Momologian

This week we begin the July chapter of our summer worship series, We Are Still Alive and Singing a New Song, with a message from Galatians 5:1, 13–25 called "Freedom Songs." As we reflect on Independence Day, we'll explore one of the most important questions of the Christian faith: What is freedom for? Writing to the churches in Galatia, Paul reminds us that Christ has set us free—not simply to do...

Drawing connections between Joshua's challenge and the story of Juneteenth, we explore how freedom is not the end of the journey, but the beginning of a new calling. Just as those who received the long-awaited news of emancipation had to decide what freedom would mean for their lives, we are invited to consider how we will use the freedom, influence, and opportunities entrusted to us. Joshua asks,...

This week, we launch our summer worship series, We Are Still Alive and Singing a New Song , with a message from Romans 12:9–16b called "Sing Like You Mean It." After the wind, fire, and wonder of Pentecost comes a very practical question: Now what? What do we do after we've caught a glimpse of what is possible when God's Spirit moves among ordinary people? Writing to a young chur...

This week, on Pentecost Sunday, we conclude our Eastertide series, “What Does It Mean to Be Resurrection People?” with a bold and joyful proclamation: “WE ARE ALIVE!” Drawing from Acts 2:1–21, we explore how Pentecost is not simply the “birthday of the Church,” but the moment Resurrection bursts into the world through ordinary people filled with the Spirit. Through wind, fire, and holy disruption,...

Continuing our Eastertide series, “What Does It Mean to Be Resurrection People?” with John 17:1–11. Picking up from last week’s message, “You Are Ready,” we ask the next natural question: “Ready for what?” This is a deeply tender moment from John’s Gospel, where Jesus publicly prays for his disciples before everything changes. Why does Jesus let them overhear this intimate prayer? Perhaps because...

As Jesus prepares his disciples for what lies ahead, he offers not exclusion, but trust. In John 14:15–27, we are reminded that the work of love, healing, and belonging does not end with him, but it continues through us. This week, we’ll explore what it means to live as Resurrection people, rooted in relationship with God and one another, and empowered by the Spirit to carry forward a faith that i...

This week we explore John 14:1–14 through the voices of Thomas and Philip: the disciples bold enough to ask the questions we still carry today. “How do we know the way?” Rather than offering rigid answers or drawing lines of exclusion, Jesus responds with an invitation: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Together, we’ll reclaim these words not as tools for gatekeeping, but as a call into a l...

“We had hoped…” In this powerful post-resurrection story, two disciples walk away from everything they thought they understood all while grieving, confused, and unsure what comes next. And yet, without their knowing, Jesus walks beside them. This week’s message reminds us that faith isn’t about always recognizing Christ in the moment, but trusting that we are never walking alone.

In the days after Easter, when the alleluias begin to fade and the world still feels uncertain, we might find ourselves asking: Now what? In John 20:19–31, we encounter Thomas—not as a symbol of doubt to avoid, but as a companion in faith. His questions echo our own as we try to make sense of resurrection in a world that hasn’t fully changed. This Sunday, we’ll explore what it means to be an Easte...

The tomb is empty. Love wins. Now what? This Easter sermon is a bold, joy-filled proclamation that resurrection is not just something we believe—it’s something we live. In a world marked by grief and brokenness, we are called to rise, to act, and to bear witness to the transforming power of love. Because resurrection isn’t the end of the story. It’s the beginning of ours.

Palm Sunday isn’t just a celebration — it’s a moment of courage. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, the crowds cry out “Hosanna,” a word that means both praise and a plea: Save us. But this isn’t a quiet or safe moment. It’s a public, risky act of hope in the shadow of empire. In this final message of our Lenten series Bearing Witness, we explore what it means to practice love in public — a love that show...

This week in our Lenten series Bearing Witness, we explore what it means to bear witness to hope in a world surrounded by death-dealing systems, despair, and exhaustion. In today’s reading of the Gospel (John 11:1-45), John’s story of Lazarus unfolds slowly in the shadow of grief. Mary and Martha mourn the loss of their brother, and even Jesus himself weeps at the tomb. Yet in the midst of that so...

