Union Church

Listen along as we continue our time in the book of Acts. Notes//Quotes: Acts 2:42-47 Haiku - Following Jesus, learning from Him, joining in His mission on earth  “The idea of salvation cannot be reduced to a personal relationship with Jesus. God's plan is much more encompassing. God intends for salvation to be a community-creating event.” Joseph Hellerman “Long-term interpersonal relationships ar...

Listen along as we continue our series through Acts. Notes//Quotes: Acts 2:1-41 Revelation 7:9-10 "We formerly rejoiced in uncleanness of life, but now love only chastity; before we used the magic arts, but now dedicate ourselves to the true and unbegotten God; before we loved money and possessions more than anything, but now we share what we have and to everyone who is in need; before we hated on...

Listen along as Anthony continues our series through the book of Acts. Notes//Quotes: Acts 1:12-26 - Scott Reading Title: The Space Between   “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”  - Karl Barth   “One reason why the experiential reality of perceiving God is unfamiliar country today is that the pace and preoccupations of urbanized, mechani...

Listen along as we begin a series through Acts. Notes//Quotes: Acts 1:1-11 - Faith  "How Jesus Starts His Church" ”Customary descriptions of Acts as the story of the church's growth or the story of the spread of the gospel neglect the larger context within which this journey takes place. Although it begins in Israel's leading city, Jerusalem, and ends in the Empire's leading city, Rome, the contex...

Listen along as we wrap up Exodus and see the hope of Easter. Exodus 33:12-23 “For a while” is a phrase whose length can't be measured. At least by the person who's waiting. - Haruki Murakami “We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true. Actions are not impostions on who we are, but are e...

Exodus 23:1-9 - Faith Title: A Jealous God   “The jealous God”— doesn't it sound offensive? For we know jealousy, the green-eyed monster, as a vice, one of the most cancerous and soul-destroying vices that there is.” - J.I. Packer   I was dreaming of the past And my heart was beating fast I began to lose control I began to lose control I didn't mean to hurt you I'm sorry that I made you cry Oh no,...

Listen along as we continue our series through Exodus. Notes//Quotes: Text for reading: Exodus 19:1-6 - Scott Title: Sinai pt. 2 “We can imagine our octogenarian mountaineer in joyful fellowship with the God whose patience he had exhausted at this spot some months earlier.” - Christopher Wright 10  “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he car...

Listen along as we continue our series through Exodus. Notes//Quotes: Exodus 14:5-31 “The story of God is the story of salvation, centered on the One whose name means “Yahweh is salvation,” and here is what that looks like: deliverance from slavery and certain death, announced by faith, and received as a gift through trust and obedience.” - Chris Wright “With our modern curiosity, we tend either t...

Listen along as we continue our series through Exodus. Notes//Quotes: Exodus 12:1-13 “Liturgies aim our love to different ends precisely by training our hearts through our bodies.”. - James K.A. Smith  Exodus 12:29-32 13:17-22 Whenever Israel returned to God in such times of national repentance, covenant renewal, or restoration, they returned to the foundational historic event of their national ex...

Listen along as we continue our time through Exodus. Exodus 7:1-13  2 Tim 3:16-17 “One could object that it is not worthy of God to wield the sword. Is God not love, long-suffering and all-powerful love? A counter-question could go something like this: Is it not a bit too arrogant to presume that our contemporary sensibilities about what is compatible with God’s love are so much healthier than tho...

Listen along as we continue our series in Exodus. Exodus 5:1-9, 6:1-8 - Scott Reading Title: Battle Of The Gods “The exodus is a battle of the gods, in which only one can emerge from the ring victorious…The conflict between the deities: Egypt's against Israel's, the false against the true, the serpent against the seed, Pharaoh against the Lord. It is a mismatch. Battles against the Lord always are...

Listen along as we continue our series through Exodus. Text: Exodus 3:1-6 Title: God With Us “What Moses does mean by this? Did he mean that he became a foreigner to those who no longer accepted him? To the Egyptians, the Hebrews, or that now he's in Midian and he doesn't belong here either? Moses is a misfit and he has this hybrid identity that doesn't really belong.”  — Dr. Carmen Imes “What is...

