We seek and shelter spiritual refugees, rally health for all who come, and fortify every tender soul with the strength to follow Jesus into a life of world-changing service.
We're committed to finishing Mark's gospel before Advent. It's all about Jesus! Imagine that! So we're starting with Mark 7:1-23, wherein Jesus employs potty humor to make his point.
Also, we got a nifty new podcast intro! Thanks to Nathan Berry who uploads these recordings and puts it all together. And thanks to Preston Eastwood for the chords under the intro. If you like his playing, you can hear his whole album on Noisetrade.
(Note from Nathan: Katie is the author of the podcast descriptions.)
Like Jesus, Girolamo Fracastoro had some interesting (and pretty accurate) ideas about cleanliness. Unlike Jesus, Girolamo decided to publish them under the title "Syphilis."
Honestly, we just thought it would be fun to put "Syphilis" and "Jesus" in the same sentence.
In the last of our "Imagining God" series, we deal with the uncomfortable metaphor of God the cuckolded spouse. We've been cheating, and God's feelings are way, way hurt. Hosea 2 and Ephesians 5:21-33.
God knows we have suffered under bad shepherds; God promises to be a Good one. Here's what that might mean for us sheep. Ezekiel 34:1-31, and John 10:1-16.
We don't love being compared to sheep. Baaaaaat there's something comforting about all that wool.
This lament showed up on the Prayer Wall. God can hear that.
We asked Youngster Czar Jess Schell to pray for our students and teachers, staff members and everybody else whose life starts anew when school starts up. Here's what she said. Beautiful, and true. Jess never does anything halfway.
This week marked the #firsttime we met at our new long-term home, Reds Roadhouse in Kennedale. Thanks be to God!
What kind of monarch has an advisory board of homeless, hungry, rejected convicts? I bet you know. And this monarch will eventually get everything he wants.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
