Augustana Podcasts

Sermon Title: Made New By God's Love: Worship Is the Heart of Our Life Together. Preacher: Intern Nathan Adu-Gyamfi. Preaching Text: Psalm 96. Today as we continue our annual theme, made new by God’s love, we will be focusing on Worship is the Heart of our Life Together. We gather as God’s people to lift up a new song of praise. Psalm 96 calls us to worship the Lord with our whole selves—for God i...

Sermon Title: We Joyfully Follow Christ, So All May Have Abundant Life. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: John 10:10b, John 15:8-17. This fall, we are focusing on our mission, “Made new by God’s love, we joyfully follow Christ, so all may have abundant life,” and how it shapes our church and our daily lives. Last week, we heard that being made new by God’s love changes our lives...

Sermon Title: Made New By God's Love. Preacher: Deacon Stephanie Anderson. Preaching Text: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21. After a season of summer adventures and rest, we gather again as one community to kick off a new program year! Today we launch our annual theme, Made New by God’s Love. In our scripture passage today, Paul proclaims that in Christ we are a new creation – we are called to see ourselves...

Sermon Title: Living in Light of Eternity. Preacher: Pastor Deb Kielsmeier. Preaching Text: Psalm 90:1-8, 12-17. Today is our final Sunday in the sermon series “Unafraid.” Over the last five weeks we have looked at fear and how it can magnify the threats we face. We have been encouraged to counter those fears and boldly follow Jesus by placing our trust in the promises and presence of our faithful...

Sermon Title: Is This the End of the World? Preacher: Intern Nathan Adu-Gyamfi. Preaching Text: Revelation 21:1-7. We continue our series called “Unafraid” this week with a message of hope from the Book of Revelation. It’s a part of Scripture we may be unfamiliar, and even hesitant to go. Yet, the entire message, and particularly the final chapters provide an abundance of hope in troubling times....

Sermon Title: To Live is to Risk. Preacher: Deacon Stephanie Anderson. Preaching Text: Luke 14:25-33. Following Jesus is never a risk-free endeavor. In today’s gospel, Jesus challenges those who would follow him to consider the cost: loyalty, love, possessions, and even life itself. Yet in this challenge comes grace - the promise that God accompanies us on the narrow, sometimes difficult, path. To...

Sermon Title: Stopping the Sky from Falling. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: John 8:31-38. We continue our series called “Unafraid” this week. We’ve covered the anatomy of fear and what happens when fear exaggerates the threats we face. Today we start to look at what we can do to counter the fears that knock us off balance. It starts with trusting that Jesus holds truth to mov...

Sermon Title: Staring Down the Giants. Preacher: Deacon Stephanie Anderson. Preaching Text: Numbers 13:1-3, 17-33. Fear is one of the most powerful emotions we experience. It can protect us, but it can also hold us back from living the abundant life God intends. This Sunday, we continue our sermon series called Unafraid, exploring what it means to face our fears and trust in God’s promises. We’ll...

Sermon Title: The Anatomy of Fear. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: Isaiah 43:1-7. We are beginning a new sermon series this week called “Unafraid”. Fear is a complex emotion. Sometimes it saves us. More often it robs us of the life we want. Over and over again Scripture God tells us, “Do not be afraid.” As challenging as that is at times, we have good reason to not to fear. Go...

Sermon Title: If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: Matthew 14:22-33. We wrap up our Wade in the Water series today with one more biblical story around the lake.

Sermon Title: Let's Take the Detour. Preacher: Deaconess Claire Schoepp. Preaching Text: Acts 16:9-15. This lesson reads a bit like a travel itinerary. Travel itineraries can feel dry, but this one is not. Like all the stories in this sermon series, water plays a central role in the story. When the motif of water appears in the Bible, it is there to help us remember to pay attention -- Holy Spirit...

Sermon Title: When the Waters Overwhelm. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: Jonah 1:11-2:10. Throughout this worship series, we are wading into the waters of deeper faith. It is a reminder of the ways God calls us through baptism into a life with Christ. These Bible stories were also the basis for this year’s Vacation Bible School that happened earlier this summer. Sharing these...

