Upcoming Worship Services

“A Mother’s Heart”, Luke 2:1-20 Twice in Luke’s gospel we hear the phrase “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” —  once upon the visitation of the shepherds at the birth of Jesus, and the other one at the end of the scene of the 12 year-old Jesus at the Temple.  […]

Like Joseph – Matthew 1:18 – 2:23 Only 2 of our gospels include birth narratives: Matthew and Luke.  They are very different narratives in many ways, but one of the notable differences is that Luke’s narrative is focused on Mary, with barely a mention of Joseph, while Matthew’s narrative is focused on Joseph.  If we […]

The Birth of the Messiah Took Place in THIS way? Luke 2:1-7, 21-24, 39-40 The birth narratives in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels tell stories of great drama.  But beneath it all was a very human, and very ordinary event … a young woman became pregnant and a child was born to a peasant couple in […]

The Art of Closing Doors – Galatians 5:16-26 The celebrated “gifts of the spirit” passage in Galatians is familiar to anyone who grew up going to Sunday School.  This section is often treated as a moral imperative – what we must do to be right with God.  But there is another way to hear it.  […]

“The Power of One” Chronicles 28:1-15 This is little known passage of Scripture … but what a shame!  It is also one of the most startling (in a good way) passages in all of Scripture.  It’s about the prophet Oded.  Ever heard of him?  And it’s about the power of one person to stand up, […]

Some Kind of Church Matthew 16:13-30, Acts 1:8 We can sometimes hear familiar Scripture passages very differently if we read them aloud and experiment with different points of inflection.  This is so with the two passages for this week.  We’ll be looking at the passage in Matthew’s gospel that we usually call “Peter’s great confession”, where Peter […]