St. Paul Podcast

Pastor Megan Eide preaches on Psalm 139:14. ”I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” What difference will it make in our lives when we remember that we were fearfully and wonderfully made? If we saw our worthiness through God’s eyes we would live less for the approval of others, and instead, live freely and boldly as our unique selves.

Pastor Peter W. Marty preaches on gratitude from Luke 14:1, 12-14. How do you repay certain people for something life-changing they’ve done for you? There are times in our lives when gratitude wells up so deeply within us, the unstoppable kind of gratitude, and no note can possibly describe that feeling. There is a way to live life that honors God and others for the blessings we’ve known. 

Pastor Katy Warren preaches on the instinct toward love. That instinct includes choosing to look past societal norms, etiquette, or rules to show love and compassion when someone is hurting. Every day is the right day to care for one another. There is no wrong day to be overwhelmed by the peace and love of God. What are our instincts of faith? What is so ingrained in us that we don’t give a second...

Peter W. Marty preaches on the gifts of discernment. We each have our own unique gift of discernment that makes each of us who we are. We need more than heads full of knowledge, we need hearts full of wisdom. To better discern what is permanent and what is transient in this life and for this, we need wisdom of the heart.

From the early 20th century to the present day, the dream of America as a Beloved Community has grown in response to social conditions and shifts in worldview among philosophers, theologians, and social activists. Like each American Dream in this series, it has ties to certain aspects of the Christian gospel and has implications for ideas about the self, God, and others. That triad offers a lens t...

In week three of the series, the impact of both Enlightenment ideas and the dynamics of the 19th century leads some in society and the church to conceive of the American dream as "a land of opportunity."

Katy Warren preaches on faith. Faith is not being sure where you’re going but going anyway. It is a journey without maps. If true faith is being sure of what we hope for, then we need to regularly evaluate what consumes our hopes and our dreams, placing God at the center of our lives, and letting Christ guide our steps in many ways. Faith has less to do with gathering together a certain quantity a...

The second session in this series takes up the American dream of "a more perfect union," enshrined in the opening lines of the US Constitution (1787). Its relationship to the God-language of the Declaration of Independence and to the "city on a hill" of the Puritans offers a window into the vision and project of the country's founders to respect both the foundational place...

Peter W. Marty preaches on the gift of forgiveness. Receiving the gift of forgiveness should prompt us to develop the kind of mindset of forgiveness. It should inspire in us a posture of generous pardon, to recognize how readily God reaches out beyond our deeds and how God looks beyond consequences to give us a second chance and from which we are to become new people. If we take seriously the Lord...

Drawing heavily on research presented by Abram Van Engen in his 2020 volume, City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism , the introductory session of the 4-part series explores the origins and use of "a city on a hill" as one expression of the American dream. Biblical sources and presidential usages of the phrase contribute to the complexity that the phrase carries today. (Corr...

Pastor Sara Olson-Smith preaches on the plurality of the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer is always a communal thing, even when we pray alone. These words are powerful in how we share them. When we pray, we are pulled into connection with each other; even when we can’t hear each other prayers, we can feel them. 

Pastor Megan Eide preaches on Isaiah. Big or small, Jesus listens with love. Take time to sit in the presence of Christ, building a relationship together. Jesus was not just a character in Bible stories, maybe Jesus is someone we could get to know personally and someone who wants to know us. You are worried and distracted by many things, but there is need of only one thing.  Our worries and duties...

Pastor Katy Warren preaches on the parable of the Good Samaritan. In no Bible will you find the heading named the parable of the robbers. Jesus gives the robbers little attention, focusing on the good Samaritan who showed mercy, was kind and thoughtful, and a good neighbor. The way Jesus decides to tell this parable demonstrates that we have a choice about what we focus our lives on. Are we focusi...

Pastor Peter W. Marty preaches on Isaiah. We’ve been shaped through a multitude of words and images to view God as a paternal figure. The prophet Isaiah uses explicitly maternal images to describe God, images that appropriately enlarge our imaginations of the divine. Our conceptualization of God influences the ways in which we relate to each other. Everything we can do to enlarge our understanding...

Sara Olson-Smith preaches on the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is…not the fruits of the spirit are… It’s as though Paul couldn’t quite come up with just one word that could contain the fullness of what a spirit-led life looked like. The fruit of the spirit is not just a list of things we can check off or measure ourselves by but a whole way of life that moves toward love for ourselv...

Pastor Peter W. Marty preaches that we are all one in Christ Jesus. There is often the mistake and confidence of many people who claim to have the truth when in fact we should be pursuing the truth. Jesus didn’t seem to pay much care to the distinctions that society was obsessed with; gender, race, heritage, ancestry. Sometimes we forget about loving because we are so eager to be right. No one sho...

Pastor Katy Warren preaches making time to be in awe of the things God has made. We can be quick to the frustration of inconveniences and slow to look at the marvels around us. Carve out time to explore the beauty and intricacies of what God has formed. Be surprised, be astonished, be present, pause just long enough to say ‘wow.’

Pastor Peter A. Pettit preaches on Acts. “What does this mean?” Showing up, walking alongside, and doing it all in the way that is needed - that’s what incarnation is all about. That’s what it means that Jesus came into this world to know our lives, walk alongside us, know our language and experience, and know our power and our strength. This is how we come to know the Gospel - when someone comes...

Pastor Sara Olson-Smith preaches on the ascension of our Lord. God has a plan for bringing about God’s way of love in this world. Jesus was part of this plan; he lived, taught, healed, then died, rose again, and ascended into Heaven. But God’s plan continued to unleash the life-saving and world-changing power of God’s love into this world through us. Jesus ascended and passed that baton to us. Jes...

Pastor Peter W. Marty preaches on wholeness. Do you want to be made whole? Do you want to take the steps necessary to make you whole? We all live with unhealthiness. It could be in our relationships, our homes, our spirits and sometimes we can’t imagine an alternative to our situation, we’re not willing to take the steps necessary to get out of our circumstances. Being made whole means to be whole...

Pastor Katy Warren preaches on Revelation and all things becoming new. “See, I am making all things new.”  God is constantly at work making new joy or restoring hope in our lives, reassuring us of God’s presence. Not just someday, but right now. We are not starting over from scratch or erasing everything else that has happened but simply that God is making things new.

Pastor Peter W. Marty preaches on Psalm 23. Trusting our lives to God, who is capable of planting a deep internal peace within us, a God who doesn’t disappear when we needed but embraces us through some of the darkest and chilliest shadows of life.   

Pastor Sara Olson-Smith preaches on love and the different ways in which it is spoken to each other. Jesus’ love language is about making a way when there is no way, making possibilities where there are only impossibilities, hope where there is despair, freedom where we are stuck, and forgiveness when we’ve messed up. It is in loving others in our varied ways that we show our love for God.  

Pastor Megan Eide preaches on the questions and doubts we often face in our faith journey. Making observations, forming questions, and gathering evidence are how we interact with the world and make meaning in it. These questions aren't stop signs or road bumps on our journey, instead, they can be guideposts to help travel a more authentic road toward God.  Hear Our Praises Text and music by R...

Pastor Peter W. Marty preaches on Easter Sunday. Life is stronger than death and despair is not permanent. While none of us know exactly what resurrection will look like, not until it happens to us, Paul makes clear that it is stitched into our lives in a daily way and we can come to know and trust the shape of resurrection through small signs in our lives.   Because He Lives Words and Music by Ed...