Douglass Church - Douglass Blvd Christian Church

In the world God desires, apparently, the more we have, the less we get to choose whether or not to give. Viewing giving as an act of justice that the giver is obliged to perform helps correct power imbalances by affirming that those who are first will be last, so that those who are last may be first. It is God’s good pleasure, according to Jesus, to give us a world where the coin of the realm isn...

To be rich toward God is to divest from the myth of self-sufficiency. To stop pretending we'll live forever if we just insulate ourselves well enough. It means investing in what death can't repossess. And it means doing it now—because by the time the tow truck shows up, it's already too late to check your balance. Jesus isn't just warning us. He's calling us out of the illusion of permanence and i...

But here’s the thing, real prayer to the God who doesn't do shame produces people who stop using shame as a sorting tool. If God rushes in to help with zero calculations, then maybe the question isn't "How do I sound more spiritual?" but "Am I reflecting God's shameless generosity or humanity's shame-soaked gatekeeping?" Refugees, broke neighbors, starving babies in Gaza, overwhelmed friends showi...

But Amos is raining down fire on the whole nation. Everybody. Why? Because the crimes against the powerless Amos lays out aren’t just a few rotten apples. The crimes Amos names are institutionalized; they’re accepted as part of the fabric of society—you know, just the way things are. In other words, there are good moral folks who know what’s going on—those who see the injustice being perpetrated o...

God didn't show up to make everybody speak the same language. God showed up so we could understand one another across our differences. That's not a return to uniformity. That's a celebration of diversity. That's a vision of the reign of God where every clan and nation and tongue can come to the table as themselves, not as carbon copies of whoever got there first. And, let's be honest, we know how...

When we refuse to worship at the altar of consumerism, when we choose justice over profit, when we stand with the oppressed against their oppressors, and speak truth in the face of lies, we’re going to face resistance. We’ll be called naive, idealistic, unrealistic. We’ll be told that this is just the way the world works, that we can't change anything, that our efforts don't matter. But remember:...

Of course, it's not always easy. Some days, the world drags you into the courtroom and puts your soul on trial. You get accused—by others, by your own failures, by that nagging voice in your head. But you don't have to argue your case. You've got someone who already knows the truth and stands by you anyway. The Spirit shows up like a defense attorney who's not afraid of a messy past, someone who d...

Living this way isn’t easy. It means turning away from all the ways we’ve weaponized faith and marginalized people in God’s name. It means learning to see people as Jesus sees them, not as projects or enemies or obstacles, but as beloved children of God. In a world full of hate, fear, and division, love isn’t just our calling … it’s our superpower, our secret weapon. It’s our most authentic sermon...

I find it fascinating, and not a little bit instructive, to think that God can make something out of us that nobody ever thought we could be. Knowing ourselves as we do—that God chooses us to embody the love and justice envisioned in this new reign is confounding. But if, when God tells us to get up, we get up and go, the story of the gospel is that God can change the world through us. And that’s...

Dramatic conversion stories are never merely stories about dramatic conversions. They’re preludes to the real story. In fact, the real reason we care about this story at all is because of what happened after the euphoria wore off. Subscribe to us on iTunes ! Sermon text: web | doc Sometimes They Do (Acts 9:1-20) Derek Penwell

Jesus didn't say, "I've overthrown Rome! Now we'll have peace!" He simply said, "Peace be with you," while showing them his wounds. His peace bears the marks of suffering. It doesn’t deny pain; it transforms it. It doesn’t require the elimination of enemies; it embraces them. This is why passing the peace is indeed a political act. Every time we say to one another, "Peace be with you," we’re rejec...

We’re the kind of Easter people who don't just decorate the sanctuary once a year, but who live with rolled-away stones and open doors and trembling joy. We practice resurrection in how we vote, how we spend, how we welcome the stranger, how we care for creation, how we speak to and about one another. We’re people who know that the most powerful force in the universe isn't military might or market...

Words can heal and bring life: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” There’s nothing quite so wonderful in the world as when you’re told that you’re loved and appreciated, or that despite your belief that you’re alone and despised, someone sees you, that someone cares even when you remain convinced that nobody even knows you’re a...

