The Gathering

As I was praying about this morning—this first Sunday of 2026—I started wondering: What if we had "The Gathering Wrapped"? What if we could pull the data on our spiritual life as a community? If God ran the algorithm on The Gathering McCausland for 2025, would our "Minutes Listened" be skewed toward fear and anxiety, or toward hope and action? This morning is our "Visioning Sunday", wherein we loo...

Today, we are going to focus on the bit after Linus Van Pelt’s recounting of the Christmas tale. What happens next after Jesus is born? Through the remembrance of the Christmas story, we’re called to be transformed. To have our lives changed in light of God’s willingness to become a person like you and me, and be God with us, here in creation. We are called to have our expectations of the world su...

Today we finish up our Peace series. The question today is how do we have peace with God? It’s not about what we think or feel so much as it is how God sees us, humanity. Now we could go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible and name the ways God views us as humanity, so today’s few points are not an exhaustive list by any means. But what I hope you know is that God's stance through mille...

When you read the Christmas story, and really listen to what it says, you begin to see what this peace can look like and feel like in your life. At Christmas, Jesus brings peace through Through Proximity – being close to you and not leaving you alone; Through Power- the capacity to do what you can’t do because nothing with God is impossible; and Through the Promise that when evil does come, or str...

At Christmas, strained relationships can weigh especially heavy. This weekI will talk about how God’s treatment of us in Jesus offers us a model for our treatment of one another. Joseph embodies this model in his treatment of Mary. The Christmas story says that Jesus is an expression of God’s mercy, grace, and forgiveness towards us. What would it look like for us to treat others in our lives with...

The angels at Christmas declared that Jesus’ birth would bring us peace. In a divided world, with complicated families and stressful schedules, we still need that gift. Throughout the Christmas season, we will talk about how Jesus can help bring peace to all aspects of our lives. From our inner spirit to outward relationships, Jesus can resolve tension, reduce stress, heal relationships, and bring...

Practicing gratitude takes time and energy that is in short supply for most of us. Because of that, we tend to be people that blaze right through life, along with a lot of good stuff, without noticing or stopping to say thank you. In our focus on anxiety about the future, we often fail to practice gratitude for the present. In the middle of busy and hectic lives, we are called to be people that gi...

Today we continue our series on gratitude. Last week we talked about giving thanks in good times, but today I want to move to a different challenge, giving thanks in seasons of struggle and when the circumstances in your life aren’t great. When Paul tells us to be glad in the Lord always, or to give thanks in every situation, he isn't trying to deny difficulty. does not want us to pretend that tou...

We’re starting Three Weeks of Thanks. We’re in this season that’s centered around thankfulness and gratitude yet we often as humans struggle with what it means to be thankful, to show gratitude.. This isn’t something folks have a hard time only in challenging times in life, we often can struggle to show thanks even when things are going well in our lives. In this series, we’re going to chat about...

Faith requires risk, moments when God asks us to trust and step out in faith. When Peter sees Jesus in the storm, Jesus doesn't come to meet him in the safety of the boat, rather Jesus calls Peter out on the water into the storm. Peter had a choice to make, a risk to meet Jesus somewhere new. He took the step, and even though he faltered, he got to experience walking on water! For many of us, the...

Have you ever received a really great gift? What made it good? How about a really bad gift? What made it bad? When Jesus and the disciples were in Jerusalem, they observed people making an offering. Jesus does something surprising, he deems certain gifts as better than others. Why? In part 4, we will talk about what makes a gift generous and allow God to challenge us to think about the nature of t...

Jesus doesn’t teach generosity to subtract from our life. He doesn’t talk about it in terms of sacrifice, or the giving up of something. Instead, Jesus says that giving is a pathway to a fuller way of life. So why do we give? What does generosity do in us and for us? Jesus put it really simply. A life of generosity is better. In part 3, we will look at biblical teachings around what a life of gene...

