FirstChurch Message of the Week

Often, parting words serve the function of offering the highest points and ideals we wish to relay to others. Either in summary or by means of a larger conclusion, often the very best and most important parts of a message come as a part of our final instructions. The end of the book of Hebrews works to summarize the most important aspects, not only of the book itself, but of a life of faith. These...

We’ve all heard metaphor in scripture, but do we use our imagination like the authors of the Bible did? Some scripture even demands understanding of metaphor: God as a fortress, as Rock, as a bird sheltering its chicks in a storm, and even as light. Being a good Bible reader can sometimes require a creative imagination.  In this weeks Message of the Week, Rev. Dr. Joel Allen challenges us to use o...

St. Paul’s Mental Health Manual deals with the ways that Paul, from prison, clearly writes with a concern for mental health, when he says, “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are pure, whatever is of good report, think on these things.” With our recent concerns for anxiety and depression, these verses can be viewed in a new light.  In this weeks Message of the Week, we hear another mess...

The Mystery of the Incarnation focuses on the implications of the notion that God enter into the human experience in the person of Jesus, laying aside the glories of heaven and dwelling in a fallen and failing world. Often, Christians fail to see the beauty of it. We’ve heard our whole lives that Jesus is God-with-Us, but we don’t see what makes that belief so beautiful and transformative.  In thi...

Christ calls us to rediscover the love for God we may have once had. How can we find ways to rediscover this love and keep it strong and healthy? Do you love God as you first did? What checkpoints do you have to keep your love for God strong?  In this weeks Message of the Week, we wrap-up our Trajectory worship series with a message from Pastor Bryce Blank. He shares from Revelation 2 and challeng...

By putting on the armor of God, we have the ability to resist temptations and can therefore do Christ’s work in the world. Being a Christian doesn’t mean we will live an easy life or that we will always see Christ as our compass. So we prepare ourselves for what lies ahead by learning and knowing the truth of Christ, striving for righteousness, proclaiming the gospel, and having a strong prayer li...

Healthy relationships come from a healthy trust in God. Sometimes it may be easy to think that everything will fall apart or that the people we turn to can’t really be trusted. The church is a new society that can flourish when we put our trust in God and treat others as Christ intended. Do our relationships reflect the faith and trust we have in God?  In this week’s Message of the Week, Pastor Br...

The church is more than a fellowship…it’s a new society. Having a relationship with Jesus, knowing the love of God, and being empowered by the Spirit are essential for any sort of new society that is built after a former, divisive society has been torn down. People in the church are going to need to give grace and show love to one another just as much as they need to receive it. This is a key part...

We are saved by grace through faith. We are sick because of sin, unable to cure the disease ourselves, and in need of the grace of God. We are bound together by the simple truth that God is the only one able to cure our sin.  In this week’s Message of the Week, we continue our Trajectory worship series. Pastor Bryce Blank shares from Ephesians 2 and reminds us that God calls us to perseverance in...

God loved us before time began, shown through His Son Jesus Christ. As the body of Christ, the church, we dwell in the love of Jesus which compels us to live in the ways of Godly love. How do we respond to God’s love to us shown in Christ?  In this week’s Message of the Week, we continue our Trajectory worship series. Pastor Bryce Blank shares from Ephesians 1:15-23 and challenges us to respond to...

As we seek to learn from the Ephesian church found in Acts, we see that they are a community founded in Christ and Christ alone despite the pull towards other idols of their day. What idols ingrained in our identity do we need to give up?  In this week’s Message of the Week, we begin a Worship Series titled, Trajectory: From Our Origin to Us. With every origin there must be a Foundation. Today, Pa...

Jesus has finished his ministry and what he set out to do. He recognizes that his work is not of his own doing but of God’s. How can we offer ourselves and our work to the glory of God?  In this week’s Message of the Week, we hear from Pastor Jen Tyler who shares from John 17 and gives us a challenge to unite with others in the glory and the joy of the Lord!

