Filled With Messages

So often in life, dreams, hopes, plans, expectations unravel. Where is God when life is falling apart? How do we continue to have hope when life is in tatters?

It’s important to be empowered and have agency, but sometimes things are out of our control and sometimes God asks us to follow his lead. How can we reframe those times in life when we’re feeling like things are unraveling out of control and in doing so find God’s hope and new purpose? Listen in to hear more.

How does God call us to respond when life - not just for us but for our communities as well - is unraveled by things over which we have no control?

There are a lot of disappointing messages in our world and we can become pessimistic and bitter because of all the disappointment we experience. But God is always at work brining us hope and joy. Listen in to be reminded of the ways our loving God brings light to our darkness.

One of the messages we hear often is that our county and world has a growing mental health epidemic. How did Jesus interact with those struggling with their mental and emotional health and how does he call us to support them? Listen in to hear more...

Ben Franklin famously said there are only two things in life that are certain: death and taxes. So what do we do when things we were certain about start to unravel? Or what do we do when we realize things we are certain about need to be unraveled? How do we seek God when life is unraveling?

At any given moment there are people in our lives who are suffering, grieving, experiencing pain. We want to support these people, but how can we do that well? What wisdom does God have for us on this matter? Listen in to ponder these questions together.

One of the messages we often hear, especially in Christianity, is that we should be happy and joyful at all times. But when we’re suffering, it can feel disingenuous to be cheerful. How does God want us to feel and act when we’re (or someone or something we love) is in pain?

One of the messages a lot of Christians hear is that we should keep our faith to ourselves. Certainly it’s very important to be respectful of other people’s belief systems, but is there anyway we could boast about God respectfully and carefully? Listen in to hear more...

To whom do you listen when you’re in need of wisdom? There are so many “experts”, self-help gurus, programs which promise wisdom that it’s hard to know who to listen to. This message considers how the Psalms encourage us find wisdom.

There are so many messages clamoring for our attention that it can be hard to hear ourselves in the midst of all the noise. This episode considers why learning to listen to ourselves is so important.

Our world is filled with messages encouraging us to speak early and often. But if we learned to listen well, might we be able to bring more peace into our hurting, angry, violent world? Listen in to ponder the idea. (This episode contains quotes from The Listening Life by Adam McHugh. Many thanks to him for his words and work.)

Our world is filled with so many competing messages about the characteristics of a good leader. How can thinking about Jesus as our leader help us sort out the true markings of good leadership?

So many of the messages we hear are hopeless, perhaps because there are so many things in this world that seem to be falling apart. Are there reasons to hope that our broken world won’t always be this way? Listen in to find out.

We are bombarded by so many messages about what should come first in our lives. Listen in to think a little about setting priorities as a follower of God.

Our culture is filled with stories of GOATS (the greatest of all time). The subtle message behind these stories is that all of us should try to be the greatest of whatever we do (parenting, friendship, work, etc). But as Christians, is greatness the goal? Is that the message Christ speaks into our lives? Listen in to hear more.

When I listen to the world around me, I hear a lot of messages that might not contain actual "swear words," but are filled with curses.   God, though, calls those of us who seek to follow him to bless others.  Listen in to hear how we might do that.  Barbara Brown Taylor's book An Altar In the World is quoted several times in this sermon .   Many thanks to her for her thou...

One of the messages that comes across loud and clear today is that waiting is bad.  In our Instagram world, we should be able to have anything we want instantly.  But this sermon, based on Jeremiah 29:1-14, reminds us that God sometimes asks us to wait, perhaps even as long as 70 years.  IT was preached October 13, 2019 at St. Peter United Church of Christ in Lake Zurich, Illinois.  The guided spi...

Sometimes it seems as though one of the messages of Christianity is that those who trust God aren't supposed to cry.  We're supposed to be brave and say "It is well with my soul", even when life is awful.  But is that really what God asks of us?  Is it ok to cry at the sad parts of life, even if we believe that God is working all things together for his glory and our good?  Thi...

This sermon was preached at St. Peter United Church of Christ (Lake Zurich, Illinois) on September 22, 2019.  Rev. Ruth Farrell is preaching. The text is Luke 16:1-13 which is either titled, "The Parable of the Shrewd Manager" or "The Parable of the Dishonest Manager."  Listen in to hear how God is calling us to live shrewdly not just during life's crises, but all the time.

What brings a church together? What makes it thrive? Simple answer: Jesus.  Jesus tears down the fences that divide us building us into an amazing home where God feels completely at home (Ephesians 2:19-22).

This sermon was recorded at St. Peter United Church of Christ (Lake Zurich, Illinois) on March 17, 2019.  The Rev. Ruth Farrell is preaching.  The scripture text is Mark 5:21-43 and the quote about labyrinths at the end of the sermon is from Barbara Brown Taylor's book An Altar in the World .  This was sermon 2 (even though the episode says it was sermon 1) in a Lenten series entitl...

This was the first sermon in our Lent 2019 Series entitled Everyday Spirituality: Becoming more like Jesus through our everyday activities.  The Rev. Ruth Farrell is preaching.  The scripture text was Matthew 4:1-11 and the sermon also contains quotes from Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World and N.T. Wright's commentary Matthew for Everyone .

This sermon was recorded at St. Peter UCC (Lake Zurich, Illinois) on May 5, 2019.  Rev. Ruth Farrell is preaching.  The texts are Matthew 28:16-20 and John 20:24-29. The two quotes are from Rob Bell's What We Talk About When We Talk About God .