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Sterling Severns Devotional, Devotionals, Life of the Community, Staff

When the Door Doesn’t Budge

When the Door Doesn’t Budge
By Rev. Sterling Severns, Pastor

Life has a way of surprising us with change. One day everything feels familiar, and the next we’re in territory that’s suddenly unrecognizable. It might be a diagnosis we never expected, the loss of a job we thought was secure, or a shift in a relationship we counted on. Or it might be more subtle—realizing that something which once made perfect sense no longer feels like it fits. Moments like these can freeze us in place. We don’t know how to move forward, and we can’t go back. So we wait. And wonder. And wrestle with the weight of it all.

In my own experience, there have been more than a few seasons like this—times when the path ahead felt uncertain, and the world around me felt both familiar and foreign. Everything on the outside may have looked the same, but something inside had shifted. And without exception, each time, it’s taken its toll. The waiting. The weariness. The wondering if anything is actually changing at all. There’s a deep vulnerability in those moments, especially when we’ve asked God for help, when we’ve prayed for direction, healing, peace. We show up to our lives the best we can. Still trying. Still hoping. Still doing our thing. But the silence lingers, and the door we’ve been knocking on stays shut.

The longer we walk in faith, the more we come to see the real change comes not when the door swings open, but when something inside us opens instead. Not suddenly, not dramatically, but slowly, quietly, over time. God doesn’t always remove the stuckness, but God meets us in it, reshaping our hearts, softening the places that have grown hard with fear or frustration. Sometimes, when the exhaustion finally gives way to surrender, we discover that the door was never locked after all. We were just too weary to see how close we already were to grace. We lean against it for support, and somehow, we find ourselves on the other side.

God doesn’t wait for us beyond the threshold. God is with us in the hallway, in the waiting, in the ache. In the quiet work of transformation that begins long before the breakthrough. That is the mystery and mercy of the God who answers, not always by changing our circumstances, but by being unshakably present within them.

So wherever you find yourself this week, whether you’re waiting for the door to open, or wondering if it ever will, may you know you are not alone. May you be reminded that presence itself is a gift, that transformation often begins before we even recognize it, and that grace has a way of meeting us right where we are.

Sterling Severns Worship

Homily: When the Door Doesn’t Budge

What do you do when the door won’t open—when you’ve prayed, pushed, and persisted, only to find yourself still stuck? This week, Pastor Sterling Severns reflects on Luke 11:1–13, where Jesus responds to his disciples’ request: “Teach us to pray.” With insight from theologian Robert Farrar Capon, this homily explores prayer not as a formula for success but as a deep practice of surrender and connection.

Sterling walks us through the mystery of persistence in prayer—not to wear God down, but to wear down our own illusions of control. Sometimes the door doesn’t open right away. Sometimes it’s not the door that moves, but us. And sometimes, in the weariness and surrender, we discover that God has been with us all along, even before the door creaked open.

Whether you’re questioning, clinging, or simply tired, this episode offers a spacious, compassionate reminder: prayer doesn’t always change the circumstances, but it opens us to the God who is unshakably present in the midst of them.

Homily Transcript

July 13, 2025 Luke 11:1–13 Rev. Sterling Severns, Pastor

The disciples of Jesus have been following him for a while now. They notice that there’s something different about him beyond just his ability to perform miracles and the wisdom teaching and all the things it’s about. The way that he prays, they notice that when he goes off to spend time with God, he comes back kind of with a reset button having been hit or a renewed resolve. They become aware the more time that they spend with him, that there’s something about the quality, or whatever is that’s happening there in his connection with God that helps him in the moments that he finds himself being criticized. On the other side of the criticism, something that sustains him when he’s clearly getting weary. There is something about the quality of the nature of the way that he prays that sustains him. And so they ask the innocent question, hey, how do we pray like that? Teach us to pray now the cross thing at the beginning of our spiritual journeys, when we first start out, one of the great gifts of the initial period of time that we find ourselves just open and aware to the grace of God is that doors just kind of open for us as we go through them, we have a keen awareness early in our faith, In our childlike faith. 

