Nothing, not anything, can change that. 

The book of Ruth is often read like a love story but Ruth is no rom-com. It is a story of real suffering and genuine courage as characters experience famine, death, and poverty. In this short Old Testament book we read the story of real people who are trying to trust God in their everyday. It isn’t easy. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t a rom-com with a meet-cute, but a story of hard fought faithfulness and hope.

The book of Ruth is often read like a love story but Ruth is no rom-com. It is a story of real suffering and genuine courage as characters experience famine, death, and poverty. In this short Old Testament book we read the story of real people who are trying to trust God in their everyday. It isn’t easy. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t a rom-com with a meet-cute, but a story of hard fought faithfulness and hope.

The book of Ruth is often read like a love story but Ruth is no rom-com. It is a story of real suffering and genuine courage as characters experience famine, death, and poverty. In this short Old Testament book we read the story of real people who are trying to trust God in their everyday. It isn’t easy. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t a rom-com with a meet-cute, but a story of hard fought faithfulness and hope.

The book of Ruth is often read like a love story but Ruth is no rom-com. It is a story of real suffering and genuine courage as characters experience famine, death, and poverty. In this short Old Testament book we read the story of real people who are trying to trust God in their everyday. It isn’t easy. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t a rom-com with a meet-cute, but a story of hard fought faithfulness and hope.

After the resurrection, Jesus tells his disciples that his death happened according to the Scriptures. In that moment, Jesus is helping them understand that there is a story to the atonement a story that we to need to understand.

During this service, we had some technical difficulties, so the audio is a bit choppy and pieced together for about the first quarter. Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Heather takes us through the passages of Micah 5:2-5 and Luke 1:26-56. Feel free to participate as you listen, alone or in groups, pausing the audio as you need!