Beyond Hospitality to Family
You'll hear why welcoming the immigrant as a temporary guest falls short of what Jesus actually demanded, and what it looks like to treat a stranger as an irreplaceable member of your own body.
Topic
Sermons on Community
79 sermons in the archive.
When to Obey, When to Resist
You'll work through a real question that Christians avoid: when Romans 13 says submit to governing authorities, and the government is actively harming vulnerable people, what are you actually supposed to do?
Scripture Before Your Pocket
You'll hear a pastor work through what Leviticus actually commands about foreigners in your land, and why that ancient list should reorder the assumptions you walked in with about immigration.
Why Christians Must Speak Up
You'll come away understanding why the church bears a particular responsibility to oppose antisemitism, and what you can actually say or do when you encounter it in everyday life.
Loving Until It Costs
You'll hear why Jesus's call to bless enemies, share possessions, and side with the poor isn't passive resignation but a radical, costly way of becoming fully human, and what that looks like for ordinary people today.
The World Turned Upside Down
You'll hear why Jesus names the poor man in this parable and leaves the rich man nameless, and what that reversal asks of you before it's too late.
We Are All Foreigners
You'll hear how the Bible's consistent call to care for migrants and refugees isn't a political position but a defining mark of what it means to follow Jesus, and what that asks of you personally, regardless of where you stand on border policy.
Empty Your Pockets First
You'll see how easy it is to carry the world's habit of ranking people straight into church, and why the Lord's Supper is the one practice designed to strip all of that away.
Rights Versus Relationships
You'll hear why being theologically correct can still damage the people around you, and how Paul's ancient argument about meat sacrificed to idols draws a clear line between using knowledge as a weapon and using it as a gift.
Discipline That Aims at Rescue
You'll hear why Paul's harshest command in 1 Corinthians 5 is actually an act of care, and what it means for how the church handles sin that damages both people and its witness to the world.
And Holds More Than Or
You'll hear why the Bible preserving conflicting voices (two creation accounts, Leviticus and Isaiah pulling in opposite directions) is not a problem to solve but an invitation to expand how you understand God, your neighbors, and yourself.
When the Gospel Looks Foolish
You'll hear why the cross looked like failure to the ancient world, and why that same offense still exposes the hidden assumptions you bring into your faith.
The Spirit Speaks Your Language
You'll hear why the first Pentecost wasn't about collapsing differences into sameness, but about God reaching every person in the language their own soul already understood, and what that means for how faith comes to you.
Don't Stand in God's Way
You'll hear how God dismantled a deep cultural barrier in the early church by declaring certain foods clean, and what that means for the traditions you hold that might be keeping others at arm's length.
Passwords That Divide Us
You'll hear how every group, including the church, uses secret passwords to sort insiders from outsiders, and what it looks like to be a community that refuses to make people pass a loyalty test before they're welcome.
A Seat at the Table
You'll see how an ancient story about a disabled, forgotten man welcomed to a king's table reframes how the church should think about disability today, not as a problem to fix but as a perspective to honor.
Seeing What We've Learned to Ignore
You'll come away with a sharper eye for the attitudes that make vulnerable people invisible, and a fresh angle on why the parable of the sheep and goats is less about earning salvation and more about what we fail to see right in front of us.
Invited to the Feast
You'll hear why Jesus placed people with disabilities at the center of his vision for God's kingdom, and what it means to build a community where belonging goes deeper than accessibility ramps and polite inclusion.
Seeing What We'd Rather Skip
You'll hear how a single verse about food distribution in the early church is actually about ethnic prejudice, and what it means to stop administering around problems that require a change of heart.
Freedom Held by Friendship
You'll come away understanding why one church community can hold together people with genuinely different views on baptism, communion, and women in ministry, and what the theological logic is that makes that possible without everything falling apart.
Rest, Renewal, and Coming Home
You'll hear teenagers fresh from a summer youth conference reflect honestly on what it means to truly rest, to step outside your comfort zone, and to let Psalm 23 become more than a familiar poem.
One Tree, Many Branches
You'll get a clear map of how Christianity's major traditions, from Eastern Orthodox to Evangelical Covenant, grew out of the same root, and why those splits were costly but not necessarily all wrong.
Move On Without Bitterness
You'll learn what Jesus actually modeled when he was rejected by the people who knew him best, and how his instructions to the disciples offer a practical way to share your convictions without being crushed when they aren't received.
Rest as Resistance
You'll hear why stopping work isn't a reward you earn after you've done enough, and how deliberately setting aside 24 hours each week can reorient your identity, your relationships, and even your sense of justice.
Sing Something New
You'll hear why genuine worship isn't repetition but response, and how paying attention to what God is doing right now in your life can become the raw material for a song only you can sing.
Too Small a Thing?
You'll hear a direct case for why the physical resurrection of Jesus is the load-bearing wall of Christian faith, and what it means that the same power behind that event is available for the dead places in your own life right now.
