West End UMC Podcast Audio Podcast

Healing the Withered – The scripture for today is from Mark 3, a scene in which Jesus is being watched to see whether he will, on the sabbath, cure a man with a withered hand. He does, of course, heal the man. This man with the withered hand has likely been overlooked. A withered hand is easy to hide or overlook, and it may be that he wasn’t noticed. This healing story is often overlooked, too, be...

Born Into Love (Again) – This is Trinity Sunday, and the scripture from the Fourth Gospel is about the learned Pharisee Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night to ask a number of questions. Much as Nicodemus had questions, even as learned as we may be, we, too, can have questions, even about the concept of “The Trinity.” Although for centuries The Trinity has been described in terms of “Father, Son, an...

This is Pentecost Sunday and we are reading the account of the Holy Spirit coming in dramatic fashion to inhabit the disciples after the ascension of Jesus. The account is demonstrative of the power and work of the Holy Spirit as it acts in dramatic fashion, but not in random fashion. The participants are around 120 people, and there were surely differences among them. Although we might guess that...

This is Ascension Sunday, the day we acknowledge and celebrate Jesus’ ascension to heaven after his crucifixion and resurrection. The text for today is from the opening verses of Acts, recording that ascension of Jesus. In some ways it is reminiscent of this season in our lives when there are graduations from high schools, colleges, and such, where children and others have been educated and traine...

Love Is the Way – Today we continue a post-Easter series of several weeks of focus on 1 John and the idea of love, that God loves us and that our response to that is to love God in return, but also to love others. This is also Confirmation Sunday when we present a dozen young people who have been through the confirmation process and are ready to become full members of the church. Delivering the se...

Love Casts Out Fear – Today we continue a post-Easter series of several weeks of focus on 1 John and the idea of love, that God loves us and that our response to that is to love God in return, but also to love others. There are numerous examples in our lives and in our day of fears. Even among some churches the incentive for believing in God is the fear of God’s judgment. But the writer of 1 John...

Today we begin a post-Easter series of several weeks of focus on 1 John with some verses from chapter 3 that are centered on God’s love and how our love can be manifested in acts. Although the English word, “love,” can refer to a wide variety of emotions and acts, Greek has several different words that can be translated “love” – philos, eros, and agape, each with different applications and context...

This is West End’s annual Youth Sunday when youth take on every role in the service, including all readings, music, and preaching. The two delivering the sermon(s) are Brazier Pierce and Mary Peacock, both of whom give their own experiences related to the scripture from Luke 24:36-48, where the disciples of Jesus, having seen him crucified, are surprised when he appears to them. Brazier and Mary e...

Forgiveness Is Not What You Think – On the Second Sunday of Easter, our Congregational Care Intern, Dr. Tammy Lewis Wilborn, delivers the Communion Meditation, based on the passage from Genesis 45 where Joseph’s brothers have come to Egypt during the famine to seek food. Unbeknownst to them, he is the one from the Egyptian administration who meets with them – they are his brothers who sold him int...

Easter Sunday! The Gospel reading for our Easter service is the one from Mark’s Gospel (16.1-8). It is an odd and somewhat unsatisfactory ending to the story in that the three women who go to the tomb and are told that Jesus is risen and are then directed to tell the disciples about that and instruct them to return to Galilee where they will see him. But the final verse says they were afraid and t...

This is our Good Friday service, a remembrance held at the traditional hour of the crucifixion of Jesus. It begins with the chiming of the hour, which sets the mood. It includes a reading of two chapters of the Fourth Gospel that describe the arrest, condemnation, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, a familiar and agonizing section to hear and recall. Rev. Maggie Jarrell, our Pastor of Children and...

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering podcasts every day during Holy Week. ...

This is Maundy Thursday, the service in which we remember and participate in the Last Supper. The scripture for this service is the familiar story from the Fourth Gospel wherein Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and leaves them with the commandment to love one another. Delivering the communion meditation is our Pastor of Spiritual Formation, Rev. Will McLeane. He begins with the contrast in h...

This is Maundy Thursday, the service in which we remember and participate in the Last Supper. The scripture for this service is the familiar story from the Fourth Gospel wherein Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and leaves them with the commandment to love one another. Delivering the communion meditation is our Pastor of Spiritual Formation, Rev. Will McLeane. He begins with the contrast in h...

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering podcasts every day during Holy Week. ...

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering podcasts every day during Holy Week. ...

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering this podcast every day during Holy Week. ...

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering the podcast today, Ash Wednesday, and every day during Holy Week. ...

A Humble Walk – Today is Palm Sunday. Through Lent we have been considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on “walk humbly.” The script is the Markan version of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and we celebrate that with our own palm branches waving as we sing “Hosanna!” We know the scene was of a triumphant Jesus being welcomed and ha...

Just Keep Walking – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on “walk humbly.” The scripture today is the familiar story in Mark 10 where James and John ask a favor of Jesus, which is that they be seated at the right and left of Jesus when he comes into his glory. In all the time that the disciples have spent with Jesus, appa...

Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on mercy. The scripture today is the familiar parable of Jesus talking about separating the sheep from the goats: “If you have done this for the least of these, you have done it for me.” Jesus is saying that God is near in the needs of the needy. If humans are made in the image of God,...

A Merciful Messiah – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on mercy. The scripture today is the encounter of Jesus with blind Bartimaeus who knows Jesus is approaching and calls out to him. Some around the scene react to restrain the blind beggar, but Jesus asks him what he wants Jesus to do. We can put ourselves into the...

What Is and What Can Be: Aligning our Hearts and Heads with God’s – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and this is the second week our focus is on justice. The reading for today is a passage from Isaiah (10:1-4) that is clearly from a God angry at those who “pronounce wicked decrees” that deprive the needy. Stacey Harwell-Dye, our Pastor of...

How the Tables Have Turned – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.” The reading for this Sunday is the Markan account of Jesus entering the temple, observing the transactions going on as doves and other sacrificial beings are sold to people arriving to make sacrifices, and Jesus accusing those selling the sacrifices of misusing the Temple. Jesu...

Observing a Holy Lent – This is our Ash Wednesday service of the imposition of ashes, a time of introspection and confession in the forty days leading up to the Easter celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Rev. Shannon Baxter, our Pastor of Congregational Connection, delivers the homily. In a sense, through these forty days we walk with Jesus through the forty days he spent in the wilderness a...