Bethany UCC

Vince's sermon this week was, yet again, about St. Cuthbert 😂 But from there, he moves into a sermon contemplating curses, anxiety and tree roots near water.

In his sermon this week, Pastor Vince looks at faith not as a simple, one time promise, but rather as a continuous commitment towards community and relationship.

Pastor Rebecca kicked off our “Hand to God” series with a hard story about what is and isn’t ours to promise. She preached about a summer spent with "no body-talk" and how it changed her.

Pastor Vince's sermon this week is all about Darwin, God’s unnecessary love and a quest to understand the mysteries of birdsong. If you listen, you'll even get to hear Vince's impersonation of the White-Throated Sparrow!

Pastor Vince's sermon this week reminds us that there’s no shortcut past the anxiety of not knowing. But, he reminds us that God is always present to us, in the ups and the downs.

Pastor Rebecca's sermon this week was all about bread, yeast and community. "Jesus said the kingdom of God is like leaven. It’s at work among us all the time, without our input. It’s alive. When we put our attention, hands, and energy to it, we can be co-creators of something delicious."

Pastor Rebecca kicks off our “Everything That Has Breath” series with a sermon about pool safety, deep diving, gym rats, lung capacity, and the Holy Spirit. Give it a listen!

Happy Easter! Pastor Vince starts his sermon by claiming "no one has ever believed the story of resurrection". See if you agree with him by giving the sermon a listen!

Pastor Vince's sermon this week surprisingly begins with naval history! Along the way, he also covers the boardgame "Othello", palm Sunday and dead crows. By the end, he makes a case for reclaiming sacred spaces and finding enchantment everywhere.

Pastor Vince's sermon this week describes two of his recent pilgrimages: one to visit St. Cuthbert's bones, the other to visit the the grave of Matthew Shepard, a young man who was murdered in 1998 for being gay. His sermon weaves these two stories together to examine promises that beg to be fulfilled, stories that long for a resolution.

Pastor Rebecca’s sermon this week is all about beauty; the superficial, the sincere, beauty that is honest, or reverent, or even beauty that is terrifying. Her sermon gathers up all these elements of “God’s beauty standard” and puts them into perspective through stories of connection, loss, honesty and healing.

In his sermon this week, Vince tells the story of some abandoned kittens he encounters on an hike and how he feels there’s nothing he can do to help them. Comparing this experience to stories from the Bible, he delivers a sermon examining the distance between action and miracles, a space that we sometimes have to fill for ourselves.

In her sermon this week, Pastor Rebecca preaches on the subject of superstitions or "enchanted realities", and the power they have to shape our more science-oriented world.

In her guest sermon this past Sunday, Pastor Alaina preached on the power of mistakes (or more specifically, the power of being vulnerable enough to admit to them). Often in Christian culture, we "conflate being without sin with being perfect". But Alaina points to examples of Jesus' humanity, moments where even he makes mistakes and learns from them. She reminds us that we have the...

In his sermon this week, Pastor Vince recounts an overly generous gift he recently received and the feelings of anxiety it brought him to accept it. He compares this experience to receiving the grace of God, and considers why we humans are often so weird about receiving good things.

In her sermon this week, Pastor Rebecca challenges typical notions surrounding confession. She asserts that "feeling bad is not the mechanism on which change is made", and centers confession as a means of righting our relationship with God, and with others.

In this sermon, Pastor Vince Amlin describes the repetitive cycles in our lives that feel like déjà vu (the hardships we face with incredulousness, thinking: haven't I already fought this battle before?) Reflecting on such moments in his own life, Pastor Vince helps to give meaning to these repetitive cycles.

In this sermon, guest preacher Xander King questions whether leaps of faith require an abstract faith in God, or if we might allow our morals and principles to lead us to God, telling us when it's time to leap.

In our first sermon of 2024, Guest Preacher Johnny Buranosky recollects on his childhood and considers the many "leaps" he's taken in regards to life, faith and queerness.

Pastor Rebecca preaches on the subject of happiness this week, thinking on when joy is a thing that comes passively, versus seeking it out with intention.

Pastor Vince used the metaphor of "desire paths" in this sermon to describe the repeated, well worn paths we walk to find our way to God.

Pastor Vince preached this Sunday, describing advent as a season where we can tell God what we really want, without holding back.

Pastor Rebecca preached on the subject of "choice" this Sunday. What decisions are made for us, and which ones do we have a hand in?

Pastor Vince compares our faith the a threaded string of beads and wonders: what happens in those moments where our faith is tested? What happens when the thread breaks?

Pastor Vince recounts a comment from his Spanish teacher that "the world is so bad now". In this sermon, he wrestles with this idea: how do we hold joy in the midst of so much suffering?