Salt House Sermons

What is happiness? What are blessings? What does Jesus have to say about these things? And how does he live them? These are questions we are going to explore this summer in our sermon series on the Beatitudes. Found in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, the Beatitudes give us a list of people who are blessed or happy. And this list isn't what you expect. So join us this summer, in this seaso...

It's a complicated thing to think about freedom in 2023. Yes, we celebrate the opportunities afforded to many of us living in the US, and yet we also mourn the systemic injustice and oppression we see around us too. What do we as Jesus followers do with this tension? Believe it or not, this is a classic theological conundrum that many great thinkers have wrestled with. This Sunday, we will give it...

At Salt House, one of our core practices is sharing and hearing stories. We believe that stories matters, and that when we share our stories, we see what God is up to in the world and in our own lives. This Sunday, for Pride Sunday (the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots), we are going to hear a Salt House Story from Brenna! Brenna has served on our council, volunteered with our youth, and been pa...

Salt House is so proud to be an affirming church that practices Radical Welcome. This core practice has been part of Salt House from the beginning, and has been especially important as we find ourselves leading the way on queer affirming ministry in the Eastside. But where does it come from? Why is it so important? What does Jesus (and Demons) have to do with it? Join us Sunday to find out! 

Have you ever noticed those lists of people that Paul names in his letters? The Apostle Paul had an amazing practice when communities flourished: he gave shout-outs to the amazing leaders that made those communities happen. This Sunday at Salt House, we are going to do the same thing and celebrate those leaders in our community who dedicate their time, energy, and resources towards ensuring that t...

Body... Blood.... You know that thing that we say every week at communion, but then no one ever really talks about it, and it's really weird and gross, and a little embarrassing... Yeah. That's the thing we're gonna talk about this week. Our Life Together series continues as we talk about the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

Our Easter-season conversation of Life Together shifts focus this Sunday when we begin to talk about our sacraments. We'll learn more about the gift of Baptism and welcome new Salt House folks into the life of Jesus through this sacrament! Come and see how baptism informs and defines so much of our life now.

Certain Sundays are Big Sundays for us as a community - and this Sunday is one of them! We'll reflect back and celebrate the story of God's generosity at Salt House, we'll look to the year ahead for what God is inviting us into, and we'll learn together anew how generosity is the heart of God, even when all seems scarce. Don't miss Pastor Sara's sermon in our Life Together series on: Give.

his Sunday, we consider another aspect of our Life Together as Pastor Zach leads us through thinking about what it means to grow in community. Growth can be hard, scary, messy, even embarrassing. But luckily, we do this work together, and God does this work with us too. Don't miss it... and it won't be the same without YOU!

This Sunday, we put to practice "Life Together," by doing what communities of Jesus have done since the very beginning: listening for God. Pastor Sara will lead us into an experience of Lectio Divina, as we listen for the Divine - in scripture and in each other.

We know we are made for BELONGING – we are made for LIFE TOGETHER. As our Western culture leans hard toward self-sufficiency, individualism, and independence, we often need and hunger to be reminded that we are part of a greater whole when we dare to belong to one another, and that we are not alone in our longings and efforts for peace, justice, and healing. The Bible paints a fascinating picture...

During this season after Easter Salt House is exploring our Life Together. These are the things that mark us as members of a community with one another. We'll look back to the story of Acts in the Bible and that first group of Jesus Followers as we articulate the same questions and desires that they did, like "how do we show up for one another?" But remember, becoming a community takes time. Make...

Easter Sunday at Salt House wraps up our series on the 12-steps, “I CAN’T: Steps Toward a More Honest Spirituality.”

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week! This is the holiest part of the Christian calendar, and Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem. We are also on the 11th step of our sermon series through the 12 steps. And surprisingly, Jesus models this step in the midst of this Holy Week pageantry. Don't miss the good news of this season as we journey to the cross together! 

We will never experience the kind of freedom that we long for, that Jesus invites us to, until we become skillful at making amends when we hurt others. Sounds simple, right? Join us this Sunday for steps 8-9 (and 10) on our path to a more honest spirituality.

I can't. God can. I think I'll let God. This Sunday we continue our Lenten sermon series through the 12 Steps, and we look at Step 6 and 7. These steps help us think about how the "Let God" part of our process... but how do we do that? Especially in our "self-help" "do more" "take action" culture. What does it look like to let God show up and move in our stories? 

One of our core practices at Salt House is sharing stories, because our stories matter. Today, Dean Robertson shares his story about addiction, recover, the 12-step program, and what generous grace he's discovered.

Lent at Salt House: I Can't - Steps Toward a More Honest Spirituality.

It’s time to clean house with the 4th and 5th step. What will you do with your past regrets? It’s nearly impossible to stay sober and have unresolved remorse, so let’s work this step together on our path toward the cross and a more honest spirituality. 

Lent, the 40-day on ramp to Easter, is our individual and collective season to listen deeply for God in our lives. Join us Sunday as Pastor Sara begins our journey of surrender into the hard and healing road to the cross - and resurrection on the other side.

Ephesus was once the third largest city in the Roman Empire. It was full of grand architecture and a whose-who of the ancient world. In this letter to the Ephesians, we find all kinds of symbols and metaphors. What did these mean to the people who first read this letter? And what do they mean to us? This Sunday, we wrap up our sermon series on Ephesians and explore chapter 6 by looking back at the...

This Sunday we continue in the fifth chapter of Ephesians. Here, Paul talks about the signs of the spirit, and he mentions things like music, poetry, and prayer as ways that community can engage with the spirit of God among and do the work of Christ in the world. So we are going to do this as a community! Council President Sarah Urie will lead in an interactive prayer experience. Are you ready to...

We are headed into the fourth chapter of Ephesians. Now Paul is going to get down to the nitty gritty of what all this one-ness really looks like in real life and the glorious mess of community. We're pretty familiar with a unity that looks like forced uniformity and difference as the cause of our many divisions, but Paul has glimpsed something utterly different in Christ and believes it to be the...

We've covered so much ground in Ephesians Already. We've dug into Paul's apocalypse, that God was up to something from the beginning, making heaven and earth one and uniting groups of people who used to be divided. This Sunday, we continue and we ask: How did Paul know this was true? And what did he want us to do about it?

Belonging and salvation are synonyms in Paul's lexicon. In the second installment of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the epic story of estrangement and adoption is revealed - it was there all along! But only now can we see it; what Paul calls "the mystery of the Gospel". We'll uncover it this Sunday as we continue this teaching series on the book of Ephesians.