If we want God to do more through our church, we have to allow God to do more in our lives. Generosity is one of the ways that we make more of our lives available to God – to shape, mold, use. The young ruler wanted God to do more with his life, but he was unwilling to allow God to do more in his life. Jesus challenged him to follow, and he couldn’t do it. We too have an opportunity to allow God t...

From everyone who has much, much will be required; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be expected. (Luke 12.48 CSB) Much Given, Much Expected. Jesus doesn’t mince words. From the parable and then this closing line, he is making something really clear. There are two ways that we can respond to all that God has given us, entrusted to us, blessed us with. We can work to...

Today we finish our series on the most familiar and famous prayer in the history of the church. We call it the Lord’s Prayer. Here at The Gathering, we say these words every single week. Many of us grew up learning, repeating and reciting these words. But sometimes it is precisely the most familiar parts of our faith, that we don’t spend time thinking about. And yet they are so powerful, shaping n...

Today we are beginning a short series on the most familiar and famous prayer in the history of the church. We call it the Lord’s Prayer. Here at The Gathering, we say these words every single week. Many of us grew up learning, repeating and reciting these words. But sometimes it is precisely the most familiar parts of our faith, that we don’t spend time thinking about. And yet they are so powerful...

Today we are beginning a short series on the most familiar and famous prayer in the history of the church. We call it the Lord’s Prayer. Here at The Gathering, we say these words every single week. Many of us grew up learning, repeating and reciting these words. But sometimes it is precisely the most familiar parts of our faith, that we don’t spend time thinking about. And yet they are so powerful...

In the New Testament, before there was a name for ‘church’, they just called it ekklesia — which is Greek for the gathering. A place for people to find one another, to build one another up, and to connect with Jesus. To stand in this church today, in this beautiful space, surrounded by this vibrant community, is to see that dream not just realized, but flourishing and multiplying in ways we could...

We are one church united in our desire to follow Jesus and grow in our faith. But we are different from one another, most notably, we span 7 generations. We have an incredible opportunity to listen and learn about our faith FROM each other instead of talking PAST each other. In our final week of Boomers to Zoomers, we're focused on Boomers. A couple of weeks ago, several boomers from our church ga...

We are one church united in our desire to follow Jesus and grow in our faith. But we are different from one another, most notably, we span 7 generations. We have an incredible opportunity to listen and learn about our faith FROM each other instead of talking PAST each other. Today is all about Millennials. We didn't forget you, Gen X! This week is all about you. Grunge. Latchkey. Gen-X's unique ro...

We are one church united in our desire to follow Jesus and grow in our faith. But we are different from one another, most notably, we span 7 generations. We have an incredible opportunity to listen and learn about our faith FROM each other instead of talking PAST each other. Today is all about Millennials. This past week, we sat down with some of the Millennials in our congregation to hear what t...

The church is a community of people following Jesus. We are united together in our common faith in Jesus and desire to grow closer to God. But while we are united in this, we are not uniform. We are not uniform in what we look like, what we are thinking, where we’ve come from and what we are going through. We are also multigenerational – having people from 7 generations. So we have different persp...

God is referred to as He, Father, King so much in scripture that many people just assume that is the proper way to talk about God. But people are often surprised that God is also consistently talked about in feminine ways in the Bible as well, especially as a Mother. All of us have images and metaphors for God that are comfortable to us. We need images and metaphors to understand God, but God is a...

God is referred to as He, Father, King so much in scripture that many people just assume that is the proper way to talk about God. But people are often surprised that God is also consistently talked about in feminine ways in the Bible as well, especially as a Mother. All of us have images and metaphors for God that are comfortable to us. We need images and metaphors to understand God, but God is a...

Does God have a plan. Is God in control? Yes. Do you get to make choices and shape your life? Yes. When you hold these both together, it offers a lot of hope. God is in control and scripture promises that God goes before us, walks with us, and has determined to save us. But in this journey, we have choices about how to live and move through life. And you don’t have to be worried about “missing” Go...