South Arm United Church's Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Fear doesn't stop us. This recording is from 04 January 2026, the Sunday closest to Epiphany (the day we celebrate the wise men reaching the holy family and paying homage to Jesus with their worship and precious gifts). On the road to Jesus the wise men are confronted by King Herod. Threatened by any mention of another king, ruler or authority in his earthly realm, Herod hatc...

Send us Fan Mail Christmastide and the Holiday season can be fraught with memories of years past, loved ones we miss, loneliness, stress and an manner of struggles. The human experience is not all sunshine and rainbows. We hold both the hope, peace, joy and love of Christmas while at the same time acknowledging that life can be quite hard and the world is a challenging and often violent place in w...

Send us Fan Mail There are lots of moments in life both joyful and difficult where reaching out for someone's hand is of great comfort. In our service today we hear the call to reach out for God's hand for our comfort and strength and then to reach our hand out to those in need. 

Send us Fan Mail The news headlines we read and the top stories on TV and Radio news that seem to get the most attention tend to be negative. But in a world with lots to get us down and be concerned about, there are also plenty of Good News stories as well. They are just not featured as prominently. But there are plenty of people doing beautiful things in the world if we take the time to look. And...

Send us Fan Mail Today we look at the story of the angel's anunciation to Mary that she is to be with child and this child is of God. While we may never have an angel visitation and hear those words, "do not be afraid" we are reminded that God calls us to walk faithfully, to pray and to serve others through all times and places - including in the very midst of our fears. 

Send us Fan Mail Thanks to www.sundayschool.store we found a free, no practice needed family pageant with a theme centring on the lights of Christmas and "The One True Light of Christmas". Listen in as school teacher Jean Ann who often leads our Children and Families programming along with Reverend Lauren work our way through a pageant with no rehearsal. The script was in place, Jean Ann...

Send us Fan Mail Advent 2 (Peace) Are you The One who is to come? Or, is there another? John the Baptist asks these 2 pivotal, important questions from prison he wishes to have resolved with Jesus. In our day and time we might expect a simple 'Yes' or 'No' response to those prompts, but Jesus answer is not so simple or straightforward. Instead, Jesus quotes Isaiah and cues John...

Send us Fan Mail Reign of Christ/Christ the King Sunday. We begin today by looking at the text before today's text so that we have the full context of the message. Elizabeth and Zechariah are mature in years and have never had a child. While Zechariah is serving in the temple and angel appears and tells Zechariah that his prayers have been heard and Elizabeth will against all odds, by the wil...

Send us Fan Mail Advent 1 (Hope). This year we follow a series produced by "A Sanctified Art" with the theme, "What Do You Fear? Insisting On Hope This Advent". Today we revisit the story we touched on last week of Zechariah and Elizabeth and dive deeper into the Hope it offers us for our time. 

Send us Fan Mail Visions of heaven a new earth fill our Christian imagination. One day God's new Kindom will come about. One day justice will be the way. One day all will live peaceably side by side. Children will be born, people will live long and the ways of this world will be turned around for good. Until that day, we as followers of Jesus are called to be good news bearers, light givers a...

Send us Fan Mail There are a myriad of theories and beliefs around the end of times. Some of them sound very convincing. Paul reminds the believers in Thessalonica to stay the course, remember what you were taught and to keep calm and carry on in following and serving God. Do not be distracted by 'fake news' of convincing theories of the end of times. Is it today? We don't know. Did...

Send us Fan Mail Every 3 years The United Church of Canada has a meeting where worship takes places with representatives from across Canada, the business of the national church is conducted and a new Moderator who is our head of the church is elected. Susan Johnson from our neighbouring church, Gilmore Park United Church was a delegate to this huge occasion. Today she blends worship with news of w...

Send us Fan Mail The Revised Common Lectionary today offers a letter believed to have been written by the Apostle Paul with words of encouragement to a community of believers in Thessalonica. Under persecution, their faith and love for one another are growing stronger. Paul, Silvanus and Timothy commend the community and encourage them to be worthy of the calling God has given them. However the le...