Listen along as we look at Exodus 2. Notes//Quotes: Exodus 2:1-25 “The one universal balm for the trauma of war was tea. It was the thing that helped people cope. People made tea during air raids and after air raids, and on breaks between retrieving bodies from shattered buildings. Tea bolstered the network of thirty thousand observers who watched for German aircraft over England, operating from o...

Listen along as we begin our series through Exodus. Notes//Quotes: Exodus 1:7-22 Books do not usually begin with the word “And.” But Exodus does, in the Hebrew text, and so do Leviticus and Numbers: the second, third, and fourth books of the Bible. You would not know this from most modern English translations, presumably because it is not considered good literary style to begin a sentence, never m...

Ephesians 4:1-6 “Not only (1) is their unity expressly stated as coming from the Spirit, but (2) four of the five graces listed in vv. 2–3 are among the fruit of the Spirit in Gal 5:22–23; and (3) in the Trinitarian confession that follows, pride of place is given to the Spirit, precisely because the one body, which is Paul’s present concern, is the result of their common experience of the one Spi...

Listen along as we continue our series looking at the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Notes//Quotes: 1 Cor 12:1-14 -  Ex 31:1-5 Joel 2:28-29,  Ezekiel 36:25-27 Christian faith has been specially advanced through the loving service rendered to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans c...

Listen along as we continue our series looking at the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Notes//Quotes: Romans 8:12-17 - Jack “How do we receive those benefits which the Father bestowed on his only-begotten Son—not for Christ's own private use, but that he might enrich poor and needy men?” - John Calvin “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to...

Listen along as we look at week three of our Holy Spirit series. Luke 4:16-30 - Mike Reading Aren't you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don't you often hope: 'Maybe this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.' But as long as you are waiting for that mysteriou...

Listen along as we continue our series on the Holy Spirit. Notes//Quotes: Genesis 1:1-2 - Faith Reading “The Spirit is not the architect, nor is the framework of the cosmos or of the new creation “in him” as is true of the Word in whom all things hold together (Col 1:17). But he is the builder, carrying with him the plans of the Father and the materials purchased by the Son as he builds the sanctu...

Listen along as we begin our series on the Holy Spirit. Notes//Quotes: Acts 1:6-11 - Josh Reading We believe that this salvation, attested in all Scripture and secured by Jesus Christ, is applied to his people by the Holy Spirit. Sent by the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ, and, as the other Paraclete, is present with and in believers. He convicts the world of s...

Listen along as we wrap up our final gathering of 2024. Notes//Quotes: 2 Cor 4:7-18 Just as wine cannot keep well in silver or gold vessels, but only in the lowliest of vessels—earthen ones—so words of Torah do not keep well in one who considers himself to be the same as silver or gold vessels, but only in one who considers himself the same as the lowliest of vessels—earthen ones. - Rabbinical Com...

Listen along as we reflect on the paradox of Advent.

Listen along as we wrap up our series in Philippians. Notes//Quotes: Phillipians 4:10-23 - Jack Title: The Good Life “For the Stoics, self-sufficiency meant becoming independent from all external circumstances and from material goods. As Seneca expressed it, “The happy man is content with his present lot, no matter what it is, and is reconciled to his circumstances” Through discipline and inner st...

Listen along as we continue our journey through Philippians. Notes//Quotes: Philippians 4:8-9 - Faith “Who we are and what we do it is fundamentally a function of what we remember” - Joshua Foer  The next two words are more at home in the world of Hellenism than that of the Bible. This first term appears nowhere else in the NT. Nor does it show up on any list of ancient moral virtues. Its usage em...

Listen along as we continue our journey through the book of Philippians. Notes//Quotes: Phillipians 4:4-7 - Kim (Chris F Preaching) Perhaps ‘graciousness’ is the best English equivalent; and, in the context here, it is to be the spirit of willingness to yield under trial which will show itself in a refusal to retaliate when attacked. It may have seemed an impossible ideal to the Philippians, but t...