Bothell Amplified

This week, Pastor Joe wraps up our five-week series on Calling by turning to Colossians 1:15-28. He challenges us to be a church that knows our "why" so that we can participate in God's ongoing work towards a world where all are welcome and all belong!

This week, Pastor Joe continues our sermon series on Calling by turning to Amos 7:7-17. He wonders if we’re in a season when we are called to be modern-day prophets in a world that desperately needs them, especially as we notice the ways the state is coopting religion. Perhaps we are being called to confront the systems and structures that keep us out of alignment with God; to confront the ways th...

This week, Pastor Joe continues our sermon series on Calling by turning to the words of the Third Isaiah in Isaiah 66. He reminds us that we are living in a time when Christianity—particularly in the U.S.—is being reshaped by loud voices who are not offering comfort, but fear. Not presence, but power. Not good news for the poor, but political dominance disguised as faith. And he challenges us to t...

This week, Pastor Joe continues our sermon series on Calling by turning to the story of Elijah and Elisha and the call to connection. He reminds us that connection is a direct challenge to empire and challenges us to pick up the mantles of God's justice in the world.

In light of all that's happening in the world, Pastor Joe launches a new sermon series about calling, focusing this week on rest. He reminds us that in the midst of challenging empire and crying out for peace, the arc of the universe is long, so we must be intentional to have strength and sustenance for the struggle and journey towards God's justice ahead. 

This week, we welcomed Dr. Cee E. Adamson for a conversation with Pastor Joe on the theme of Freedom. How does God's liberating work continue on in us and through us, especially as we honor Pride and Juneteenth? 

This week we celebrate Pentecost! Turning to Acts 2:1-21, Pastor Joe challenges us to remember that Pentecost resists sameness and amplifies difference so that all might be celebrated and welcomed into God's community of belonging. 

This week, Pastor Joe wraps up our series on Gathering and Belonging by turning to the story of Paul and Silas in the prison in Acts 16:16-34. In his sermon, he challenges us to be and to bring the Good News of a God who is love, which means to combat the thousands of years of narrative and culture that has told us that God’s love comes with conditions. If we are silent, who will share that Good N...

This week, we welcome the Rev. Liz Kearny from Liberating Lineages Collective as she continues our Gathering and Belonging series by turning to Lydia's story in Acts 16:9-15. In her sermon, she challenges us to finally embrace that the good news isn’t just for someone else, but for us, too, and to understand that when we commit the entirety of our lives to solidarity with the most oppressed,...

This week, Pastor Joe continues our sermon series on Gathering and Belonging by turning to Peter retelling his experiences before the believers in Jerusalem. In this sermon, he reminds us that it is often institutionalized religion that hinders the movement of the Spirit, and that we are called to recognize that belonging begins with God, with the Spirit, and with the grace that arrives before we...

This week, we begin a new sermon series called "Gathering and Belonging" as Pastor Kristin challenges us to read the story of God's people, and especially this text of Tabitha being resurrected, as one of inclusion and belonging! 

This week, Pastor Joe continues in the series, Post-Resurrection Stories, by turning to when Jesus met the disciples on the beach. In this sermon, he reminds us to remember who we are by trusting in a therapeutic God who desires relationship with us and challenges us to tend God's people in community. 

This week, Pastor Joe shares about the disciples' experience of encountering Jesus soon after the Resurrection and challenges us to be resurrected people, not about certainty or lack of doubt, but about belief that is relationship. In a world built on fear and division, how might our faith be one that reaches out, even when it’s scary? 

Happy Easter! This week, Pastor Joe reminds us that Easter is a call to resistance against empire. He challenges us to find intentionally rest and to remember the ways of Jesus for the sake of the kin-dom.

This week, Pastor Joe continues to focus on resistance as a theme for Lent as we journey with Jesus into Jerusalem on what is known as Palm Sunday. He challenges us to take a side: to either align with power and empire or to follow Christ into a new way of love, justice, and communal courage. 

This week, Pastor Joe continues our Lenten Journey with Jesus and the theme of resistance by turning to John 12:1-8 when Mary anoints Jesus. He suggests that much of this text is intended to be subversive and challenges us to resist the ways of the world and live in a different way!

This week, we continue our Lent series, Journeying with Jesus, by turning to what is often called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Pastor Joe offers that this text is more for religious folk, and could be named, as others have suggested, the Parable of the Elder Son or the Parable of the Forgiving Father. Check out how this text encourages us into resistance through this season of Lent. 

This week, our Director of Discipleship and Care, Brian Fu, continues our Lent Journey with Jesus by challenging us to understand repentance and resistance as a turning our face to God and to one another. 

This week, we welcome the Rev. Ben Bond from Disability Belongs who preaches from Luke 5:17-26. In their sermon, Ben challenges us to do the hard work of both removing physically barriers to accessibility and to shift our attitudes towards disabilities. 

This week, we celebrate the first Sunday in Lent and turn to the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Pastor Joe challenges us to journey through this season as a time of resistance against the powers of empire and to offer to the world a different way that leads to peace and justice. 

This week at Bothell, we are joined by our friend Reverend David Valera, Executive Director of Connectional Ministries of the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Reverend Valera preaches from Luke 9:28-36.

This week, Pastor Joe wraps up our sermon series called Upside Down Economy by turning to the Psalms and exploring the things the psalmist calls us to do, built on a relationship with God! 

This week, we launch a new series called Upside Down Economy. Pastor Joe preaches from Luke 6:17-26 as Jesus teaches from the plains a new way of living, one that challenges the ways of the world!

This week, Pastor Joe wraps up our short two-week series about Calling, challenging us to remember that while calling is a personal matter, the expression of that calling only happens in community to challenge the status quo as we journey towards God's preferred future. 

This week, we welcome one of our Pastoral Interns, Steph Cuthbertson, who shared from Jeremiah 1:4-10. Together, we navigated four myths of calling and explored how each of us is called to bring peace and justice into the world!