On this Transfiguration Sunday, we stand at a turning point in the church year—and in Jesus’ ministry.

High on the mountain, Peter, James, and John catch a glimpse of Jesus in glory: radiant, affirmed, and named as God’s beloved Son. But the story doesn’t end there. The mountaintop moment isn’t meant to be preserved or protected—it’s meant to prepare Jesus (and us) for the journey down the mountain and toward Jerusalem.

As we turn toward Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, this sermon reflects on transfiguration, belovedness, and transformation. Drawing on scripture, poetry, and lived experience, we explore why God’s word of delight over Jesus comes before the suffering—and what it means to enter the wilderness not trying to earn God’s love, but already secure in it.

Lent, after all, is not a season of self-punishment, but a season of truth-telling and trust. We do not go as people striving to become worthy. We go as people who already are—beloved, claimed, and accompanied by God, even in the valley.

This week we return to the Sermon on the Mount with a fresh look at some of Jesus’ most famous—and most misunderstood—metaphors. In this message, we explore Matthew 5:13-20, where Jesus tells a group of ordinary, weary people that they already are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Through a distinctly Appalachian lens (complete with a much-needed "y'all" translation), we dive into what it means to be a "counter-testimony" to the powers of the world. Jesus wasn't calling for moral heroics or flashy displays of piety; he was describing a community that preserves what is good from decay and exposes truth in the darkness simply by being present.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Power of "Y'all": Why the plural context of Jesus' teaching matters for our life together.

• Salt as Preservation: How faith works from the inside out to slow the "rot" of injustice and cruelty.

• Light vs. Empire: The subversive nature of Jesus claiming the title of "Light" for the marginalized rather than the powerful.

• Identity over Effort: Why being salt and light is a descriptive reality of who you are in Christ, not a prescriptive list of chores.

Join us as we learn what it looks like to stay salty, stay tender, and stay faithful in a world that needs a little more flavor and a lot more light.

What does it really mean to live the good life—and would you even recognize it while you’re living it?

In this sermon on the Beatitudes, we step into one of the oldest human questions and discover just how radically Jesus answers it. Drawing on philosophy, Scripture, and real-life stories, this message explores how Jesus’ vision of the good life turns conventional wisdom upside down. Instead of celebrating the strong, successful, and self-sufficient, Jesus blesses the poor in spirit, the grieving, and the meek—those who already know the world is not as it should be.

Set against the backdrop of biblical “courtroom testimony,” this sermon names both the neat stories we tell about virtue and success and the painful realities that refuse to fit those stories. It speaks honestly to exhaustion, grief, injustice, and quiet faithfulness—and offers the Beatitudes as a counter-story of hope in a tilted world.

If you’re tired, overwhelmed, grieving, or wondering whether faith has anything real to say anymore, this message is for you. It’s an invitation to see God’s kingdom already pressing into broken places, and to live the slow, stubborn, courageous life Jesus calls blessed.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. The kingdom of heaven is drawing near.