Sermon Podcast

  • Why Would You Want to Go Back to Pentecost?

    There can be a nostalgia in the church for Pentecost, but at its best, a wish for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit is not a wish to go backwards, but rather a wish for change and a future we might not yet even be able to imagine – and one that might offend…

  • Discernment Part 1

    Christians have long tried to figure out what God wants us to do in particular situations. Some might describe it as “looking for God’s will.” Presbyterians (and other Christian traditions) call that process of trying to figure out what God might be leading us to do, “Discernment.” In this message, Rev. David Schell shares some…

  • Judgment Day

    Plenty of people are afraid of judgment day, but when you look closely at who the judge is, and what God’s judgment looks like in scripture, it might prove more hopeful than fearsome.

  • Too Good Not To Be True

    It is difficult to believe good news, but in the case of the resurrection, and so many other things in our lives, it is, to borrow from Beuchner, simply “too good *not* to be true.”

  • Violence or Jesus?

    You may have heard that the folks who cheered Jesus on when he came into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday thought he was going to defeat Rome, but what if they weren’t wrong because what if that’s not what they thought? What if all they knew were these two things:1. Something is wrong, and2. Jesus can…

  • Who’s Missing?

    Samuel asks David’s father Jesse, “Is this all your sons?” The answer turns out to be “No.” What would have happened if Samuel hadn’t asked? What happens when we don’t ask that question?

  • Dehydration Is No Joke

    Sometimes the help we give or get creates new problems, like when the Israelites escaped Egypt and then realized they didn’t have any water. Moses got upset that people were asking for water, but God told Moses to get busy helping them get it.

  • Children of the Wind

    When Nicodemus meets Jesus at night, Jesus tells him he has to be born again, born of the wind, to see the Kingdom of God. What does that mean?

  • Nothing to Prove

    Immediately after a voice from heaven has declared him God’s beloved Son, the devil demands Jesus prove that he’s the Son of God by doing what the devil tells him to do. Something focused on himself.

  • The Banality of Temptation

    We often think of temptation as something obvious that we know we aught to resist, but more often, we don’t even notice temptation at all because it’s very boring and comes disguised as good reasons why we can’t, or shouldn’t, love our neighbors.