It seems that when we approach an obstacle, a wall, or, in today’s context, a door, we just kind of assume, maybe, I don’t know how to say it, we assume the door is going to open, and it does. Can you remember a time in your life when things felt pretty easy for a lot of you, that was a long time ago? Anybody? Yeah, for most all of us, if not all of us, it’s been so long since life felt that way that we don’t even remember that moment in our lives. Because the longer that we walk in faith, the more we discover as we do life, that more doors are on the way, right? So whereas at first we may just walk through the door or we just assume God’s going to open it and God opens the door, we’re good, but then the longer that we move along, we find that we have to work at it a little bit more. Here’s the great truth that I’d like to share with you in this brief little homily today, the perception of this passage of Scripture is that if we can just nag it, God enough, God will finally be so sick of hearing us that we’ll get what we ask for. 

Robert Farrar Capon, one of my favorites, the quintessential go to for all things. Parables says that so many of us approach God as if prayer is a vending machine. You know, some of you are so young you haven’t used a lot of vending machines where you understand the frustration of putting all the quarters in and then watching your candy bar get stuck as it slowly is swiveling and it gets stuck, and you find yourself doing what, shaking the living daylights out of it, kicking it. And now you’ve gone and hurt yourself, and now you need to feed your feelings. So you’re going to need two candy bars, not one. And before you know it, and finally, it pops out, and Farrar Capon and says, No, that’s not prayer. That’s not what this author is saying, if you walk away from a parable and it tells you what you went into it, assuming that you knew what it was going to say, you’ve probably missed it. It’s not about wearing God out. 

When I was a teenager, I knew that if I needed to get. Way with something I should approach my mom, not my dad. My dad was the hard liner in our house. I so desperately wanted to go snow skiing, which is such a joke, because in central Tennessee, you don’t have a whole lot of skiing options. You might as well be in Dubai, where you have skiing but like, come on. But sure enough, in Crossville, there was this tiny, little one hill ski resort, and I couldn’t wait to get to it, and my mom said, I am not giving you permission. If your dad says you can go, you can go. And I remember begging my dad at first, and then it was very clear that wasn’t going to happen. And finally, I knew my dad’s buttons enough that I knew if I pushed hard enough at this point with where he was in life, he may very well relent, and he did. The weather forecast was terrible. They were calling for ice, and I actually wore my dad out to the point that he said, Fine, just go. And sure enough, halfway there, we got hit on the interstate, and we ended up spinning out of control and almost hit a tree off of the interstate. A tow truck had to be called pull us back on the interstate. We ended up still the vehicle was operational. We were able to go and we skied our little one hill ski trip, and I came home, and to this day, I don’t know that my dad knows that I was in a car accident on the way there. 

It’s not how it works. Here’s how it works. You didn’t get the life that you thought you would or for the religious types, we didn’t get the life that we thought we should have gotten. It didn’t pan out how we thought it would. And when we approach the doors as they come, one after the other, you know, sometimes in crisis, sometimes in deep pain, and other times, we just get worn out from doing the right thing over and over again, and somehow we just lose the ability to see that God is walking with us, that God is with us. In my own experience, I have had this experience multiple times now in adulthood, where I find myself looking at a proverbial door, and thinking to myself, I know how to get this door open. I’ve seen doors just like this door. I know how to do this. And I even assume that God expects me to be the one that opens it, and I end up beating on that door and turning that handle a million times and kicking on that door to the point that I have no energy left in my body, only to slunk down against that very door, and with what little energy I can muster, throw my hands up in the air and say, God, this is the end. I can’t do it. And sure enough, it’s the moment that I say I can’t, that I find that that door that I’m now leaning against, slunk down, just falls open, and I fall forward with this deep awareness that God just did something that I know I can’t. 

It’s Not about God as Santa Claus giving us what we wish for. It’s not about the vending machine. It’s about our persistence and the necessary knocking. That is more about us wearing our own selves out, our egos out, so that we know that ultimately, prayer is not about getting what we ask for but so much more getting a constant awareness that we are not alone. 