Jesus assures his disciples that he will be with them always, and as we prepare to send off our graduates, we want to invite them to know, part of us will always be with them, just as they are leaving part of who they are with us. This is an invitation, then, to consider what it looks like to lean into who we are, whose we are, and how we are called to lean into that identity in every stage/phase...

Jesus comes to be baptized by John the Baptist. As we celebrate our confirmands and their choice to publicly affirm their faith, how are we accepting and living into our identity as children of God?  In this week’s Message of the Week, we celebrate with our Confirmation students and their families! We hear a message from Pastor Bryce Blank who shares from Matthew chapter 3. Pastor Bryce asks us to...

As we reflect on Thomas and the way his “doubts” reflect our own questions and desires, we are reminded of the gift of believing, without seeing. Today, we celebrate God’s unending invitation to offer our whole selves to God as we live into hope in the Risen One – who offers us assurance of a life and faith in him that can overcome all things – even death.  In this week’s Message of the Week, Past...

We are a few weeks past Easter. Perhaps the joy of Easter is waning a bit. Have we already lost the joy that comes from the saving grace of a Risen Savior? How do we live into the joy of Christ? How do we continue to bear witness to the empty tomb? In this week’s Message of the Week, Pastor Bryce Blank shares from Acts 2, and reminds us to embrace "The Habit of Easter Joy."

Have you ever had a meaningful experience at a summer camp? What impacted you the most? Perhaps it was someone welcoming you and calling you by name. The name we are given by our parents is one of the things in life that we didn’t get any control over. However, our names do have, and can give us, meaning. As children of God, we bear the name above any other name. What will you do with it? In this...

For several weeks leading up to this day, we’ve been talking about how important it is to let go of the busy-ness of our lives, and to find ways to connect with our Unhurried God. As good as slowing down is, there are other times that we should run! Just as Jesus returned to Mary and offered her comfort and Good News before sending her back out to share his Good News, so too, is Jesus calling us t...

The commandment to keep the sabbath is one that might not seem as important as the one about not murdering. But what, and who, suffers in our society when we value economic security over well-being? As we give witness yet again to the story of Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem, proclaiming justice for the oppressed, we must also proclaim justice and peace... and rest... for the weary of this worl...

For many of us in this modern, industrial, tech-savvy world, we have lost touch with the seasonality of life. We want what we want, when we want it. We come to believe that no time is off limits and the lines between busy and rest, work and play, have become increasingly blurred. How far are we from the rhythms and "pleasure of our toil?" What cost to ourselves, to our relationships, and t...

No one, at the end of their life, would say, "I should have spent more time at the office." And yet many of us live with the tyranny of measuring-up that keeps us weighed down. Lightening the load of expectations and "shoulds" is one way to lighten up as well as to literally lighten the clutter that crowds out our serenity. How do we create space to flourish in the ways God intends...

Martha was busy. Mary chose to be still, to tune in to Jesus. The lesson here is not that it is bad to work, but that we also need times of connection to God. Tuning in to the holy may mean just taking time to notice things that are beckoning to dwell with us a while. What contemplative practices can feed and nourish our active lives?  In this week’s Message of the Week, Pastor Bryce Blank shares...

The Twenty-third Psalm is a great comfort to us as we imagine the green pastures and still waters. It also recalls the dark valleys and calls us into the not-so-easy practice of sitting down at the table with our enemies. An unhurried God is present with us in the good times and in the difficult time and invites us to be radically present to each other in the same way. Have we been too busy to be...

Jesus never promised that the yoke would literally be "easy." This is a mistranslation. In this context of yoking oxen, the translation means "well fitting." As we begin our "Busy" series, we discover that each of us has a tempo that fits well, that energizes us. What tempo gives you life and energy?  In this week’s Message of the Week, we begin our "Busy" sermon se...

Scripture is full of mysterious and strange things that have taken multiple generations to try to understand. How much harder was this for the disciples and other followers to understand. After all, they didn’t have the gift of knowing how each story would end to influence their understanding. Yet Jesus challenges what seem like perfectly reasonable reactions. What perfectly reasonable things are...