Send us Fan Mail Guest Preacher and Presider, The Reverend Maggie Watts-Hammond lead this service as Rev. Lauren was away. Hear Rev. Maggie's wonderful interpretation of the parable of "The Widow and the Unjust Judge". How can we who are called to offer words of hope, faith, strength and comfort preach in a world of such trials and stay clear of politics? The truth is, we cannot.

Send us Fan Mail "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" our Psalm says today. But there is more to 'fear of the Lord' than the surface level, English translation where we imagine being scared. In Hebrew the word for fear ( yirah ) is also translated as reverence and respect. So, to hold God in the highest regard with reverence and respect is the beginning of wisdom. Ackn...

Send us Fan Mail From the Revised Common Lectionary offerings for this week we return to the Psalms, the mini-Bible, the songs and poetry of the Hebrew Bible. Today we look at Psalm 37, a Wisdom Psalm which seems to speak right into our time today with an age old question, "How do we affirm a Great and Holy God and live in the midst of a messy and often unjust world where wrongdoing seems to...

Send us Fan Mail A rich man who seems to be living easy and a poor man who has it rough and lives right outside the gates of the rich man's home. Two very different people and life circumstances. When they die, they find their roles reversed. The poor man is with Abraham and the rich man is not. He is somewhere else and there is a gulf between them which cannot be crossed. What do we make of...

Send us Fan Mail Did Jesus really say, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters and even life itself cannot be my disciple"? And if so, what did he mean? First, did he say it? Maybe. Scripture records it as such. Did he mean it? Well, we don't believe in a literal translation of being called to hate anyone. No, we are called t...

Send us Fan Mail This Sunday we welcomed guest preacher, Reverend Jay Olson. Rev. Jay has helped shepherd our church through 1 year with no clergy and 2 years with Lauren as a student minister. Today Lauren was officially sworn in as the minister of South Arm United Church. Hear Jay preach about the Body of Christ and how we are all in this together. 

Send us Fan Mail Today we hear the call to pray for Kings and those in positions of authority. We also learn a formula for structuring our prayers: ACTSI. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplications and Intercession. We start by praising and adoring God. This is followed by Confession where we admit to God the ways we have fallen short of God's best for us and, we receive God's fo...

Send us Fan Mail Again this Sunday we encounter Jesus on a Sabbath, with Pharisees (a sect of religious leaders who were very strict about following the law) and we're presented with a person in need of healing. Jesus asks if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath, qualifies the ask further and then heals a man of dropsy (edema/swelling). The man leaves healed and Jesus offers 2 lessons: (1) A p...

Send us Fan Mail This Sunday we examined the command to honour the Sabbath and keep it holy. In the synagogue on a Sabbath, Jesus sees a woman bent over for 18 years. She doesn't ask for help but he sees her, lays hands on her and pronounces her healed. She stands up for the first time in 18 years and is restored to wholeness in body and in the community at large. A leader is sure Jesus has b...

Send us Fan Mail Last week we began exploring The Hall of Faith. We looked at some of the biggest names and stories we know in The Bible and how God works through people to accomplish God's plans. Today we continue with a few more such stories along with a warning. Pursuing The Way of God runs counter to the ways of this world and can bring on trouble including persecution and even death. In...

Send us Fan Mail Today we start a 2 week examination of what has been called The Hall of Faith, a 'whose who' of great Biblical figures we know and recognize. As we look at their lives we are reminded that God is awesome, God seeks relationship with all of us, that we too are vessels of God's love and work in the world and finally, that "By Faith," with God, all things are...

Send us Fan Mail After Jesus finishing praying, one of the disciples asks Jesus how to pray. Jesus lays out a shorter form of what we know as "The Lord's Prayer". Following this, Jesus offers a metaphor of how we as humans who are beautiful and messy creatures know how to give good gifts to one another and how much more does our Holy God is altogether Good know how to give us all go...