The Local Church

The wine ran out. And Jesus turned to the servants. In the Redacted series finale, we sit with the unnamed ones doing the grunt work — hauling water, wondering if it matters. This one is for every person who's asked that same question about their own life.

In this sermon, we explore the story of an unnamed Ethiopian eunuch whose encounter with Philip on a desert road reveals a profound, inclusive truth: there is a place for everyone in God’s story. Despite the rigid societal boundaries of his time, the eunuch discovers that God’s welcome is not based on status, physical integrity, or conformity, but on a grace that is accessible to all. We are remin...

In this sermon, we explore the powerful, disruptive truth that God’s voice consistently echoes from the margins, bypassing the gates of privilege to speak through the very people our institutions actively redact. By juxtaposing the erased legacy of civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin with the unnamed, enslaved young girl who sparked the healing of Syria’s chief military commander, we are challen...

In this sermon, we explore the transformative power of the Bible’s unnamed characters, focusing on the young boy who offered his five loaves and two fish to feed thousands. When we swim in a culture of scarcity, it is tragically easy to leap from "it’s not enough" to "I’m not enough," weaponizing our insignificance and discounting both ourselves and others. Yet Jesus disrupts this rigid math of un...

In this sermon, we are invited to move past the mathematical impossibility of the Trinity and instead step directly into its dance. By exploring how language forms our reality, we discover that God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not a theological puzzle to solve, but an eternal, self-giving community of love to participate in. Rather than leaving us to white-knuckle our way through Christ's ra...

In this sermon, we trade the exhaustion of trying to "bat 1,000" for the scandalous grace of Pentecost—a day when God pours out a Spirit not for the perfect, but for "all flesh." We explore how our fragile, forgetful, and silver-haired humanity is exactly where the Holy Spirit chooses to take up residence. You are invited to stop waiting until you have it all together and instead become God’s grea...

In this sermon, we dismantle the cultural idol of selfish ambition to uncover the radical liberation found in Christ-like humility. We explore the "Christ Hymn" of Philippians, discovering that true divine power isn't found in climbing the ladder of empire, but in the courageous descent to serve others. By choosing the bottom, we find a unity that transcends our divisions and a love that washes th...

In this sermon, we explore the defiant nature of joy as an unbidden guest that arrives precisely when we expect it least. Drawing on the series Surprise Party: 50 Days of Enchantment, we examine how the Apostle Paul—writing from the claustrophobia of a prison cell—aligns himself with a "do-it-again" God whose very nature is delight. We are invited to stop resisting these fleeting moments of grace...

In this sermon, we confront the "surprise" no one wants: the devastating gap between the miracle we prayed for and the reality of grief. Amidst the heartbreak of losing a beloved child, we set aside the party to sit in the honest, defiant landscape of Psalm 23. We discover a God who doesn't offer trite explanations but a relentless, pursuing presence—a love that chases us even into the darkest val...

In this sermon, we explore the radical, countercultural surprise of staying put. In a world that profits from our restlessness, we investigate how the "vow of stability" offers a defiant path toward reenchantment. By looking at the grounded presence of Paul and Silas in a midnight prison cell, we discover that the grace we seek isn't found in our escape, but in our commitment to remain present to...

In this sermon, we explore the scandalous reach of Easter hope through the lens of Saul's blinding encounter on the road to Damascus. We confront a God who subverts our hierarchies of belonging, trading our rigid "safety patrol" certainties for a grace that reaches the very people we have labeled as "out." By examining the quiet bravery of Ananias, we are challenged to move beyond condemnation and...

In this sermon, we slow down long enough to see what cynicism keeps us from seeing — that resurrection isn't a one-time event that happened long ago, but the very shape of reality itself, breaking through in ordinary moments all around us. We sit with Mary Magdalene in her grief, name the ways disappointment calcifies into resignation, and discover that what finally breaks through isn't argument o...

