The Neighborhood Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Texts: Exodus 32:1-14 & Matthew 22:1-14 A wedding invitation turns into a city on fire. A camp cookout turns into a golden calf. If that sounds like whiplash, you’re hearing the same tension we wrestle with today: God keeps setting the table, and we keep grabbing for control when fear kicks in. We read Matthew 22’s wedding banquet parable...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: Matthew 21:33-46 A preschooler asks, “Do you own the church?” and suddenly a famous Bible story stops being abstract. We take Jesus’ Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Matthew 21:33–46) out of the “ancient vineyard” and into everyday church life, where control, fear, and entitlement can creep in fast. The question underneath it all is simpl...

Send us Fan Mail Guest Speaker: David LaMotte We’ve all seen the plot: a crisis hits, a special person shows up, dramatic action saves the day, and everyone else claps. David LaMotte argues that story is not just entertainment, it quietly trains us to feel powerless. If you’ve ever looked at the news, felt the weight of the world, and thought “What am I supposed to do,” this conversation gives you...

Send us Fan Mail Special Guest: David LaMotte Something is off in the gut, and we can feel it. Sitting down live with songwriter and activist David LaMotte, we start with “splengnitzomai,” a Greek word for compassion that describes the bodily jolt of realizing the world is not as it should be. From that first question, we wrestle with a tension many of us carry: suffering is everywhere, injustice...

Send us Fan Mail Special Guest Preacher: David LaMotte The Good Samaritan might be the most quoted story in Christianity and also one of the most misunderstood. We sit down with singer-songwriter, speaker, and author David LaMotte to hear why Jesus tells this parable in a way that would have sounded outrageous to his first listeners, and why its sharp edge still matters in a time of polarization,...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Texts: Jonah 3:10-4:11 God’s generosity can be the most comforting thing in the world until it shows up for someone we think doesn’t deserve it. We start with Jonah watching Nineveh get mercy and realizing he would rather have fireworks than forgiveness. When God raises a bush, sends a worm, and lets the wind beat down, the story turns into a...

Send us Fan Mail A hymn gets stuck in your head and suddenly you are humming your way through the day, whether you meant to or not. We lean into that idea and ask a surprising question: what if that looping melody is actually a form of prayer, a lived version of “pray without ceasing”? From a lifelong choir story to a simple “pay it forward” offering for church music, we talk honestly about how wo...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Texts: Exodus 14:19-31 & Matthew 18:21-35 A sea splits, an army panics, and a cloud becomes both darkness and light. We start with Exodus 14 because it paints the clearest picture of what God’s rescue feels like: trapped, afraid, outmatched, and then somehow carried through. That story is more than ancient history. It exposes the differen...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Texts: 2 Kings 25 When the world feels like a fire hose to the face, it’s tempting to numb out, romanticize the past, or assume nothing can change. We start with the raw Scripture of 2 Kings 25, where Jerusalem falls and the Babylonian exile begins, then we jump forward thirty-seven years to a surprising closing scene: the exiled king Jehoiac...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: 2 Kings 22:1-13; 23:1-4, 24-27 A book goes missing in God’s own house and when it turns up, it changes everything. We sit with the story of King Josiah from 2 Kings 22–23, where a routine temple cleanup turns into a spiritual reckoning: the book of the law is found, read aloud, and the king responds not with excuses, but with grief, hon...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: 2 Kings 17:1-23 One bad day rarely explains a collapse. We start with a real-world glitch, a Sunday livestream where the audio fails, then move into a far heavier breakdown: the fall of Israel to Assyria in 722 BCE as told in 2 Kings 17. The text is long, sharp, and uncomfortable, and we do not rush past that discomfort. We read it as b...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: 2 Kings 6:8-23 A king makes war plans in private, yet every move gets exposed and every ambush fails. That tension kicks off a startling passage from 2 Kings 6 where Elisha seems to know what’s said in the enemy’s bedchamber, an army surrounds a small city at night, and a terrified servant asks the question we all ask when pressure clos...

