From Your Pastor

God's care of us is not limited to Psalm 46's command to "Be still." Isaiah offers us a much more participatory way to sit at God's table of comfort. 

As we witness the violence in Ukraine this week, we also explore the change we can enact through practices of hope thanks to our Psalm 27 writer.

Join us for Week 1 of our Lent series, in partnership with Sanctified Arts, "Full to the Brim." We will look at how the wilderness asks Jesus what kind of "Jesus" he is going to be, just as it demands the same thoughtfulness from us. 

We wrap up the discipleship series with the signature move for all disciples: love. 

Today we talk about the insidious nature of perfectionism and the freedom and transformation in making mistakes. 

We explore what it means to "inhale" before you "exhale" through the story of the sisters Mary and Martha. 

This week we explore how discipleship is all about community. We can't do this road alone. Also, Troop Beverly Hills is the key to understanding our Mark passage today. 

This week we repair some of the damage done to the word evangelism. 

Being a disciple is sometimes pretty rough. Also, there's a bit of Encanto in this podcast--definitely take some time (before or after this podcast) to watch this beautiful new animated movie. 

If we are Disciples of Christ, it's probably a good idea to get to know him. So, we visit the Gospel of Mark and start from the very beginning: Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. 

Join us as we begin our series on discipleship as we unpack some of the shame of being a "learner" and prepare ourselves to be transformed in Christ. 

Join us for our Christmas Eve message. Also, apologies for the sound of a soccer ball at the end. Truly God's grace was made for virtual learning in a pandemic. 

Like Ted Lasso says, sometimes you just have to believe. 

"You better be lightning Jesus!" This sermon features a poem by Andrea Gibson from her collection You Better Be Lightning .

It's hard to wait. This week we talk about our different postures of waiting--some good, some not so much. We also introduce our church's Advent practice for 2021. 

Today's sermon is a short one that explores the Lord's Prayer from the Gospel of Matthew and then sends us out to try the many pathways of prayer. 

What is prayer and how do we do it all day long without ceasing? 

Today we examine what it means to be selfless like Christ without pretending you don't exist. 

By belonging to each other, do we sacrifice our "self"?

Today we examine what breaks down belonging. You also get a glimpse at the end of the sermon into our weekly post-sermon "small group" time at Ormewood Church. 

Today we explore that admirable church in Acts chapter 2, and we ponder what made their belonging so grand!

In this episode we explore how our belonging in the world is made of creative stuff and creative relationships, but most of all it is created and defended by God.

This is the first episode in our Belonging series at Ormewood Church. The story at the beginning of the sermon is from Vivek Murthy's amazing book Together . We highly recommend reading the book or listening to his interview with Brene' Brown on her podcast Unlocking Us. 

In this episode we follow the movements of baptism: going under the water and rising again. We consider what that means theologically as we wrestle with Paul's letter to the Roman church. 

This week we look at Jesus' baptism, and why he would need to be baptized in the first place. Turns out it is all about participating in relationships rightly.