Living Water Radio: For Today's Christian Life

Send us Fan Mail    Summary    The glue that holds us together in the Christian Church when we seem to be falling apart is the Holy Spirit. It binds us even when we don’t acknowledge its power.     Referenced Bible verses: 1 Peter 2:9-11; Luke 10:38-42    Please note that Rev. Sally Welch appears on-screen in the first 30-or so of our videos to bring encouragement and the benediction.    Our Email...

Send us Fan Mail    Summary    We live as one (a family) by living as one (in an all-defining living relationship with the one true living God).     Referenced Bible verses: Mark 3:31-35 (also, Matthew 12:46–50; Luke 8:19–21); Colossians 3:11; 1 Timothy 5:8; Luke 18:28-30      Please note that Rev. Sally Welch appears on-screen in the first 30-or so of our videos to bring encouragement and the ben...

Send us Fan Mail    Summary    Christian communities are the product of the Holy Spirit. They are led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. The one question that church leaders should never ask the congregations that they serve is, “What do you want to do?” The one question (OK maybe two) that church leaders should ask the congregations that they serve is, “What is the Holy Spirit calling us as a cong...

Send us Fan Mail    Summary    Toleration is not enough for Christians, and it has its limits. We are called and formed to love selflessly, as God loves, seen most clearly on the cross.     Referenced Bible verses: Romans 12:9-21       Please note that Rev. Sally Welch appears on-screen in the first 30-or so of our videos to bring encouragement and the benediction.    Our Email Address:  TheRevsDa...

Send us Fan Mail Summary  Temptation comes to all people. We cannot prevent it. We can resist it, but we can’t overcome it. The good news, the Gospel, is that Jesus has overcome it for our sake on the cross.    Referenced Bible verses: Mark 1:9-15; 1 Corinthians 10:13; Hebrews 4:14-16; John 3:16       Please note that Rev. Sally Welch appears on-screen in the first 30-or so of our videos to bring...

Send us Fan Mail Summary   We are now in the season of Lent. The color of Lent is purple, in part because that was the color of the robe that the Roman soldiers threw around Jesus to mock him as a “king”. The color purple is like the love of God that we see on the cross: expensive and it never fades.    Referenced Bible verses: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21      Please note that Rev. Sally Welch appears on...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:     Soap and water make us pure. The cross where Jesus, like soap, uses himself up to make all who receive the gift of faith pure before God, and baptism where water and the Word purify as the means with faith by which God frees us from sin, death and the power of all the forces that defy God.    Referenced Bible verses: Revelation 3:14-22; Mark 9:2-9      Please note tha...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:     The Christian life is hidden in Christ. It is filled with paradox, including that less is more. The things that the world views and pursues as ends in themselves lead nowhere. The things that the world values are by-products, not the goal, of the Christian life that truly is life and is the beginning of eternal life.    Referenced Bible verses: Matthew 5:1-12; Luke 12...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:     We discern the leading of God, the Holy Spirit. Yes, that is very subjective but that’s how God works, with people. We consider the whole testimony of the Bible, the witness of the Church, our reason and the voice of God within us, through Creation that declares the majesty of God, Jesus, the Light of the World, and through the Holy Spirit, the streams of living water...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:      It may feel sometimes, in this pandemic, that we are alone, but we are not.    We are the Body of Christ and individually members of it. Our individual gifts, however, are not given to us but through us for the building up of the Body, to the Glory of God.    Referenced Bible verses:  1 Corinthians 12:12-17, 18-27    Please note that Rev. Sally Welch appears on-scree...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   When we use “Amen.” in worship, it is an affirmation of what has been said or read. It is a response to the truth revealed by the Holy Spirit through our focused, active engagement with the one true living God.    Referenced Bible verses:  John 4:21-24    Here’s the link I mentioned for a free digital version of Luther’s Small Catechism: https://www.augsburgfortress.org...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   Transparency is a value in the Christian life. We seek to have nothing to hide. In any case, there is nothing we can hide before God. God loves us and God transforms us to be a new creation. We are transparent to the point we become like a mirror and we reflect the light of God and God’s good news to the world.    Referenced Bible verses:  1 Samuel 16:1-13; Psalm 139:13...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   The Gospel has gone viral for 2,000 years. You are a Christian, or will be come one, because someone shared the transformational story of salvation with you and you opened your heart to receive this gift from God.    Referenced Bible verses:  Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23    Our Email Address:  TheRevsDavidandSally@gmail.com    Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dberkedal...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   The proclamation of Jesus at the beginning of his 3-year public ministry, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” is Jesus’ invitation to a new administration, and ours.    Referenced Bible verses:  Mark 1:25-30    Request Zoom link for our regional Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Service on Sunday at 3:00...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   Being a homogeneous Church is not the opposite of being a polarized Church. They are the same when we seek only those like us and that polarizes. The Body of Christ as a metaphor for the Church means that we, though many particular members, are one Body, with Christ as the head. That is our path to unity.     Referenced Bible verses:  1 Corinthians 12:12-27     Our Emai...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   The lack of critical thinking got us into the pandemic surge and our current national crisis. Critical thinking has a great deal in common with the Christian life and, as we conceive it, will have a lot to do with how we lower the curve and move out of our polarization.    Referenced Bible verses:  John 14:15-17, 25-27     Our Email Address:  TheRevsDavidandSally@gmail....