Jesus doesn’t say pray, and let’s see if you earn it. He just says it over and over again. Come to Me and, prayer….. intimacy…. is how God does that best. 

Teach us to pray like you do Jesus, Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come not mine. Your will be done, not mine. Forgive me, Lord. Forgive us, Lord, the way that we forgive other people by your example and please enough doors already lead us, not into temptation, but no matter what, just try to deliver us from ourselves and the evil in us. Amen. 

Amen.

Sterling Severns Life of the Community, Staff, Worship

When We Gather

On Sunday mornings, I have the privilege of sitting up front in the blue fabric chair just behind the pulpit before worship really gets going.

For over 20 years, I’ve settled into that chair nearly every week, watching the congregation arrive for worship. Some of you walk in quietly, take a bulletin, and slip into a pew for quiet reflection, while others of you move through the room greeting one another. And then there are those of you in the Virtual Acre doing something similar in your own way—settling in with coffee, saying good morning in the chat, making space for worship wherever you are.

One of the things I’ve come to love about sitting in that seat is that it gives me such a clear view of what happens next. I get to see the slow, quiet convergence as you arrive from all over, carrying the week behind you, your burdens and joys in tow, and gradually our voices begin to join together.

There’s something beautiful about those first notes of the gathering song. It’s one of those sacred moments when our gathered bodies become The Gathered Body—when the many individual parts begin coming together as one.

As worship continues, that sense of shared space only deepens. When some of you stand to share your testimonies—each one unique, rooted in your own lived experience—there’s this mystery where your stories begin to resonate with all of us. When others of you lead us in song, guide us in prayer, or serve in so many other ways, your offerings invite us deeper into this shared experience of worship.

We start to hear our own questions, struggles, and hopes echoed back.

It’s in that sharing, both spoken and silent, that we remember we’re not just a collection of individuals, but brought together by the Spirit of God, learning again and again to share our lives, lift our voices, and find grace in the faces around us.

It’s one of those times when our scattered lives find a shared voice, drawn together by the Spirit, ready to sing grace into the world.

Rev. Sterling Severns, Pastor

Sermon: The Courage of Compassion

In this week’s message, we begin with the image of a watercolor world map—its softly blended greens, blues, browns, and rust hues—symbolizing how God’s love resists rigid boundaries. We explore how the parable of the Good Samaritan brings that vision into sharper focus. Rather than allowing us to shrink compassion to the neat lines we draw, Jesus invites us into something far broader.

Your question, “Who is my neighbor?” isn’t just a curious theological inquiry—it’s a dangerous attempt to limit mercy. In telling the parable, Jesus doesn’t define the neighbor; he makes us ask if we will become the neighbor. The priest and Levite play by the boundary lines while the Samaritan crosses them—paying time, money, reputation, even losing face within his own community.

Drawing on Bonhoeffer’s powerful warning that “the most dangerous question is ‘Who is my neighbor?’,” we explore how loyalty to citizenship, ideology, fear, or convenience can become lines that keep us from the compassion God calls us to. But mercy always costs—and it’s that crossing of lines that signals a radical allegiance to the Kingdom of God over any earthly divides.

Scripture: Luke 10:25–37

SERMON TRANSCRIPT:

Luke 10:25-37

We have a watercolor map that hangs in the church office. It’s been there for quite some time. Now, if you’ve seen it, then you know the way the colors run one into the other, vibrant greens and blues, burnished browns and rust. The borders of that world map are all blurred together. There are no sharp lines that say this country ends right here, and that one well, it begins here. I’ve always liked that about that particular print. That’s why I bought it a long time ago. What I haven’t liked as much about it is that it always makes me squirm a little bit at the dilemma that it presents. There is this universal truth that we have this need to draw lines, and this reality that that need is at great odds with God’s way of blending everything and everyone together like a beautiful watercolor painting, whereas we certainly want certainty. Of course, God is much more interested in the nuance where we want to claim what’s ours God. God wants us to share.