Guest Preacher: Pastor Kathryn Tiede, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota. Preaching Text: Genesis 7 -8. This summer we're wading into stories of water in Scripture. Today, we step into the story of Noah; not just the animals two-by-two, but the deeper waters of destruction and deliverance, memory and mercy. As the rains fall, God remembers. As the earth is wiped clean, God makes a promise. It's...

Sermon Title: Jesus Meets Us at the Well. Preacher: Deacon Stephanie Anderson. Preaching Text: John 4:1-30. This summer we are wading into water stories of Scripture - stories that flow with promise, renewal, and transformation. Today we find ourselves at a well, under the heat of midday, with a Samaritan woman and a Jewish teacher who has no business speaking to her. And yet, Jesus does more than...

Sermon Title: Hope in Hard Times. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: Romans 5:1-5. Today is Trinity Sunday. The Holy Trinity is one of the great mysteries of Christian faith. How is God both One in Three persons? We may not fully understand how it is, but what we can trust is that God acts in the world, in our lives, in distinct ways that lead to creation, redemption, and the pow...

Sermon Title: God's Wild Imagination. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: Acts 2:1-21. Pentecost is the celebration of the Spirit that continues to empower people to focus on what God is doing in the world today. The Spirit lives and moves and has its being in the church, in us. We celebrate today this gift and this call, and are empowered to show and tell others what God’s grace...

Sermon Title: Why Are You Still Looking Up? Preacher: Deacon Stephanie Anderson. Preaching Text: Acts 1:1-11. After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples over a period of forty days, teaching them and preparing them for what would come next. Today, on Ascension Day, we remember the moment Jesus was taken from their sight, not as an ending, but as a transition. With a promise and a miss...

Sermon Title: A Jesus Kind of Peace. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: John 14: 23-29

Sermon Title: Marked by Love. Preacher: Deacon Stephanie Anderson. Preaching Text: John 13:31-35. Today we gather with joy to celebrate Confirmation, a milestone in the faith journey of young people who affirm the promises made at their baptism. In this sacred moment, we remember that faith is not static - it grows, deepens, and is lived out in community. Our gospel reading reminds us of Jesus’ co...

Sermon Title: A Love that Calls Us Home. Preacher: Pastor Deb Kielsmeier. Preaching Text: Hosea 11:1-11 and John 10:22-30. Worship is the heart of our life together. Today, we give thanks to God for our high school graduates and ask the Holy Spirit to bless them as they prepare for new ventures in new places. We pray they will continue to grow in faith and listen for God's call in their lives as t...

Sermon Title: We Are God’s Abundance. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: John 21:1-19. Today, we are recognizing all the ways God has called us to serve and be the church. The adage “many hands make light work” is only the beginning of blessings that come when we recognize the wide varieties of gifts God gives to each of us.

Sermon Title: Recognizing Resurrection. Preacher: Deacon Stephanie Anderson. Preaching Text: Luke 24:13-49. Even after the tomb is found empty, resurrection can be hard to recognize. In today’s gospel, two disciples walk the road to the town of Emmaus, burdened by grief and confusion. They don’t yet see that the risen Christ is walking right beside them, until he breaks bread with them and their e...

Title: Beyond the Pulpit - Especially Sharing, a conversation with Paul Ormseth and Augustana's 5th & 6th graders. Ever think about what Jesus would have to say to us today? At Augustana we describe ourselves as a place "where faith meets life," so it makes a whole lot of sense that our young people would be wondering about that question. Augustana's fifth and sixth graders invited Paul Ormset...

Title: Beyond the Pulpit - Help Along the Way, a conversation with Rev. Tim Schroeder and Augustana's 5th & 6th graders. Have you ever wondered why bad things happen and what Jesus would do about it all if he were "in-the flesh," so to speak? You're not alone. Augustana's fifth and sixth graders have tender hearts and are wondering the same thing. They invited Rev. Tim Schroeder, a member at A...

Sermon Title: Perplexed & Amazed. Preacher: Pastor Jason Bryan-Wegner. Preaching Text: Luke 24:1-12. Today, we joyfully celebrate the gift of new life given to us through Christ’s resurrection.