Dranesville Church of the Brethren

People tend to think that we can think ourselves into new ways of behaving. But a far more effective way to begin to live the Christian life is by imitating more mature Christians. The Church has a lot of these role models in our family.

We often underestimate the difficulty that ancient people would have had in not worshiping idols. Many idols have a serious hold on us. Idolatry is slavery to something intent on destroying you.

Many of the Thessalonians had to leave their families to follow Christ, since they were disowned for not worshiping idols. As a result, Christians found a surrogate family in the Church. In Christ, we have been baptized into the enormous family of God, and this should be a part of our witness.

Our church won’t be able to offer flashy light shows and a concert-like atmosphere, but what we can offer is ourselves. The content of our message is carried in the way that we live as a family, showing the world that we have a different way of being human.

Jesus was the second Adam; the beginning of a new humanity as part of the beginning of the New Heavens and New Earth in the Church.

In Christ’s resurrection, the long-awaited hope that God’s faithful dead would rise again began to be accomplished. Now an entirely new nation of people is born from the dead, and given a different kind of life patterned after Christ’s new body.

Jesus was the promised King who finally trusted God, but humans found the beauty and glory of God intolerable. But God will overlook our sins for the sake of Jesus' righteousness.

Jesus was the long awaited king of Israel, who saves them from their sins and sets them free from captivity. But it wasn’t done in the way they expected. Instead, Jesus came to make peace.

Christ’s death is the perfect expression of God’s faithful love for his people, and it is the culmination of God’s plan for creation.

In Jesus we gain access to the unfailing love of God, which is not based on anything that we have done but based on God’s own perfect loyalty and faithfulness

Paul Stutzman serves as a special guest speaker to help us consider the future of our congregation.

Trusting God is the most wise thing to do, but it is really hard to do since it doesn’t look like it makes sense to worldly eyes. But trusting the world in many cases means trusting people who don’t have your best interests at heart.

Part of the difficulty of worshiping a God that is merciful is that sometimes he is merciful to your enemies, but we still have to forgive them. The Gospel is for everyone, not just for the people we like.

A meditation on mortality and repentance from the Ash Wednesday service 2023.

The world has its own ways of judging people, but generally these are really foolish. Judging people with the eyes of Christ is way better, because you get the chance to know people the world rejects for no good reason. The people you serve can bless you in surprising ways.

God is incredibly faithful to his covenant with his people, to a degree that it almost looks like magic to outsiders. But through Jesus that covenant has been extended to us. We can count on God coming through and providing for us.

The mission that God has given us can be difficult and we’re never sure whether we will succeed, or even if we're doing the right thing all the time. But serving God is an adventure which is better than anything else we can do, so it is worth doing.

God has called us to be the search party for our lost brothers and sisters to bring them back into the family of God.

During Epiphany, we celebrate when people from all nations came to worship Jesus, which was a greater fulfillment of Israel’s role in the world to bring blessing to the nations than anything Israel had done to that point. If Jesus is king of the world, then worldly distinctions are obliterated.

Unlike the other kingdoms of the world, the kingdom that Jesus was ushering in was one based on suffering. God showed a different kind of love, which is the one that is demonstrated most in suffering for another person.

The kingdom of God was entering into the world, and already it was showing a different kind of power. Rome was flexing their muscles with their census for the purposes of taxation, but the tiny child would be their undoing.

A message taken from the Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols Service

A reflection on War as part of the service commemorating the 161st anniversary of the Battle of Dranesville which took place on the grounds of DCoB

Just like Mary carried God into the world and gave it hope and salvation, we are also called to bear God into the world, because wherever we go God is with us. The certainty of miraculous signs is something we often crave, but we will never get. And that’s okay and kind of beautiful.

During advent, we celebrate that God has returned suddenly to his temple in Christ, and that now we can live with him and experience his blessing. We also look forward to the day when we will also experience God’s presence fully in the New Kingdom that is coming. The guarantee of this is the day that Zechariah walked hopelessly into the Most Holy Place and found that God came back to it.