In this Palm Sunday sermon, we repent of triumphalism—our desperate need for a God who wins—and discover what's revealed when those false images finally fall. We've all handed our hope to something that couldn't hold it, and called it faith. But the one who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey isn't heading for a throne. He's heading through death. And it turns out, that's exactly where the God who wa...

In this sermon, guest preacher Alyson Tiwari invites us into the most honest question grief ever asks: Where were you? Using the story of Lazarus—and her own profound loss—she explores what it looks like to bring our full, unguarded selves to Jesus, anger and all. Reenchantment, she reminds us, isn't relentless optimism; it's the kind of presence that can hold grief and hope in the same breath, an...

In this sermon, we ask what we might be missing when we get stuck pining for the past. Nostalgia is seductive—it feels like home—but it can blind us to what God is doing right now. We explore how the man born blind models a different way: not reaching backward, but saying hello to here. Part of our series Reenchanted: A Series for Lent on Believing Again. The past isn't a destination. It's evidenc...

In this sermon, part of our Lenten series Reenchanted: A Series for Lent on Believing Again, we follow Jesus to Jacob's well — where he crosses every line his world drew to sit with a Samaritan woman his culture told him to avoid. We explore how our habit of sorting the world into clean categories — insider and outsider, worthy and unworthy — is the fast track to disenchantment, and how Jesus move...

In our second week of the Reenchanted series, we talk about ditching the intellectual armor that keeps us isolated and stuck in "knowing" all the right answers. Stop trying to think your way to God, and start learning how to feel your way back to the wild, messy, embodied life you were meant to live. It’s time to repent of certainty and let your finite, beautiful body be the place where divine gra...

In this sermon, we explore the tension between our modern obsession with certainty and the ancient invitation to walk by faith. Using the story of Jesus in the wilderness, we see how the tempter’s demand for proof is a trap designed to replace intimacy with control. True reenchantment isn't found in five-star guarantees or "crystal stairs," but in the dark corners where we finally stop demanding d...

Special guest preacher Rev. Gail Song Bantum wraps up our series, "Building the Beloved Community."

In this sermon, we continue our series, Building the Beloved Community: A Blueprint from Dream to Reality, by diving into the structural integrity of the 'frame.' We move past the foundation of 'somebodiness' to see how the prophet Micah's call reveals the essential, non-negotiable components: to do justice, embrace hesed (faithful love), and walk humbly with God. These three elements are the core...

In this sermon, we launch our new series, Building the Beloved Community: A Blueprint from Dream to Reality, and dive into the faithful life that refuses to shrink the horizon. Drawing on the fierce wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the prophet Isaiah, we confront the lie that tells us we are nobodies, anchoring ourselves instead in the radical truth of "somebodiness"—our inherent, God-giv...

In this sermon, we dive into the disruptive power of Jesus’s baptism, revealing how it offers a new imagination for how we see the world. Jesus steps into the water to redefine righteousness—it’s not about maintaining purity or order, but about radical solidarity that shatters systems of control and exclusion. By claiming our first, revolutionary name as Beloved, we embody a vision in which justic...

In this sermon, we explore the stark contrast between the desperate, grasping control of King Herod and the open-handed, joyful trust of the Magi on Epiphany Sunday. Tired of the anxiety that comes with trying to manufacture, manage, and secure every outcome in your life? The Epiphany story is an invitation to receive the gift of God already present. Release your white-knuckled grip, surrender you...

In this special Christmas Eve homily, we wrestle with the chasm between the wide-eyed wonder of a child’s Christmas and the sleepless anxiety of adult logistics and existential uncertainty. We discover that the Christmas story is not a distant, sanitized tale but a radical, relatable gift of divine presence. It reveals God drawing near—Emmanuel—to stand in solidarity with us amid the pressure, gri...

In this sermon, we dismantle the myth that joy is a prize to be earned or a mindset to be curated. Digging into the Christmas story—from the animals who bear witness to the cosmic claim of John’s sarx—we discover that God has already pitched a tent in the fragile, biological stuff of creation. Joy isn't a reward for overcoming; it's an ever-present sign of God’s presence, which holds us through ev...