Recent Blog Posts

12/24/2017 – An Ironic Christmas – Part 4 – Two Kinds of Peace Isaiah 11:1-2, 6-9; Luke 1:39-56. Tonight (Christmas Eve) and tomorrow – against the backdrop of Christmas lights and decorations – we all hope to experience moments of peace and calm and contentedness....

12/10/2017 – An Ironic Christmas – Part 2 Hipster Nativities, Stick-on Cotton-Beards, Christmas Gifts and Letting Jesus Show Luke 2:8-20; Isaiah 9:2, 5-7. The Child we celebrate at Christmas grew up to say, “Watch out! Be on your guard; life does not consist in an...

12/3/2017 – An Ironic Christmas – Part 1 – The Irony of Scale 1 Corinthians 15. Christmas has become the grandest day (and season) of the year, but in Scripture you might notice that it gets only limited attention. What does this mean, and how can understanding this...

11/26/2017 – The Night Before Christmas – Part 4 – Rome John 18:1-12. There may not be another scene in all of scripture where Empire and Kingdom stand in such contrast with each other, than Jesus betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane. The violent ways of empire...

11/19/2017 – The Night Before Christmas – Part 3 – The Grecian Empire Exodus 19:1-6; Matthew 20:25-28. Freedom from the powers of “empire” requires more than just an outward/physical change. It requires inner work.

11/12/2017 – The Night Before Christmas – Part 2 – Into Babylon Select verses from Amos 3, Isaiah 1, and Jeremiah 29. When Israel was dramatically liberated from Egypt, their future was filled with such hope! But just a handful of generations later, they had lost...

11/5/2017 – The Night Before Christmas – Part 1 – Egypt Exodus 1-3. Often we forget that Israel was a small kingdom that lived its whole existence in the shadow of larger, more powerful empires, but this reality shapes the Scriptures and sets the stage for the miracle...

10/22/2017 – Names – Part 8 – A New Name on a White Stone Revelation 2:12-17. Jesus promises to give “those who overcome” a white stone with a new name written on it. What new name might Jesus want to give to us?

10/15/2017 – Names – Part 7 – Saul to Paul Acts 9:1-19. From Saul to Paul. Like so many of the renaming stories of this sermon series, the shift from Saul to Paul speaks to a shift from self-consideration into self-forgetfulness; a theme clearly reflected in the...