Baptist Church of West Chester

In this message, we explore Galatians 5:13–15 alongside the complicated story of America's pursuit of liberty, asking how truthful memory, honest reflection, and Christ-shaped love can guide the way we use the freedom we've inherited. Freedom without love consumes. Freedom with love transforms. We discover Paul's declaration, not of independence, but of interdependence.

What does God require of us? In this message from Micah 6:6–8, we explore the call to "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God" alongside the powerful true story told in "Just Mercy." Drawing on the work of Bryan Stevenson and the Gospel's vision of justice, mercy, and restoration, we are challenged to consider how we treat the people society fears, forgets, and condemns.

In this week’s Sacred and the Screen, we explore Psalm 8 alongside Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Beneath a sky full of stars, the psalmist wonders why the God who made the cosmos would care about us at all. The film asks a similar question through one family’s experience of beauty, suffering, love, and loss. Together, Psalm 8, Job, Hebrews 2, and the story of Jesus lead us to a simple but pr...

"Start fighting wolves before you know it everyone you don't understand is a wolf." In this week's Sacred and the Screen message, we explore Jesus' encounter with the woman saved from stoning (John 8:2–11) alongside Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man. Both stories challenge our instinct to judge, expose, and fight our enemies. Instead, we are invited into the difficult work of grace, repentance, and res...

What keeps us stuck? Fear. Self-doubt. The need to hold on to what feels safe. This week, we continue our Sacred and the Screen series by exploring Jeremiah's call alongside Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Like Miles Morales, Jeremiah doesn't feel ready for what lies ahead. Like Jeremiah, many of us wonder whether we're qualified, capable, or enough. But God's call has never depended on our qua...

Pastor Zach Lambert joins us to talk about his book, Better Ways to Read the Bible.

What do we do when God feels absent? In this message from Psalm 42, we explore one of Scripture's most honest prayers alongside Pixar's Inside Out. The psalmist cries out in grief, longing for God's presence while wondering where God has gone. Rather than hiding sadness or pretending everything is fine, Psalm 42 shows us a faith that makes room for lament, questions, and hope. Drawing on themes fr...

On Pentecost Sunday, Pastoral Resident Alicia Teet-Jeter reflected on what it means to be “Empowered by the Spirit to Meet the Moment.” From Acts 2 and Philippians 4, she explored how God meets us in seasons of waiting, fills ordinary people with courage, and offers peace in the middle of uncertainty. The same Spirit that empowered the early church still strengthens us today with joy, gentleness,...

What if the way forward is down? While people are obsessed with status, success, and self-promotion, Philippians 2 invites us into the upside-down way of Jesus. Christ did not grasp for power or exploit privilege. He emptied himself. He humbled himself. He loved sacrificially. From T-ball dogpiles to Roman honor culture to our modern obsession with influence and winning, we are reminded that the K...

What does it look like to live with joy when life feels uncertain? In this message from Philippians 1:1–19a, we step into Paul’s letter to a beloved community navigating fear, pressure, and an unknown future while Paul himself writes from prison, facing the possibility of death. And yet, his words overflow with gratitude, love, and joy. This sermon explores Philippians as a kind of field guide for...

In Acts 16:11–40, we encounter the surprising beginnings of the church in Philippi. Through Lydia, the enslaved girl, and the jailer, we see that the good news of Jesus meets people exactly where they are and sets them free in profoundly different ways. What begins as a conversation by the river, a disruption in the streets, and a song in the dark becomes something the empire could never have imag...

What if the person you’ve written off is the very person God wants to transform? This week, we explore the powerful story of Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1–19a). Saul is “breathing threats and murder” against the early church. Yet in a moment, everything changes. Blinded by light, undone by grace, and restored through the courage of an unlikely disciple named Ananias...

Rev. Prof. Dr. David P. Gushee is Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, Chair of Christian Social Ethics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Senior Research Fellow, International Baptist Theological Study Centre. He is also the elected past-president of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics. He also serves on the Wisdom Board o...

The resurrection restores beauty to a world that often feels colorless, broken, or lost. In this sermon, Pastor Evan takes us with Mary Magdalene from the darkness of grief to the moment she encounters the risen Jesus in John 20:1-18. From the garden of Eden to the garden of resurrection, we see that the Gardener is still at work cultivating life, restoring hope, and calling each of us into His st...

After Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey (not a warhorse), a group of Greeks ask to see Jesus. Initially, it seems like John forgets all about them as he moves the story forward. Pastor Evan argues that Jesus does respond to the Greeks but sharing how his death and resurrection will lead to the empowerment of his followers to show Jesus to the world.

John 19 shows us what it looks like when we choose control over the freedom Jesus offers.

“What is truth?” In John 18:28–40, Jesus stands before Pilate while the religious leaders and the Roman governor all look at the same man but see completely different things. Their assumptions about power, comfort, and control shape how they interpret what’s right in front of them. In this sermon, we explore how Jesus reveals that truth isn’t merely an argument to win, it’s a life to follow. When...

In this message from John’s Gospel, Pastor Evan describes the powerful contrast between Jesus’ courage and Peter’s denial. As Jesus stands firm before the authorities, Peter, trying his best to stay close, finds himself overwhelmed by fear. Three times he says, “I am not,” and the rooster crows. But the sound of the rooster is not just he mark of failure—it is also the sign that dawn is breaking....

When we know who we are and where we are going, we can live differently. Insecure people cling to status. Secure people lay it down. Pastor Evan Duncan reflects on Jesus' washing of his disciples feet and how it challenges hierarchies and invites each of us to see how : You may need to lower yourself. You may need to let yourself be lifted up. And we all need to lift each other.

Can we believe that God, acting through Jesus, really has power over the course of life and death? And if so, will he use it for our good? Pastor Evan Duncan asks these questions as he guides us through John chapter 11. In it, we discover that resurrection for Lazarus means execution for Jesus. The Lord who stands at Lazarus’s tomb is the Lord who will stand in his own. And because he traded his l...

The greatest miracle in John 9 is not that a man sees the world. It’s that he sees God. Watch Pastor Evan Duncan's sermon from Sunday, Feb 15 at the Baptist Church of West Chester

Rev. Dr. Brian Ellis-Gibbs, National Coordinator for Healing and Transforming Communities at American Baptist Home Mission Societies, preaches from John 5:1-15

Pastor Evan invites us to explore Nicodemus' journey of belief across the Gospel of John. Are we willing to risk being born from above?

Pastor Evan Duncan looks at John's account of the cleanses of the Temple by Jesus. Why did Jesus get angry? Why did John include this story here? What do we do when we are angry that things aren't the way they should be?