This week in our Lenten series Bearing Witness, we encounter the story of Jesus and the man born with limited vision (John 9:1–41). This powerful passage challenges harmful assumptions about suffering and invites us into deeper awareness of God’s work in our lives and world. As pressure mounts to deny lived experience and obscure truth, we explore how clarity emerges through integrity, courage, an...

John 4:5–42 (The Voice) invites us to lean into our call to be a people who bear witness to truth. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus has an incredible encounter with a Samaritan woman, known in the Orthodox tradition as Photini. At the well, truth is spoken without shame and received with grace. The Samaritan woman’s testimony is powerful not because it is perfect, but because it is honest. When sh...

In the second week of our Lenten series Bearing Witness: Seeing, Trusting, and Testifying to God at Work, we encounter Nicodemus’ nighttime conversation with Jesus (John 3:1–17). Together we explore what it means to trust God even when our understanding is still unfolding. This week invites us to consider how faith moves from private belief to public witness, and how trusting God’s transforming lo...

In this first week of Lent, we bear witness to struggle through Jesus’ time in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11). Rather than a battle with an external enemy, we explore this moment as a profound encounter between Jesus’ humanity and divinity — a struggle that reflects our own wrestling with calling, identity, and faith. What does it mean to struggle with God rather than because of God? Together we...

…must come down. Today we stand on the mountain (Matthew 17:1–9) with Peter, James, and John. We will witness Christ radiant in light. We will hear the voice that calls Him Beloved. And we will watch the disciples wrestle with what to do next. Because the mountain is not the destination. The light is given not to be preserved — but to be carried. As we prepare to enter Lent, we will explore what i...

The next two Sundays, we stand at a threshold to the Lenten season. Drawing on Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians, we explore God’s wisdom as something that runs deeper than surface-level answers, power, or certainty. Paul reminds us that the heart of the Christian story is not domination or fear, but love that refuses to give up. The cross, once a tool of empire and death, becomes a witness to life an...

Matthew 3:1-11 (CEB) invites us to the riverbank, where Jesus steps into the same muddy water as everyone else. We talk about baptism as an act of belonging, not exclusion — a public declaration that God’s love comes first, before accomplishment, before certainty, before we get anything “right.” This episode wrestles with what that means in a world determined to make us choose sides and exclude on...

What are you looking for? As a new year begins, this Epiphany sermon invites us to sit with that question alongside the Magi—outsiders, seekers, and learners who followed a star into the unknown. Drawing on Matthew 2:1–12, this reflection explores the social and political realities of Jesus’ world, the courage it takes to keep searching in the face of fear and power, and the surprising truth that...

Today on The Momologian, we’re stepping into the Advent story through the eyes of someone who rarely gets the microphone — Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Her story is one of silence that startles, promises that unsettle, and a peace that arrives not because the world is calm, but because God shows up right in the middle of the storm. In this episode, we’ll explore what it means to carr...

This week we begin the Advent season with a question at the heart of our hope: “What child is this?” Not a sentimental Christmas card version of Jesus, but the Christ who enters a world that feels—then and now—like the book of Lamentations: weary, anxious, grieving, longing for something better. In this episode, we explore how the birth of Jesus interrupts the shadow of empire with a defiant flick...

On this Thanksgiving and Reign of Christ Sunday, we turn to Isaiah’s breathtaking vision of a world made new — a world where joy overflows, children thrive, elders flourish, and peace is not imagined but lived. In a time when many of us feel weary, scattered, or discouraged, this sermon invites us to see gratitude not as sentiment, but as spiritual resistance — a way of proclaiming that despair wi...

On this All Saints Sunday, Rev. Alicia Vélez Stewart invites us into the thin space between heaven and earth — where memory, grief, and hope intertwine. Drawing from 2 Corinthians 5:1–8, she reflects on Paul’s image of our earthly lives as “tents” — temporary, fragile, yet sacred places where God chooses to dwell. Through the wisdom of John Wesley and the witness of generations who have gone befor...

In this week’s Holy Ghost Story, we find ourselves at the edge of town — staring up at a house everyone thought was abandoned. The windows are dark, the air is still, and the stories say it’s haunted. But what if it’s not haunted by something to fear… but by the Spirit of God, still waiting to breathe life into what’s been forgotten? Inspired by Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones, The House of Dry...