Jesus wants his disciples to understand that poor and low-wealth people aren’t some distinct underclass that we can shuffle off to the shadows because they make us uncomfortable. They’re not a problem to be dealt with, not just a reminder of a broken system that renders some people disposable; they’re our neighbors, part of our community. We need to feed them, not fix them. They’re subjects to be...

This parable is a story about bad parenting, about a father who’s willing to give it all away … even to kids who’ve proven they don’t deserve it. It’s a story about the love of a parent who persists in pursuing us, even though we continue to run away from home or continue to turn our faces from the music, even after we’ve been ceaselessly invited into the party. It’s a story about lousy parenting....

We peer into the distance for the one who will execute justice and righteousness in the land, who will redeem God’s children from ordinary days, filled with the soul-crushing fear that this world of pain and fear, of injustice and bigotry is all there is. We steel ourselves for the call to live as just and righteous right now … in anticipation of that day. The days in which we live may be grim. Bu...

We trivialize the gospel when we convince ourselves that it’s possible to be a disciple of Jesus without it ever costing us anything. Following Jesus is hard. He asks so much. And he fails to provide us with turn-by-turn directions. He’s a moving target. Can’t pin him down. Can’t control him. Subscribe to us on iTunes ! Sermon text: web | doc How Will We Know? (Mark 13:1-8) Derek Penwell

First, like so many people since Tuesday, the church constantly needs to be asking, “Is this the best we can do?” Then, we need to advocate for a just economic system that protects the vulnerable and refuses to devour widows’ houses. We need to demand a system that refuses to make the poor feel like they’re not full participants until they cough up their last five bucks until payday. Second, in th...

Love, you see, requires activity. Love isn’t an abstraction; it’s a way of living with other people that takes their needs as seriously as we take our own. The way we treat those who are hungry, the way we treat the laborer, the way we treat the disabled, the way we pursue justice—these all have to do with love. What we care about and what we refuse to remain silent about, who we see and whose voi...

Popular Christianity promises a Jesus who only wants to be your pal, a Jesus who doesn’t want you to be inconvenienced, a Jesus whose real concern is that all your biases are continually reconfirmed for you. A Jesus who knows what true glory looks like. And, let me tell you, that would be a whole lot easier on me. But unfortunately, I’m not good enough figure out how to give you that Jesus. Instea...

How do we stand with Jesus against a world that too often tramples the best interests of women and the needs of children, that regularly ignores the plight of the hungry, the houseless, the addicted, the stranger, and the outcast?” After all, the world we inhabit wasn’t created just to bless people like us; it was created to carve out space so that all whom God loves can live and flourish with dig...

Therefore, as Jesus embraced the child as a symbol of powerlessness and death, we’re called to embrace our own lack of power, relying on the love and grace of the most merciful parent of all. Moreover, embracing powerlessness in ourselves opens us up to the welcome we must now extend to the little ones, those who’ve been left behind by the rest of the world. Only in that realization can we become...

Photo credit: Wikimedia.org We no longer have to wonder whether we have any responsibility for our brothers and sisters, those who can’t stand up any longer by themselves. We no longer need to ask whether those who’ve been forgotten, abused, or kicked to the curb are our people. Through the grace of the cross, we’re able to see not competitors in the food chain, not threats to our individual proje...

So, requiring us to live lives that look like Jesus is a pretty tough thing to ask of us. But if I, who claim to follow Jesus, won’t live a life struggling to be faithful, how can I continue to call myself a follower of Jesus? If I, who claim to live a life shaped by the cross, don’t speak up for the weak, the poor, the forgotten, the bankrupt, those to whom medical services have been denied, to w...

And even after all this time, the church is often just as quick to erect barriers to keep people out, turning customs into dogma, human precepts into doctrine. Unfortunately, many people’s experience of the church is having the ladder pulled up just as they reach for it. “Thanks for inquiring. But we’re just fine. We’ve already got things pretty much the way we want them … I mean, the way God want...