I’d say that picture that tension is a pretty good portrayal of today’s parable. Jesus tells it in response to a question that at its best sounds quite pious, but at its worst, is a very, very dangerous question. Sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it, who is my neighbor? It is a question that is looking for limitations. It’s looking for the lines, the boundaries, for the boundaries of obligation. It’s a question that wonders, who is it that we don’t have to care about quite as much? It’s a question about whether or not we can stay on this side of the road because of who it is that we see on the other side of the road.

Whereas yesterday, it was one person, it made sense to go well today, maybe not so much. Instead of Jesus directly answering the question in True Jesus form, when this dangerous question is asked, What does he do? He responds with a story. It satisfies deeply and it walks, we walk away from it feeling like we’re starving for the answer all at the same time. That’s what makes a parable a parable. After all, in God’s kingdom, neighbor isn’t a category that you fit people into. We know that. It’s the citizenship that we claim, it’s the mercy that has been offered to us that we have to choose to receive this lawyer’s question.

No offense to the lawyers among us. Is a story that is ultimately a story that is told meant to prompt one that is pretty certain of something, and he’s going to walk away feeling starved for the answer. I mean, he quotes well from Scripture at first you know about what the greatest commandment is. What’s the whole point of all of this? Love the Lord your God with everything you are, and love your neighbor as yourself. Okay? Yeah. He knows the words, but he wants to parse them. He wants to define them with lines. He wants to shrink the words. He wants to diminish the meaning. He wants to know the minimum requirement, perhaps, but nope. Jesus isn’t interested in that. He’s not going to let it happen.

Jesus, in turn, responds with a story that explodes the question. You’ve heard it many times before. You heard it earlier today, a man is beaten and left for dead. There’s a priest that crosses over and decides, nope, not for me. And then there’s the Levite, who sees and does the same. The people of faith who know the rules ultimately failed the test. Alright, we all get that right. But then there’s the Samaritan that comes along. Who is the Samaritan? We’ve heard it before, despised other than the Samaritan is the one that stops. The Samaritan is the one who sees. The Samaritan is the one that actually takes the time to act. He takes action, and then he actually pays the price at great cost, not just the financial cost and the loss of time, but something that we don’t often very we don’t really acknowledge very much is he also probably loses face with those that he comes from. You did what with who and how much?

Jesus ends the telling of the story with lobbying another question out, who is the neighbor in the story, not Who is my neighbor, but rather, are you going to be the neighbor? Make note. It’s a question that’s meant to unsettle us, to expose the lines that we’ve drawn, to ask if we’re ready to cross them, to blur them, to get out the watercolors with the paint brush.

We know this story is about crossing lines. Of course, we’ve heard it so many times before, but let me challenge us today to consider this, what borders or lines are drawn in your own life when you’re presented with the question that Jesus asked at the end of the story today, I don’t know about you, but in my piety, it’s very easy for me to point out the glaring mistake that others make where they draw their lines. But it’s not the question he’s asking. He’s saying, Hey, how about you? Where are your lines drawn?

On the neighbors that we pick are the lines that we choose, the schools that we prefer can become the lines, the conversations that we avoid become the line, the news we consume that reinforce what we already believe. They draw lines. And then there are those lines that sit buried in our hearts, the quiet predator prejudice that we don’t name, the fear of difference, the habit of ignoring pain that feels like it’s way too far away.

Jesus doesn’t ask us to erase all the differences. Of course, he asked us to refuse to let them decide who we’re going to love. He calls us to see humanity on the other side of the road. He calls us to recognize the image of God and those that we are very quick to dismiss. He tells a story to say there is no one that gets left behind. No one outside the reach of compassion, no one God has decided just doesn’t matter. In God’s vernacular, there is quite literally, nobody that’s illegal, nobody that doesn’t have a place in the kingdom of God.

This is a place where the colors, just like skin tones, blend together this kingdom of God. This is a place where boundaries and hearts alike are softened, where what matters isn’t the line, but the bond that we share, that all of us, ultimately, are immigrants in the kingdom of God. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. Do I really understand that I am an immigrant in the kingdom of God? It’s the one bond that we share. Citizens in the kingdom of God, immigrants, one and all. Welcome one and all.

