Litchfield Church of the Nazarene Podcast

Two apostles. Two prison cells. Two prayers for a miracle. James got the sword. Peter walked out free in the middle of the night, chains on the ground, past sixteen soldiers, without anyone waking up. Same God. Same church praying. Completely different outcomes. In this message from Acts: To the Ends of the Earth, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe goes straight at one of the hardest questions in the Christian...

Philip was in the middle of a revival. People were getting saved all over Samaria, the kind of ministry most pastors only dream about. And right in the middle of it, God told him to leave. Go south, to a desert road in the middle of nowhere, where there was nobody. In part eight of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe opens with his own version of that story, a phone call in 2021 t...

He was the most dangerous man in the early church, and not in a good way. Saul of Tarsus spent three years hunting down followers of Jesus, dragging men and women out of their homes, throwing them in prison, and casting his vote when they were executed. He wasn't a fringe character. He was educated, well-connected, and absolutely convinced he was doing God's work. He was also the last person anyon...

Nobody told you it was going to cost you something to follow Jesus. Or if they did, you probably didn't believe them. In part six of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe goes somewhere most sermons avoid: the real price of being a disciple. Not just inconvenience or social awkwardness, but the kind of cost the early church actually paid. Reputation. Relationships. Safety. Stephen,...

Jon Stoe opens this one with a story about a former gang member named Gerber Gomez, a young man from Guatemala who survived a brutal initiation, joined a gang in Chicago for the sense of family it offered, and then had his life turned completely around by a girl at his locker who refused to stop telling him that Jesus loved him. It's a story about belonging and what people will risk to find it. An...

It started with 100-to-one odds. In 1987, the Minnesota Twins were the biggest underdogs in baseball — outscored during the regular season, dismissed by every expert, and picked by nobody to win. They won the World Series anyway. Lead Pastor Jon Stoe opens part three of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth with that story to set up something even harder to explain: how a small group of ordinary people w...

George Whitefield crossed the Atlantic in 1738 with nothing but a message and a willingness to preach it in the open air. No army, no institution, no platform. An estimated 50,000 people were transformed in New England alone. In part two of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe uses that story to ask a question that lands closer to home: what if God wants to write a volume three thr...

If your faith has ever felt shaky, or you've watched someone you care about walk away from the church, this message is worth your time. Lead Pastor Jon Stoe opens the new series Acts: To the Ends of the Earth by asking a question most Christians have never seriously sat with: if the first followers of Jesus never owned a Bible, never read one, and still turned the world upside down, what exactly w...

Most Easter sermons start at the empty tomb. This one starts somewhere darker. Lead Pastor Jon Stoe takes you back to the hours right after the crucifixion, when there were no Christians, no church, no Bible, and no believers. Just a handful of brokenhearted Galileans who thought they'd been following God's chosen king, now watching Rome claim his body. Nobody was keeping the dream alive. There wa...

Jon Stoe opens this one with a story from his 25th anniversary trip to Antigua — an all-inclusive resort where the staff anticipated every need before you even asked. It was wonderful, he says. And also a little unsettling. Because being served that well has a way of making you feel things you weren't expecting. That feeling is exactly where this sermon goes. This is the final message in The Jesus...

We're all running a race with no finish line. Comparing ourselves to people who don't even know they're in the competition, chasing something we can't quite name, and still feeling like we're falling behind. In part five of The Jesus Way series, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe opens with something unexpected: a candid quote from Madonna at the height of her career, admitting she still couldn't outrun the fea...

Self‑righteousness is one outfit none of us look good in—and most of the time, we don’t even realize we’re wearing it. In this message, “The Jesus Way: Rebranding,” lead pastor Jon Stoe walks us into Luke 15 and shows how Jesus completely reframes what God is like and who God likes. Through the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, Jon explores a God who is laser‑focused on...

In this message from lead pastor Jon Stoe, we continue our journey through “The Jesus Way” by looking at one of Jesus’ most disruptive and beautiful stories: the Good Samaritan. Pastor Jon shows how Jesus didn’t just bring a new set of rules, but a completely new kind of kingdom that is “inviting, and relational, and without borders, and it was as if it was for everybody.” Everyone is endowed with...