When Pain Becomes Prayer
You'll hear why the Bible's most anguished language, comparing God to a bear lying in wait and an archer using you for target practice, is not a failure of faith but an honest form of prayer, and why bringing that kind of raw complaint to God, alone or with others, is where healing and justice begin.
Learning to Grieve Together
You'll hear why the impulse to fix, celebrate, and move on may actually be cutting you off from something real, and what it looks like to bring honest grief before God without expecting a tidy resolution.
Love Without Categories
You'll see how Jesus refused to be boxed in by religious categories, and what it looks like to love people across lines of deep disagreement without giving up on them or pretending those differences don't matter.
Free to Belong Together
You'll hear how Paul's letter to the Romans is less a theology textbook and more an urgent plea for people who are different from each other to actually live together, and what that means for why community is so hard to build today.
Welcome Before You Judge
You'll hear why the early church fought over food, and what that ancient conflict reveals about how you treat fellow believers whose faith looks different from yours today.
Friendship as Founding Principle
You'll hear the story of a nearly-derailed founding meeting in 1885 Chicago, and what the way those Christians handled conflict and disagreement reveals about how a church can hold both conviction and openness without sacrificing either.
Give Your Whole Self
You'll hear why Paul's call to 'present your bodies as a living sacrifice' means offering your entire, undivided self to God, not just the parts you're comfortable surrendering, and what that total offering might cost you.
Jealousy as an Invitation
You'll hear a frank walk through one of the Bible's most disputed passages, and come away with a clearer picture of what Paul actually meant by 'all Israel will be saved,' and why the answer matters for how Christians think about Jewish people, Palestinian Arabs, and who belongs in God's family.
Law Finished, Freedom Found
You'll hear how the word 'end' in 'Christ is the end of the law' carries two meanings at once, and why understanding both can free you from the guilt and shame that religious rules so often leave behind.
Nothing Can Separate You
You'll hear why Paul's famous list of things that cannot separate us from God's love isn't just triumphant poetry, but a direct answer to real accusation, real suffering, and real lament, and what that means for the hardest weeks of your life.
Free From the Inside Out
You'll hear why trying harder to follow the rules keeps failing you, and how giving up control to the Spirit is the actual path to the freedom you're looking for.
Trading Kings
You'll hear how Paul's repeated use of one word, 'dominion,' reframes what salvation actually means: not just a debt erased, but a transfer of power from death's reign to grace's reign, with you restored to a role you were always meant to have.
Honest Prayer, Open Hands
You'll see how Jesus prayed in Gethsemane with full honesty and full submission at the same time, and what that means for the prayers you've been holding that haven't been answered.
Spirit Spills Beyond Boundaries
You'll see how a forgotten pair of men who missed the official gathering still received the Spirit anyway, and what that ancient moment says about whether you have to be in the right place or the right group for God to reach you.
Giving Up Power for Community
You'll hear how Jesus emptying himself of divine privilege in Philippians 2 becomes a concrete model for setting aside personal power, platform, and wealth in order to build genuine community across racial and ethnic lines.
Love That Costs Something
You'll hear why Paul's famous description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 is not just personal advice but a direct challenge to how the church as a whole treats the members of its own body who are being pushed to the margins.
From Colorblind to Courageous
You'll hear a clear-eyed account of how American Christianity moved from actively defending racism, to politely ignoring it, to what faithful discipleship actually requires now: the courage to see race in order to pursue genuine equity and beloved community.
Where the Value Really Is
You'll hear why Paul called his own impressive religious resume 'sewage,' and what that revaluation means for the ways you might be measuring your own worth or your church's health.
Obedience as Light
You'll hear an honest reckoning with why the church has lost its moral credibility, and a practical case for how ordinary obedience to Christ is what actually restores it, starting with you.
Become Less, Free Others
You'll hear why genuine humility isn't self-erasure but a deliberate choice to make space for others, and you'll be invited to name one specific place in your own life where that choice is actually available to you.
Pray for People You Struggle With
You'll hear how Paul's opening lines to a divided church model something harder than it sounds: praying for specific people, including the ones who frustrate you, with genuine joy and thanks.
Seen by God, Used by God
You'll hear how a woman labeled and discarded by her society became a key figure in Israel's story, and how a group of teenagers brought that same theme home from a week at summer camp: no matter your history, God sees you and can use you.
Second Acts Are Real
You'll hear how Abraham's long story of false starts, detours, and deferred promises finally turns a corner, and what that pattern means when you (or your community) feel stuck waiting for what God said would come.
Baptism as God's Work
You'll hear a honest account of why baptism matters beyond ritual obligation, including what it means that God's action in baptism holds even when yours falls short.
A Meal That Levels Everyone
You'll come away understanding why communion is meant to be shared rather than performed, and what it actually means to receive it well, whether you grew up in the church or are hearing about it for the first time.
Faith as a Miracle
You'll hear a fresh look at Pentecost that asks whether your faith was your own decision or something the Spirit was quietly building in you all along, through the people and moments that shaped your life.
Faith Beyond Borders
You'll see how a Roman soldier's trust in Jesus upends assumptions about who belongs to God, and what it means that Jesus was amazed by an outsider's faith when he found so little of it among insiders.