Jesus doesn’t tell this parable so we can feel righteous. Aaron spoke to this earlier. It’s real in my life, too, to feel this righteousness bubbling up when we spot the priest or the Levite that’s clearly doing the wrong thing and wag our finger disapprovingly. Jesus has no interest in telling parables that reinforce that we’re on the right side. He tells the story so that we’ll see the places that we cross over to the other side and to become aware of the places in our lives where we are struggling to cross over to the other side, the times where we choose safety over compassion, the ways we justify in action with our piety or our fear or our patriotism.

But he also turns the mirror today to show us the Samaritan, the outsider that actually chooses Mercy, the enemy who becomes the neighbor. He gives a vision of God’s kingdom with no insiders or outsiders. There are no first class or second class citizens here, quite frankly, there are no aliens here, just immigrants, one and all citizens, one and all in the kingdom of God.

And so herein lies the struggle. Which is it, am I a citizen of the kingdom of the United States of America, as I point to the flag in our sanctuary, or am I citizen first in the kingdom of God? Which is it Jesus? We say? And Jesus says, you know, before I answer that question, let me tell you a story.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned us that the question, Who is my neighbor is perhaps one of the most dangerous questions that’s ever been asked before. I will never forget the first time that I’ve ever went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, dreading it, dreading it, and as I entered being surprised that I was handed a card with somebody’s picture and name on it and a little bit of backstory about where they were from. Do any of you know what I’m talking about? You’ve been through this experience, you weave through the whole museum, not having any idea how this particular story turns out, and when you finally get to the very end, you learn whether or not that person died in the Holocaust or lived in spite of the Holocaust. They just wanted to be sure that we all understood that every single person that’s represented in this big, giant building has a story and a name and a background, every single one of them.

Bonhoeffer says, The Most Dangerous question, perhaps in the world, is this question of who is my neighbor. It’s not a question that wants to expand our love, but determine where the lines are going to be drawn, to know who we get to love and who we can justify not loving not seeing. It’s a question that tries to define who we don’t have to care about. And he called that question a form of rebellion against God, and he was right to carry the cost of compassion when no one else will. Is the call to love that Jesus offers in the story this day.

And you’ll note, even though we don’t want to hear this either, Jesus is not denying in the story that mercy comes for free, Mercy has cost. It will cost us something in the story we know that the Samaritan paid the cost the Samaritan pays with his time, his resources, his vulnerability, and as I said early, the inevitable disproval of his fellow Samaritans to be the one that emerges when nobody seems to think that it’s the right thing to do, or everybody’s terrified to do is truly costly, and it seems to be what the story is prompting us to consider mercy always costs something.

This invitation that we’ve received today to be part of something bigger than we are. This kingdom of Jesus is built on the opposite of anything that is exclusionary. It doesn’t grow through a fear. It doesn’t grow through building walls. It takes shape when someone chooses mercy over caution, when someone crosses a line drawn that’s meant to keep people apart when a stranger becomes neighbor because someone refused to look away, that’s the kingdom he calls for us to enter.

And you’ll note this has been a thread through all the beautiful testimonies we’ve heard today. The thread is not about later, it’s not about some day. It’s about right now, this past week, this day and the day that will follow right now, we get to choose the citizenship that he offers us. We get to carry the passport of compassion. We are called to act like people who remember our own rescue, to remember that there was a time that we cried out for help, and somebody showed up, we are called to remember that this day so that, in turn, we can respond in kind people who don’t measure worth by citizenship papers, but by shared humanity, of a God that loves all, who refuses to Turn away from suffering because it’s inconvenient or complicated and doesn’t fit the political boundaries that we’ve drawn with lines in the sand one after the other.

It doesn’t grow through fear or walls. It takes shape when we choose mercy over caution. The Samaritan didn’t run the cost benefit analysis. He didn’t check the man’s background or his papers or his citizenship. He stopped. He cared. He paid. And Jesus says, now go do the same.