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   In a global pandemic that is getting worse, at a time of national crisis, faith is everything.    Referenced Bible verses:  Hebrews 11:1-3    Our Email Address:  TheRevsDavidandSally@gmail.com    Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dberkedal/    Blog (for theme text):  pastorberkedalsblog.blogspot.com     Podcast:  https://livingwaterradio.buzzsprout.com    YouTube...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   The Epiphany season sheds light on both the reason people ignore the simple things they can do to slow the spread of the coronavirus and on the actions of the invading mob in our nation’s Capitol yesterday. We have no sense of a common good. Christians can provide that with what draws us together, a living relationship with the one true living God, and our ethic of self...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   The celebration of Christmas as a 12-day Christian season goes counter to our culture’s observation of Christmas as a secular holiday. Sometimes, it also goes counter to our churches’ celebration. It can even be counter to our own practices. That’s a good thing.    Referenced Bible verses:  Matthew 5:13-16    Our Email Address:  TheRevsDavidandSally@gmail.com    Faceboo...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   Christmas reminds us that God keeps His promises. Christ was born when the time was right 1,000 years after the promise of His first coming. As we await Christ’s second coming, now for 2,000 years after the promise, we can know that God always keeps His promises, even if it takes what seems to us a very long time.     Referenced Bible verses:  Revelation 21:1-4    Our E...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   We share the good Christmas news of the Word made flesh with commonality and confrontation. “What did you do for Christmas?” “I heard a Christmas story that was disturbing but that meant a lot to me.”     Referenced Bible verses:  John 1:1-14    Our Email Address:  TheRevsDavidandSally@gmail.com    Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dberkedal/    Blog (for theme te...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   Christmas is going to be celebrated a little differently this year as the result of the pandemic but also because of the increasing secularization of our culture. Let’s disrupt the disruption by focusing on the season. Let’s be counter-cultural. Let’s celebrating the whole 12 days as a religious holiday of sharing all the gifts of God in response to God’s great gift of...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   Advent is its own season, preparing us for the 12 Days of Christmas. It is also a season to reflect on the second advent, or “coming” of Jesus. We live in the already, but not yet, Reign of God.   “There’s light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re still in the tunnel,” said California Governor Newsom. This is a good description of Advent, as well of the need to remain v...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   We best hear a sermon when we are open to the Holy Spirit, who also inspires the sermon preacher, and act on the Holy Spirit’s transformational presence to share the good news and to serve all people in accord with God’s will.    Referenced Bible verses:  Isaiah 29:13-14; Romans 10: 14-17; Matthew 13:10-18    Our Email Address:  TheRevsDavidandSally@gmail.com    Faceboo...

Send us Fan Mail Summary:   Some people preach from a pulpit, but we all preach in our homes, our workplaces, our teams, and on the streets where we meet people. We preach the good news of Jesus Christ when we are the instruments of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the cross, that God entered human history to die for their sin, and to name the name of Jesus Christ.    Referenced Bible verses:  1 Peter...