Get Ready
Confusion & Wonder
This is the final week of our Extended Advent series, and the fourth week of a the 20th century Advent model. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This week’s worship gets into the good stuff! This week we really get into the familiar and exciting parts of the story! It’s almost Christmas and there’s just a little more online shopping to finish up!! But not everyone is…
Desperation & Hope
This is the sixth week of our Extended Advent series, and the third week of a the 20th century Advent model. Let us continue to pray for our community as we work to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This week’s text jumps a bit from previous texts in this series. We started with Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians and Ephesians and then moved to Mark for two weeks. This week we jump to the Gospel of John with a text that…
Bushwacking
This is the fifth week of our Extended Advent series, and the second week of a the 20th century Advent model. This is also the first week of our indoor livestream worship after we stopped in-person worship. Let us continue to pray for our community as we work to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In reading this week’s scripture, as we believers are called to “prepare the way of the Lord,” maybe part of that is preparing the trail in…
Watching & Waiting
This is the fourth week of our Extended Advent series, and the first week of a the 20th century Advent model. This is also the first week of our in-person outdoor worship! When the Gospel of Mark was written, there must surely have been a sense of dread as upheaval and even violence were familiar occurrences. The end of all that was known must have felt immanent. The people must have been waiting for the straw to break the camel’s…
Wisdom & Revelation
This Sunday is Christ the King Sunday and our third week of our Extended Advent series. It may seem as though all of our scriptures so far have been focused on eschatology (the theology of the last days). This is a fair assessment. Even when we follow the shorter four-week Advent schedule, the first of these is always an eschatological selection. This is because our preparations for the arrival of the Christ child parallel our preparations for the second coming…
Uncertainty & Preparedness
Pastor Lea continues our Extended Advent series. Continuing with Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, Pastor Lea notes the imagery of labor pains for the suddenness of “the day of the Lord.” With this in mind, we might ask whether we actually recognize how much time we have to prepare for what is to come. Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 Don’t miss our Sermon Note for this week’s message available here.
Starting with Why
Pastor Bob begins our Extended Advent series this Sunday beginning with a scripture text that doesn’t necessarily seem as though it’s a the right choice for beginning the Advent season. But as we’ll hear, Paul uses a Greek word that specifically speaks to us in this time and helps us to prepare ourselves for the coming Christ. Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Don’t miss our Sermon Note for this week’s message available here.