This is not easy work. It is not safe and it is not popular, and it is what it will take, ultimately, to be a full citizen in the kingdom of God that actually gets to experience the joy that comes with that citizenship. It asks us to risk comfort, time, money, pride, to ask for us to put our relationships on the line. It demands that we see the person in this ditch as somebody that could have been us, because there was actually a point in time where it was us, when we’re the ones lying there, broken exposed, needing mercy that we couldn’t repay. Someone crossed over the street to help us, and somebody will again, and in between those bookends, we have the opportunity to be that neighbor.

There’s a song that inspired today’s sermon that I’ll be posting online later today, by John Guerrera, and he puts it so very well. I’ve been listening to it on repeat for the last month, he says, and this is a paraphrase, this, God is building a city where we arrive as immigrants, and you call us God citizens, and you God welcome us as children home.

This is the call. This is the promise, may we have the courage to say yes, and the faith to live as citizens in that kingdom here today, now and forevermore, and all of God’s people said, Amen.

Sterling Severns Worship & Fellowship

Looking Toward Sunday: Becoming the Neighbor

July 13, 2025 – Gospel Focus: Luke 10:25–37

This Sunday we’ll turn our hearts to Luke 10:25–37—the familiar but ever-challenging parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus tells this story in response to a question we’re still asking today: “Who is my neighbor?” In it, compassion crosses boundaries, defies categories, and disrupts prejudice. As we prepare to worship together, here are a few questions to carry with you this week:

  • I wonder what keeps us from seeing the suffering right in front of us.
  • I wonder how courage and compassion might look in our own lives this week.
  • I wonder who has been a neighbor to you when you needed it most.
  • I wonder how God might be inviting us to “go and do likewise,” embodying mercy, justice, and grace in real ways.

Let’s also pray especially for our youth group at Passport Camp this week—that they would experience God’s love and guidance in powerful ways.

I hope you’ll join us Sunday as we listen for Jesus’ call to become neighbors in a world so desperate for compassion.

Grace and Peace,

Rev. Sterling W. Severns, Pastor

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Image: Vincent van Gogh, The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix), 1890. Public Domain. Courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Sterling Severns Devotional, Life of the Community, Taste & See

Pastoral Reflection: Grace at the Start


Rev. Sterling W. Severns, Pastor

This past Sunday, we chose to begin worship at the table. Before prayers or offerings, before much else was said or sung, we paused to share Communion—passing trays from one to another, serving and being served, bread and cup in our hands.

It wasn’t about earning anything, or proving ourselves ready. It was about acknowledging something true before anything else: that grace is given. That God provides. That all of us come hungry in one way or another.

In these tender and challenging days, when so many questions swirl about what comes next, there is something quietly powerful about starting there. To recognize that whatever happens begins not with our certainty or our planning, but with God’s own generosity. That nothing we’re about to do—our singing, our praying, our listening, our giving—creates grace. It simply responds to it.

Passing the bread and cup among us reminded us of our shared dependence. It was a small act of trust: receiving what someone else handed us, offering it in turn. A way of saying we cannot provide for ourselves alone. That God is always the one who moves first, offering what we cannot make ourselves.

For those who would like to reflect more on why this small shift in the order of worship can matter so much, I want to share this thoughtful piece that speaks to it beautifully: Grace at the Start: How Moving Communion Changes Everything.

I keep thinking of these words from Rachel Held Evans that many of us have carried with us:

“This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes.”

–Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

It’s an image worth holding onto.

Because whatever questions we’re asking about the future, whatever uncertainties wait for us beyond the doors of this sanctuary, we begin by acknowledging the grace already given.

And in serving and being served, we remember who we are.

People who are hungry. People who say yes.

People who find, again and again, that God meets us at the table.

Sterling Severns Devotional, Life of the Community, Staff, Worship

Pastoral Reflection: No Turning Back

Sterling Severns

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

– Annie Dillard

No Turning Back

There’s something unflinching about Jesus here.

Luke says he “set his face toward Jerusalem.”
It’s the moment he stops wandering and starts going.
Not drifting. Not hedging.
But choosing the road ahead—come what may.

