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.

In this week's sermon, we turn to John 1:29–42 and Jesus’ very first words in the Gospel of John: “What are you looking for?”

As Andrew and Peter begin to follow Jesus, they don’t arrive with clear answers or confident belief—only curiosity and a willingness to stay. This sermon explores how our expectations shape what we see, why Jesus offers belonging before belief, and how faith often begins not with certainty but with abiding. Drawing on humor, honest questions, and the witness of John the Baptist, we’re invited to rediscover the church’s calling: not to be the destination, but the signpost that points beyond itself to Christ.

For anyone feeling uncertain, overwhelmed, or searching for what comes next, this message offers gentle good news: Jesus keeps saying, “Come and see.”

What if baptism isn’t about being set apart from the mess of the world—but sent more deeply into it?

In this sermon on Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3:13–17, we stand again at the muddy banks of the Jordan, where Jesus steps quietly into line with everyone else. Before the miracles, before the teaching, before the cross, Jesus is named Beloved—soaking wet, anonymous, and vulnerable.

Drawing on personal story, Rowan Williams’ theology of baptism, and the church’s practice of ordination and shared vocation, this sermon explores baptism as a holy paradox: God’s unshakable claim of love and God’s call into deep solidarity with a hurting world. Here, belovedness is not earned, calling is never solitary, and leadership is not about distance or privilege, but about standing faithfully in the mud with others.

Whether you are remembering your baptism, discerning a call, or simply longing to hear a word of grace that does not depend on achievement, this sermon invites you to listen again for the voice that names what is already true:

You are beloved—and you are not sent alone.

In this Epiphany sermon, we journey with the Magi of Matthew 2:1–12 and rediscover a long-held but often forgotten truth: God reveals God’s self not only through scripture, but through creation itself. Before prophets, before texts, before sermons, the cosmos bore witness to God’s light—and the Magi were listening.

Drawing on scripture, theology, and the Epiphany tradition of Star Words, this sermon explores how outsiders were the first to recognize Christ, how fear and power resist good news, and how God’s revelation often arrives from unexpected places. We reflect on what it means to follow the light we’re given, to make space between fear and response, and to return home “by another way”—changed, hopeful, and committed to justice, peace, and good news for all.

This message invites listeners to remain open to God’s truth wherever it may be found, to trust the Spirit’s leading, and to walk a path shaped not by fear, but by love.

On the first Sunday of Christmastide, we turn away from sentimental manger scenes and toward one of the Bible’s most troubling Christmas stories. Drawing from Matthew 2 and Isaiah 9, this sermon explores how God speaks through dreams—not as an escape from reality, but as a way through it. In a world shaped by fear, political violence, and forced migration, we listen for God’s quieter dream: a dream of courage, hospitality, and “robust love.” From Joseph’s midnight flight to modern questions about power, refugees, and security, this sermon asks whose dreams we are living by—and invites us to trust that God still makes a way where none seems possible.

On Christmas Eve, we return to a story we think we know—and listen again for what it reveals about who God is. Drawing from Titus 2 and Luke 2, this sermon reflects on the risky, vulnerable way God enters the world: not in power or spectacle, but in a crowded town, under empire, wrapped in cloth and laid in a manger.

This message invites us to notice how God shows up not in moments of readiness or control, but in exhaustion, disruption, and ordinary life—in the journeys we didn’t plan to take. Exploring themes of love, vulnerability, and holy risk, the sermon connects the birth of Christ to the table of communion, where God once again places God’s very self into our hands.

A word of good news for the weary, the cautious, and anyone longing to believe that love is stronger than fear—and stronger than death.