The Neighborhood Podcast

Send us Fan Mail What happens when you put social media and AI on trial using Scripture as the judge? We invite you into a creative, candid journey through anxiety, attention, and the spiritual disciplines that help us live with peace in a noisy world. Grounded in Philippians 4 and Proverbs 4, we explore how prayer, gratitude, and a straight path can coexist with modern tools—if we choose them int...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Texts: Proverbs 4:25-27 & Philippians 4:6-9 What happens when Scripture sits on the bench and your phone takes the stand? We put social media and AI through a playful mock trial, using Philippians 4 and Proverbs 4 as the judge and jury, and followed the evidence toward a surprising, practical middle way. Instead of a simple guilty or not...

Send us Fan Mail A winter storm closed our doors, but not our hearts. We met from living rooms and kitchen tables, lit by lamps and laptop screens, to breathe, pray, and remember what steadies us when the world feels heavy. Guided by Mary Oliver’s poetry and the strength of Psalm 27, we explored how attention can become a kind of prayer—and how wonder can reshape the way we move through news, soci...

Send us Fan Mail Presenter: Rev. Dr. Kit Schooley A vineyard without hedges. An angel who sounds like Christ. A slave who weeds beyond the brief and is named co‑heir with the son. We dive into The Shepherd of Hermas, a wildly popular early Christian text from Rome that many congregations cherished but the canon ultimately set aside. Across visions, mandates, and parables, Hermas wrestles with a pr...

Send us Fan Mail Preacher: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Texts: Jeremiah 6:16 & Matthew 11:28-30  When the world shouts from every screen, how do we stay awake to suffering without burning out our souls? We open with Jeremiah’s call to “stand at the crossroads” and pair it with Jesus’ invitation to the weary, building a roadmap for people who want to be engaged, faithful, and sane in a noisy age...

Send us Fan Mail Presenter: Rev. Dr. Kit Schooley A fragile manuscript, a private room, and a challenge that still stings: who gets to speak for Jesus when the records are broken and the crowd isn’t there to witness it? We unpack the Gospel of Mary against a Hellenistic backdrop where God is distant, matter feels suspect, and the soul struggles upward. Instead of a public miracle at Galilee, we he...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Kit Schooley Texts: Genesis 1:1-9 & Mark 1:4-11 A world that once felt like welter and waste can be reordered with a word and a pour. We follow the current from Genesis’s first light to the Jordan’s torn-open sky and into a mountain village where a wooden coffin becomes a font of resurrection. Along the way, we wrestle with an earthy, practical question—how...

Send us Fan Mail Presenter: GPPC Parish Associate Rev. Kit Schooley What happens when the eyewitnesses are gone, the libraries are empty, and communities stretch from Syria to Africa with different memories of Jesus? We step into that world and explore how early Christians tried to make sense of a Savior they never met, zeroing in on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the contested ground where here...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Texts: Matthew 2:1-12, 16-18 A star rises over a troubled world and we’re left with a choice: move the way fear moves, or let love lead us down another road. We follow Matthew’s story of the Magi and Herod to explore how power panics, how people brace for the fallout, and how a quiet act of reverence can become a bold act of resistance. The j...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: Luke 2:1-20 Ever notice how fear always sounds like it’s holding a megaphone while hope shows up as a whisper? We gather on a holy night to test those voices against the Christmas story, tracing a line from Isaiah’s promise of peace to Luke’s account of a birth under census, empire, and displacement. Along the way, we name the inner gui...

Send us Fan Mail The sanctuary felt different on the longest night: softer voices, slower breath, and a circle of candles passing from hand to hand. We opened a gentle space where grief and fear could sit beside hope without apology, naming what hurts and honoring the love beneath it. With readings from Isaiah and Psalm 30, we walked the honest path from lament to promise, not rushing the night bu...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Texts: Isaiah 41:5-10 & Matthew 1:18-25 Fear is loud, but solidarity speaks louder. We open with Isaiah’s steady promise and follow the quiet courage of Joseph, then bring those ancient words into modern halls and fellowship rooms where meals are served, grief is carried, and neighbors sleep safely one floor beneath the sanctuary. The thr...