Send us Fan Mail A single word can change how you survive grief. When Psalm 23 says goodness and mercy “follow” you, it comforts, but when you hear the older, stronger sense of the verb, “pursue,” it becomes a declaration that God’s love is not passive. It hunts you down. We hold that image up against the reality of death and the ache of absence, and we let it speak honestly to the hearts that fee...

Send us Fan Mail “Hi, neighbor.” That small, steady greeting opens a much bigger story: the life of Joseph Thomas Brown, a Marine, Vietnam veteran, commissioned lay pastor, husband, father, and friend who served with quiet strength. We gather in a mixture of grief and gratitude, anchored in Christian hope and the promise that death does not have the final word. We begin at the waters of baptism an...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: 2 Kings 5:1-4, 9-14 A powerful commander shows up in the Bible with everything that signals success: reputation, victories, and royal favor. Then the story quietly reveals his real dependence, not on status or strength, but on the wisdom of someone the text will not even dignify with a name. We take on 2 Kings 5 and practice a different...

Send us Fan Mail Elizabeth Bruce Taylor of Greensboro, NC, age 67, passed away at home on July 5, 2026. Known as E.B. since childhood, she lived a life blessed with a wide circle of family and friends. Born in Kingsport, TN, to Robert and Janie Bruce, E.B. was the fifth of six children. She attended college at Rhodes College where she met her future husband, David Taylor; they married the summer a...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Edyth Potter Text: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 The fastest way to lose your peace is to take on a job that was never yours: sorting people into “good” and “bad.” We open with Romans 8 and its raw honesty about suffering, creation’s groaning, and the kind of hope you can’t see yet but still choose to trust. Paul’s words don’t pretend the world is fine. They point to ado...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: 2 Kings 2:1-15 Someone leaves, and the room gets quiet in a way you can feel in your chest. We start with prayer and a reading from 2 Kings 2:1–15, then step into the story of Elijah and Elisha as it becomes a mirror for real life: mentors who shaped us, loved ones who “loved us into being,” and the hard truth that goodbyes still come e...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Edyth Potter Texts: Romans 7:15-25a & Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 You ever feel like you’re carrying two lives inside one body: the person you want to be and the person you see in the mirror? We start with Paul’s blunt honesty in Romans 7 about the inner struggle, then we widen the lens to the paradox of being human: craving freedom and security, wanting rest while...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Edyth Potter Texts: Romans 8:1-11 & Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 What if the pressure to “make something of yourself” is exactly what keeps you from becoming who God already designed you to be? We start with Romans 8 and the promise of no condemnation, then follow Paul’s sharp contrast between life in the flesh and life in the Spirit. The question underneath it all is...

Send us Fan Mail Text: 1 Kings 19:1-18 Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Faith fatigue can sneak up on you right after you’ve done something brave. You fight for what is right, you try to love your neighbor, you try to follow Jesus with your whole life, and then the world still feels cruel and out of control. That emotional crash is where Elijah lands in 1 Kings 19 and it’s where many of us r...

Send us Fan Mail Text: 1 Kings 18:20-40 Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing A drought that will not break. A nation hedging its bets. A prophet who refuses to let the crowd hide behind silence. We sit with 1 Kings 18 and the unforgettable showdown on Mount Carmel, where Elijah puts the real question on the table: who do you actually serve when the stakes are high and the sky stays empty?  We wa...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: 1 Kings 12:1-17 A single bad listening decision can split a community, a workplace, even a nation. We open with 1 Kings 12 and the moment Rehoboam steps into power, hears a desperate plea to lighten the burden Solomon left behind, and chooses the advice that flatters him most. The result is as dramatic as it is familiar: harsh words, wo...

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Send us Fan Mail Text: 1 Kings 8:22-30 Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing God might meet us in a breathtaking sanctuary, but that does not mean God lives there. We open with 1 Kings 8:22–30, Solomon’s Prayer of Dedication, and sit with the surprising honesty at its center: “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built.” That single line reframes...