We seek and shelter spiritual refugees, rally spiritual health for all who come, and fortify every tender soul with the strength to follow Jesus into a life of world-changing service.
OUR MISSIONAL PRIORITIES:
1. We do justice for LGBTQ+ people, and support the people who love them.
2. We do kindness around mental illness and mental health and celebrate neurodiversity.
3. We do beauty for our God-Who-Is-Beautiful.
4. We do real relationship, no bullshit, ever.
5. We do whatever it takes to share this good news with the world God still loves.
Trying to find us IRL?
Mail here: P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060
Worship here: 5 pm CT Sundays; 5860 I-20 service road, Fort Worth 76119
Trying to find our Sunday worship livestream?
galileochurch.org/livestream
Exodus 15 lets us imagine God as a warrior who squashes enemies like a bug. But John 18 asks us to imagine God differently: surrendering. Oh, what God would NOT do in order to have us home. Thanks be to God.
In all likelihood God vs. Pharaoh did not look anything like this. But one can dream...
It was a bittersweet moment this last Sunday, as it was the last time for a long while that Ryan Felber will be at worship with us. He's off to Los Angeles, for a year-long internship doing some incredible work for God. We invited him to speak for a few minutes during the service, and here's what he had to say.
Walker Scholar preaching award winner Christian Briones, y'all.
God as Pillar of Fire / Pillar of Cloud, Exodus 13 & 14 -- what do you make of that? Our guest preacher Christian Briones says, “Christianity is not the religion for you if you don’t want to get involved, don’t want to take sides. Our God takes a side against injustice, against oppression... Our God gets involved.” Dang!
How do we come to know the ineffable, indescribable God? Language fails; we cannot say what God is, only what God is like. For today, God is like a parent, a father (Isaiah 64:8) and a mother (Isaiah 66:13). God is our origin and our caretaker, and who we are depends on our identities in God.
How is God like this picture? Listen, and you'll find out.
Alaska native Jason Redick is a very serious human.
Our friend Jason Redick came to testify to his way of following Jesus into the lives of the marginalized. He's the pastor's "protest buddy" and a voice for solidarity in our metroplex. Mark 6:30-56.
Mark sure did love his sandwiches. Unlike the one above, however, the one you're about to hear isn't so tasty.
Our friend Rev. Nathan Russell brought us this cautionary tale from Mark 6:12-30, wherein Jesus sends out apostles; Herod remembers murdering John the Baptist; the apostles return triumphant. And Nathan does a little dance.
Cheap Trick kinda-sorta makes an appearance. Please don't judge the whole church by the pastor's singing.
Reading Mark 6:1-13, we are amazed at Jesus's vulnerability to the thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs of his fellow human beings. How much would you have to love someone to be that susceptible to their actions?
This is relevant. We promise.
Mark 5:21-43, one of the best stories ever written. Period.
This sermon includes an original song by Paul Demer, which is critical to its structure and message. Thanks, Paul.
Jesus is present, proactive, and powerful -- until he falls asleep, Mark 4:35–5:20. And if we are the body of Christ, haven't we been sleeping long enough? Isn't it time to wake up? "Do [we] not care that [they/we/all of us] are perishing?" This sermon in response to the Charleston murders is not enough, but it's (maybe) better than nothing.
A gathering for prayer and reflection in Charleston, SC.
Sometimes God likes to live in the fog.
Mark 4:1-34 shows Jesus thinning the crowds by his use of a rhetorical strategy most people don't understand -- parables, those pesky riddles of God's reign that might mean God is playing hide and seek with us. And hiding really, really well.
Our "family-of-choice tree" from Sunday. We added leaves with our names on them.
If your family is screwed up, you're in good company. Don't ask Jesus to preach on, or even demonstrate, "family values" the way our culture has construed them. He cares about family, but not like you think. Mark 3:31-35, with extra help from Mark 10, Luke 14.
No, not that kind of strong man.
We're picking up the Gospel of Mark where we left off before Lent. In Mark 3:7-30, Jesus is exhausted and, dare we say it, overwhelmed -- but still the Stronger Man. Don't say otherwise, or you will be sorry.
Look out, world: Galileo Church has entered the Terrible Twos.
Happy birthday, church! Take a look at our birth announcement in Acts 2, and then take a listen. "Thanks be to God?" "Thanks be to God!"
Scientists confirm it – our minds don't like to take this exit.
"Not cancer, climate change, not whether the Apple watch is the best or worst idea ever perpetrated on humankind... But the problem of how to get people to change their mind." Acts 16 and the malleable hearts in Philippi. Read Acts 16, and consider listening to this story on "This American Life."
And...here's a rare postscript to a sermon already preached and recorded: the contemporary sociological "research" that anchors this sermon turns out to be seriously flawed -- as in, the researcher faked the data. Just wow. Here's the Washington Post article that exposes the lie. Ouch.
We like to think that bacon-wrapped shrimp made an appearance in Peter's vision.
Youngster Czar (and recent winner of the preaching prize from Perkins Divinity School, SMU) Jess Schell was the voice of the good news from Acts 10. Who's being converted here?
In Acts 8 we remember Philip, another deacon whose actual work goes far beyond his job description. He runs down the road to catch up with the differently-sexed person whose souvenir scroll is causing some confusion on the road back to Ethiopia. In this order, we consider: his scroll, his race, his testicles, and the day he found himself in the Bible.
On the eve of the Supreme Court hearings on marriage equality, Galileo Church co-sponsored a rally at Sue Ellen's in Dallas. (It was raining; we had to go inside; these people welcomed us so generously.) Rev. Katie Hays took her 90 seconds to say, "I'm here because of Jesus. And Jesus said, 'Blessed are you when you're pissed off.'"
What's one of the first things the post-Pentecost followers of Jesus did? They formed a committee. A committee that could get you killed. I kid you not. Read Acts 6 and 7, please. It's long, but worth it.
WWBD? "B" is for Barnabas -- the Son of Encouragement -- who makes decisions with the community of faith in the front of his mind. We could do that, couldn't we? Or maybe I choose instead to withhold part of myself while pretending to be all the way here, like Ananias and Sapphire. Don't worry -- nobody's been struck dead for doing that for almost 2,000 years. But still.
"Silver and gold have we none, but what we have we give to you..."
In the season of Eastertide, we're looking at how the earliest followers of Jesus got together to make a church. What did they mainly do? How did they mainly do it? We started with Peter and John, empowered by the resurrected Christ to heal... and go to jail. Acts 3, 4, and the last half of 5.