Send us Fan Mail Fear doesn’t vanish on command, and it rarely keeps office hours. We open with a breath prayer—mercy in, mercy out—and let that rhythm carry us into Isaiah 41, where trembling coastlands meet a voice that says, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.” From there, the room becomes a small chorus of courage: each one helps the other, I have chosen you, upheld by a victorious right han...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: Luke 1:26-39 A well-worn story can still wake the soul when we let it speak without the safety net of clichés. We open the season with Jeremiah’s protest and Mary’s trembling yes, tracking how both were called into risk and equipped not with slogans but with presence, touch, and community. The message challenges quick fixes like “God ne...

Send us Fan Mail What if the words do not be afraid are less command and more shelter? We open the season by sitting with two call stories—Jeremiah’s reluctant start and Mary’s steady yes—and discover how fear, hope, and community braid into courage. The readings from Jeremiah 1:4–10 and Luke 1:26–39 set the stage: a young prophet who feels too small, a young woman who asks how and then moves with...

Send us Fan Mail Text: Matthew 11:1-11 Preacher: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing The most honest prayers start with hunger: for bread, for laughter, for a hand to hold. From that place we follow John the Baptist into a prison cell and hear the question many of us whisper when life closes in: are we still waiting on the right hope? The answer doesn’t arrive as a debate. It arrives as lives changed—the...

Send us Fan Mail What if the clearest sign of hope isn’t a headline-worthy rescue, but a street-level repair you can name by heart? We step into Advent’s quiet tension with John the Baptist—not the fiery prophet at the river, but the truth-teller in a cell—asking whether the story he gave his life to is still worth trusting. His question to Jesus is raw and recognizable: Are you the one who is to...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: Luke 1:5-13 The season opens in a world humming with anxiety, and we refuse to look away. We begin with a prayerful grounding, then move into the charged space of Luke 1—Zechariah at the altar, an angel at his side, and a heart seized by tarasso, that deep inner shaking that follows surprise and uncertainty. Alongside the sacred text, w...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Leslie Loyd, President & COO of A Simple Gesture What if the miracle starts before the bread ever breaks? We open with a prayer for wisdom and peace, then move through Psalm 100 and Philippians 4 to ground a timely, human conversation about hunger, dignity, and the quiet borders that shape who we consider “ours.” Drawing on Claude Lévi-Strauss, we explore how the “e...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: Colossians 1:11-20 What holds when every other promise comes apart at the seams? We open Colossians 1:11–20 and hear a hymn the early church sang to steady their lives: Christ is the image of the invisible God, before all things, holding all things together. From that center, we explore how easy it is to crown the wrong king—political s...

Send us Fan Mail Presented by: Rev. Wes Pitts, First Presbyterian Church (Reidsville, NC) A single nasal spray can turn a silent crisis into a second chance—and many of those chances unfold in everyday places like sanctuaries, parking lots, and fellowship halls. We walk through a practical, compassionate training for faith leaders and community members on recognizing an opioid overdose and using n...

Send us Fan Mail Preacher: Landon Bryant Texts: Jonah 1:3-5, 15-17; 2:1, 10 & Matthew 14:22-33 What if the storm outside isn’t the real threat—and the storm inside is? We open with breath and prayer, then move into two sea-soaked stories that refuse to let fear write the ending. Jonah runs from a calling he judges impossible, only to find that God’s presence fills even the places chosen as esc...

Send us Fan Mail Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing Text: Job 19:23-27a What if the most faithful move in a season of suffering isn’t finding the right answer but recovering a sense of awe? We turn to Job’s defiant confession—my Redeemer lives—and follow it through hard questions, imperfect counsel, and the unsettling moment when God speaks from the whirlwind. Instead of a tidy explanation for...

Send us Fan Mail Presenter: Dylan Lewellyn What if prayer wasn’t a task on a checklist, but a way of coming to the table where God already waits? We dive into the living rhythm of prayer—how presence is formed in ordinary habits, why intention matters more than perfect words, and how simple practices can reshape the day from the edges inward. We start with the big question of “when” and find the s...

Send us Fan Mail A roomful of voices, a handful of scriptures, and a stack of hymns become something larger than a program: a living prayer. We open with Psalm 100 and Colossians 3, then move through beloved songs—some requested in hard seasons, others tied to service and family—each one carrying a name, a story, and a reason to keep singing. The energy is simple and human: sing a verse or two, ho...