In this episode of the Litchfield Church of the Nazarene podcast, lead pastor Jon Stoe continues our series, The Jesus Way, by focusing on “The Invitation.” Starting with a personal story about an unexpected date that turned into a 43–year marriage, Pastor Jon shows how “you never know what hangs in the balance of an invitation.” From there, he turns our attention to the greatest invitation of all...

In this message, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe launches a new series called “The Jesus Way” and invites you to rediscover what it really meant to follow Jesus in the first century. He begins with the constant tension between Jesus and the religious leaders and shows that they did not see Him as “Judaism 2.0” but as a threat to everything they valued. Jesus did not come as an upgrade to something old. He ca...

In this message, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe tackles one of the hardest and most necessary topics in the Christian life: forgiveness. Starting with Peter’s question to Jesus about how many times he must forgive, Pastor Jon shows how Jesus completely reframes the conversation. Forgiveness is not about counting offenses or setting a limit. It is about a new kind of math where we stop keeping score and star...

Join us for an uplifting episode featuring our new interim lead pastor, Jon Stoe, as he explores the profound theme of forgiveness through the lens of Jesus' teachings and actions. In this heartfelt sermon, Pastor Jon invites us to reflect on our own experiences of forgiving others—often before they even ask—and challenges us to consider if God's forgiveness operates in a similar, boundless way. D...

In this week’s message, Interim Lead Pastor Jon Stoe invites us to wrestle with a life-shaping question: Who will you be five or ten years from now? More than careers, accomplishments, or accolades, Pastor Jon reminds us that it is character, the person we are becoming on the inside, that defines our legacy and relationships.   Through Scripture and real-life examples, Pastor Jon explores how true...

In his first message as interim pastor, Jon Stoe invites the church into a new season by addressing a challenge every believer faces; how we respond when life does not go as planned. Drawing from personal loss, pastoral wisdom, and the apostle Paul’s teaching, this sermon calls us to examine our attitudes, our surrender, and our willingness to be continually renewed by God.   This message reminds...

In the final episode of Discerning Authority, Pastor Michael Lowenberg walks through a relentless day in the life of Jesus; a synagogue leader pleads for his daughter; a woman reaches for the fringe of His garment; two blind men cry out for mercy; a silenced man is set free. Each encounter reveals the same truth in a different key; Jesus carries real authority over death, disease, darkness, and do...

In this message, Pastor Sarah Lowenberg explores Jesus’ teaching on fasting, garments, and wineskins, revealing that He has the authority to bring something completely new. The disciples of John ask why Jesus’ followers don’t fast like others, and Jesus responds with vivid images: a joyful wedding feast, an unshrunk patch on an old garment, and new wine poured into new wineskins. Through these ill...

Welcome to Discerning Authority; a new three-part journey through the way Jesus invites and redirects our lives. In Episode 1, Pastor Sarah Lowenberg walks us into Matthew’s tax booth; a place of compromise and exclusion; and shows how a single invitation changes everything: “Follow me.” Jesus sits at Matthew’s table with “tax collectors and sinners”; He quotes Hosea; and He reframes what God want...

In the fifth and final episode of Kingdom Authority, Pastor Sarah Lowenberg invites us into the crowded house at Capernaum; four friends lower a paralyzed man before Jesus; everyone expects a miracle for his legs. Jesus goes deeper first: “Take heart; your sins are forgiven.” This moment reframes the whole scene; the greatest need beneath every need is the authority of Jesus to forgive and make us...

What happens when the authority of Jesus confronts both the storm outside and the storm within? In this episode of Kingdom Authority, Pastor Michael Lowenberg opens up Matthew 8:23–34, where Jesus stills a violent storm and drives out a legion of demons. These aren’t gentle, heartwarming stories—they are unsettling accounts that force us to wrestle with the sheer scope of Christ’s power. The winds...