He’s honest about it.
Bracingly so.
He says following will cost you.
He says you’ll have to let go of “but first.”
He says you can’t plow straight if you keep looking back.

And it’s not cruelty that makes him speak this way.
It’s love that refuses to lie.
He knows the road leads through suffering.
But he also knows it’s the only road that leads to life.

I think there’s mercy in that clarity.
A grace in being told the truth about what matters most.
Because when you know the cost, you get to choose freely.
And love that’s chosen freely is the only kind that lasts.

I imagine us standing there together in that moment.
Hearing his voice.
Not with shame. Not with fear.
But with a holy honesty that says:
“Yes. Even this. I’ll follow.”


I wonder:
I wonder what “but first” you’re holding onto these days.
I wonder what you’d have to lay down to follow more freely.
I wonder what you might gain on the other side of that choice.

Looking Ahead

As we prepare for worship next Sunday, I hope you’ll take time to read ahead in the Gospel—Luke 10:1–11, 16–20.

Jesus sends seventy others on ahead of him.
He doesn’t weigh them down with baggage.
He sends them lightly, with trust and purpose, to bring peace and healing wherever they go.
He tells them to say: “The kingdom of God has come near.”

If this week is about choosing the road,
Next week is about walking it—together.

And there’s hope in that.
We don’t walk alone.

I wonder:
As you read and pray this week,
I wonder what it would mean for you to go lightly.
I wonder how you might speak peace into someone’s life.
I wonder where you might notice God’s kingdom drawing near.

May God grant us the grace to see clearly,
the courage to choose freely,
and the love to walk this road with one another.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Sterling W. Severns
Pastor

tbc Worship & Fellowship

Will You Help Lead Us?

As we step into a new season of worship, we’re inviting you to help shape what comes next.

We’re navigating a meaningful time of transition in our worship life, and now more than ever, we’re leaning on the gifts of our whole church family. Whether you’ve helped lead worship before or you’re open to trying something new, we’d love for you to consider stepping in.

Scripture readers, prayer leaders, singers, instrumentalists, testimony-givers—there’s room for all kinds of voices. If you’re willing to give it a try, we promise to support, guide, and walk alongside you every step of the way.

It’s not about perfection. It’s about presence, growth, and faithfulness.

Let’s do this together.

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tbc Church Business, Reports and Documents

Emergency Operations Plan

The Buildings and Grounds Committee is pleased to introduce our new Church Emergency Operations Plan, which was developed to help our church respond effectively and calmly in the event of an emergency. This plan outlines procedures for various situations, including medical incidents, severe weather, fire, and other potential risks.

We encourage all members, volunteers, and staff to review the plan and become familiar with the key steps. The Committee will be hosting training sessions in the fall for staff, leader, and members of the congregation to better prepare ourselves for emergencies. 

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions regarding the Emergency Operations Plan, please talk with Kyle Kennedy or email him at Kyle@kyleandapril.com.

Click Here for a copy of the Plan.

Judy Fiske Life of the Community, Worship

Thank you!


Last Sunday in worship I shared a small piece by Frederick Buechner called Sacrament.  It begins with these sentences: “A sacrament is when something holy happens.  It is transparent time – time when you can see through to something deep inside time.”  Something sacramental began on Sunday as we celebrated our shared ministry of over 45 years.  We celebrated connection to God and to one another and we stood on the edge of time looking backward and fearfully beginning to peek forward. 

I cannot thank you enough for 45+ years of shared ministry.  We have walked together and sung together through joy and sorrow always looking to God for the way through.  As I step away from “professional” ministry and the congregation steps into a time of change and discernment we can both walk boldly into sacramental time when our awareness of the Holy that surrounds us will guide us on the road forward.  Last Sunday was an amazing experience of celebration and remembrance.  Let it be a sacramental beginning for both of us

Thank you for sharing life and music in the service of God with me.  The road does indeed lead on with God’s guidance.  I can’t wait to see what is around the next turn. 

Grateful,
Judy