A Discomforting Gospel Sometimes we find comforting saints as companions for the spiritual journey – the people whose stories resonate with ours, who inspire us, and who we think “They’d be fun to meet!” And sometimes we encounter the prophetic saints of the Church, the ones who stand on the fringes of acceptable society. And they can make us uncomfortable.…
Resisting Empires Two saints of the 20th Century, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Oscar Romero, offer us a challenging perspective – that faithfully following Jesus will often put us in conflict with the powers of the world. We might be tempted to withdraw from the world to keep ourselves safe, but these two servants of Christ show us another way – learning…
How Big is Your Neighborhood? Gospel Lessons from Mr. Rogers and Ms. Rachel The season of Lent is an invitation to introspection – taking an honest look at ourselves and being open to the Spirit’s work to draw us back toward God. But interior spiritual work can become navel-gazing if we don’t have good partners to guide us. And so…
All the Light We Share Transfiguration Sunday celebrates the moment when Christ is transfigured before three of his disciples. In that moment, Jesus the itinerant rabbi is revealed as the divine Christ. As followers in the Jesus Way, we are invited to allow Christ to be revealed in us. What would it look like in our world if we who…
Salt, Light, Justice, Peace Christians don’t get to sit it out, hoping that our worship pleases God while people are harmed, or hungry, or hopeless. Read Isaiah 58:1-12 and Matthew 5:13-20 in preparation for the sermon, “Salt, Light Justice, Peace.” The livestream will be available on February 8 at 10:30 or any time after. The bulletins can be downloaded from…
We’ll be celebrating God’s gift of music and song – a gift for times of joy, of sorrow, of lament, of uncertainty and even of anger. As we celebrate Chris Rust’s 20 years of serving as our choir director, we’ll bless him as he steps into the next opportunity to share his gift for creating music with the world. Join…
LOUMC Christmas Eve 2025 Bethlehem is crowded. The inn is crowded. The fields are crowded with sheep gathered together for the night. And then: The skies are crowded with an angelic choir. Then the stable is filled with the cries of a newborn. The world is filled with the light of Love. Our lives are filled with the presence of…
“What Do We Know?” Fourth Sunday of Advent On this fourth Sunday of Advent, we hear Matthew’s brief version of the Nativity of Christ – no Bethlehem journey, no shepherds, no angel choirs. In comparison to Luke’s spectacle, it seems almost boring. But Matthew carries a persistent message: God, throughout history, works to sustain God’s people, even in the darkest…
What Do You Hear? John the Baptizer bellows in the wilderness, calling the people to preparation, and challenging the self-righteous to true repentance. As is always the case with prophetic words, how we hear them depends almost entirely on our perspective. Do we hear that we are being called to a liberated way of living, or do we only hear…
Waking Up As we begin this Advent season, we’ll gather for one combined worship service at 10:00. Advent is the season of preparation, but it is also a time of anticipation. We are waiting the arrival of the birth of Jesus, of course, but we are also anticipating the arrival of God’s Kingdom of Shalom. But what kind of waiting…
“The Images of Divine Love” What does love look like? What does divine love look like? What does it mean for us that Christ is “the image of the invisible God” as Paul writes? The artistic images we have of Jesus may be meaningful, but, of course they are culturally bound expressions. So what is it, in the end, that Christ looks…
Small Questions About a Big God Is our theology important? Does it matter if we understand the Church’s teaching about God? Aren’t all these theological discussions just versions of “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” How do we know which theological questions matter, and which ones don’t? The livestream will be available at 9:00 on…