Changing Values, Not Just Furniture
You'll see why real cultural change in a church requires examining and sacrificing deeply held values, not just adding new programs, and how Jesus modeled exactly that kind of disruptive, leveling love at a dinner table.
Listen Before You Act
You'll hear how James's call to be quick to listen and slow to speak connects directly to the work of becoming a more culturally aware person and community, and what concrete steps that actually looks like in practice.
Whose Standards Run the Church?
You'll see how the early church's debate over who belongs was really a struggle over who holds power, and what it looks like today when church culture protects insiders at the cost of the gospel.
Reading Jesus Across Cultures
You'll come away with a clearer sense of how your own cultural background shapes what feels 'normal' in faith and church life, and why understanding the culture Jesus actually lived in changes what his most familiar stories mean.
Your Culture Is God's Idea
You'll come away with a fresh way of seeing your own cultural background: not as something to leave behind when you walk into church, but as something God had a hand in creating.
Waking Up to a Changing Church
You'll hear why the demographic shifts already reshaping American society demand that churches stop defaulting to comfortable, mono-ethnic patterns, and what it actually takes, in practice, to become a community that reflects the global body of Christ.
Your Differences Are the Point
You'll hear why the diversity within a church community isn't a problem to manage but a gift that makes the whole body function as God designed, and you'll be asked to consider which part of that body you actually are.
Where Your Gaze Lands
You'll hear a concrete argument that what captures your attention is literally shaping who you are becoming, and discover how a single verse from Psalm 34 offers a different kind of formation in a culture engineered to exhaust you.
Wheat, Weeds, and Us
You'll hear why the church has always contained both genuine faith and hidden betrayal, and what that means for how you handle broken, boundary-pushing people in your own community.
Friendship Beyond the Transaction
You'll come away with a sharper picture of what Jesus actually meant by friendship, why his definition was radical in its own time, and what it might cost you to live it out now.
Sheep Who Must Discern
You'll hear why being part of Jesus's flock isn't passive, and how to tell the difference between a true call and an attack dressed up as one, whether from outside pressure or familiar voices you've long trusted.
Sharing Changes Everything
You'll see what the early church actually looked like in the weeks after Easter, and what it means to let go of self-interest so that everyone in the community has enough.
Obedience All the Way Through
You'll see through the story of Naaman that the moment obedience actually costs you something is exactly the moment it matters most, and that going only partway is the same as not going at all.
God Speaks Outside the Church
You'll hear an honest confession about hating fellow believers across political lines, and a challenge to take seriously the idea that God might be speaking through people you've already dismissed.
Your Ancestors Need You
You'll hear how the 'great cloud of witnesses' in Hebrews 11 points to a family of God that stretches across time, ethnicity, and death itself, and why your place in that family matters not just for you but for every believer who came before you.
Love You Left Undone
You'll hear why Paul's famous love chapter was written not for people celebrating love, but for a church weaponizing spiritual gifts against each other, and what that means for the times you stay quiet rather than act.
Feel Each Other's Pain
You'll hear why one verse from 1 Corinthians 12 might be the key to everything Paul is trying to tell the church, and how genuinely sharing in others' suffering and joy is a gift the Spirit gives, not a discipline you achieve on your own.
Whose Meal Is This?
You'll hear how the Christians in Corinth turned a sacred shared meal into a display of social status, and what that failure reveals about the habits we still bring into church today.
Knowledge That Puffs, Love That Builds
You'll see how the ancient debate over food sacrificed to idols is really a question about whether your spiritual confidence is helping or harming the people around you, and why love is the truer measure of maturity than knowledge.
Give Up Your Advantage
You'll see how Paul's warning against Christians suing each other is not a rule to check off a list, but a call to give up your privileges and advantages the same way Jesus emptied himself on the cross.
When the Church Judges Itself
You'll hear why Paul insists the church must hold its own members to account while staying genuinely engaged with people outside it, and what happens to a congregation that gets those two things backwards.
Judgment Loosens Its Grip
You'll hear why the impulse to judge others (and yourself) is rooted in a mistaken sense of who you are, and how letting go of that role is less a sacrifice than a genuine relief.
Unity Is the Gospel
You'll hear why real unity in a church or community isn't just a social goal but is rooted in the gospel itself, and what jealousy, factions, and immaturity actually cost the people around you.
Wrong Beliefs, Wrong Church
You'll see how the divisions tearing apart the church in Corinth trace back not to bad behavior but to bad theology, and why that diagnosis still matters when churches today fracture along lines of personality, prestige, or spiritual one-upmanship.
Shalom Starts in the Trinity
You'll see how the early church's failures around wealth, power, and division mirror struggles alive today, and how Paul's closing blessing points to a model of peace and right relationship rooted in the nature of God himself.
God Keeps the Door Open
You'll hear why 'ask, seek, knock' isn't a vending machine formula but a progression of effort and trust, and walk away with a concrete way to identify one specific thing to bring to God this season.