Ann Arbor Community Church Sermon Podcast

Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire – Christ in You, the Hope of Glory - Rev. Donnell T. Wyche - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard 

Summary:

In the final installment of our Colossians series, Pastor Donnell explores Paul’s powerful counter-vision to life under empire. Rather than simply critiquing systems of domination, Paul offers a transformative alternative rooted in the sufficiency of Christ. In empire, worth is earned through control, consumption, and coercion. But in Christ, worth is freely given, and we are invited to live as new people—formed not by fear or hierarchy but by resurrection hope. As Pastor Donnell reminds us, every act of forgiveness, generosity, and love becomes a quiet rebellion against the logic of empire. The sermon returns to Paul’s opening prayer in Colossians 1, highlighting that before offering instruction or correction, Paul begins with intercession—thanking God for the faith, love, and hope already alive in the church. Even from prison, Paul remains hopeful, convinced that the gospel is on the move, bearing fruit across the world. Pastor Donnell draws this into our own lives, reminding us that the kingdom of God advances not through domination but through ordinary believers practicing resurrection by living with courage, kindness, and open-handed faith. The message ends with a practical invitation: live like Christ dwells within you. Intercede for others not out of performance, but from a Spirit-empowered hope that transforms both the one who prays and the one who is prayed for. Resurrection isn’t just a belief—it’s a way of life. And each time we affirm someone’s dignity, offer compassion, or act with courage, we become part of God’s unfolding story of glory in the midst of empire.

Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire – Persevering In Prayer (Colossians 4:2-6) - Pastor Hannah Witte - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard 

Summary:

In this heartfelt and deeply personal sermon, Pastor Hannah Witte invites the congregation into a counter-cultural life rooted in prayer, gratitude, and spiritual attentiveness. Drawing from Colossians 4:2–6, she reflects on the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to persevere in prayer as a way of resisting the empire—the forces of consumerism, nationalism, fear, and control that seek to dominate our lives. Pastor Hannah begins by sharing her own calling into ministry and the ongoing journey of faith that’s filled with more questions than answers. She reminds us that prayer doesn’t come naturally, but it is the pathway through which God’s dreams are ushered into the world.

Pastor Hannah unpacks Paul’s call to “stay awake” in prayer, encouraging us to resist the spiritual sleepiness that keeps us disconnected from God’s presence and purpose. She shares practical ways to cultivate this awareness, including beginning each day with the simple question, “God, what do you want to say to me?” She weaves in personal stories—most poignantly the sudden death of her mother—to show how practicing gratitude in both joy and grief keeps our hearts tender and open to God. Gratitude, she emphasizes, is not a trite response to suffering but a sustaining act of resistance and trust.

The sermon closes with a call to embrace God’s expansive dreams for humanity. Pastor Hannah highlights Paul’s own example—even from prison—of praying not for personal comfort but for open doors to proclaim the liberating love of Jesus. She challenges listeners to align their prayers not just with their personal desires but with God’s redemptive hopes for their neighborhoods, relationships, and communities. As we scatter into our lives, we are encouraged to live interruptibly, speak with grace, and embody God’s dreams in everyday encounters—offering a quiet but powerful resistance to the despair of empire.

Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire – Culture-Making (Colossians 3:18–4:1) - Rev. Donnell T. Wyche - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard 

Summary:

In this sermon, Pastor Donnell Wyche examines one of the most difficult sections of Paul’s letter to the Colossians, where household codes outline relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, and slaves and masters. Far from affirming hierarchical or oppressive structures, Pastor Donnell argues that Paul is subverting the dominant culture of the Greco-Roman world. By addressing the powerless—wives, children, and enslaved persons—directly, Paul grants them dignity and moral agency. Paul’s command that husbands love their wives and that fathers avoid embittering their children is revolutionary in a culture where power was rarely checked by compassion. In Paul’s view, culture-making begins at home, and households become outposts of the Kingdom when marked by mutuality and cruciform love.   Pastor Donnell devotes significant attention to Paul’s instruction to enslaved persons, acknowledging that these verses have been weaponized throughout church history to justify horrific systems of oppression. Pastor Donnell makes it unequivocally clear: God has always been anti-slavery. From Genesis to Revelation, God’s vision is one of abundance, liberation, and human flourishing. Slavery always is anti-human (Genesis 1:26–28), anti-God (Isaiah 58), and anti-Gospel (Luke 4). While Paul does not outright condemn the institution of slavery—which scholars note was foundational to the Greco-Roman economy—Paul plants subversive seeds by calling for equality between slaves and masters, as he later does more explicitly in Philemon. Pastor Donnell laments Paul’s limited prophetic imagination but sees Paul’s writings as part of a kingdom trajectory that invites us to go further in working for liberation and justice in our own context.   Finally, Pastor Donnell challenges listeners to resist empire not just in theory, but in practice—beginning at home. The family is often where empire’s patterns of control, fear, and domination take root. But in the Kingdom of God, the home is to be a place of tenderness, security, and love. We resist empire by embodying cruciform love in our relationships—with our spouses, our children, our coworkers, and our neighbors. Through daily acts of compassion and humility, we bear witness to a different way of being—one shaped not by power but by the cross, not by empire but by resurrection.

Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire – Practices of Resistance (Colossians 3:1–17) - Rev. Donnell T. Wyche - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard 

Summary:

In this third installment of the Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire series, Pastor Donnell Wyche explores Paul’s invitation to live a resurrection-shaped life as resistance to the demands and distortions of empire. After deconstructing the false promises of empire—security, glory, and salvation—Paul turns toward reconstruction, calling the Colossians to embody new life by setting their minds on Christ. Resurrection, Pastor Donnell reminds us, is not metaphorical—it is real, and it invites us into ordinary, grounded practices of love, patience, forgiveness, and peace as signs that Christ is alive and empire is not in control.   Pastor Donnell contextualizes Paul’s challenge by naming how empire shapes us with fear, scarcity, and performance-based identity. Drawing from his experience on Ann Arbor’s planning commission, he critiques how exclusion and self-protection still shape our civic life—especially around housing—and how Paul calls us to take off the habits of empire and put on the character of Christ. Resistance, in this sense, isn’t reactive—it’s proactive. It’s not about protest alone, but daily formation: shedding old ways of being and clothing ourselves with compassion, humility, and love. This, he asserts, is what empire cannot imitate.   The sermon climaxes with Paul’s powerful reframing of Christian identity: “You are chosen, you are holy, and you are deeply, deeply loved.” Pastor Donnell insists that our actions must flow from this identity—not out of fear, guilt, or striving, but as a response to God’s unshakable love. Resistance looks like parenting with patience, giving freely, refusing cynicism, and holding fast to hope. Every act of mercy, love, and peace is an act of protest against empire’s rule. The invitation is clear: live like resurrection is real—because it is—and let your life be a declaration that Jesus is Lord.

 

Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire – Naming the Empire (Colossians 2:6-15) - Rev. Donnell T. Wyche - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard 

Summary:

In this powerful and provocative sermon, Pastor Donnell Wyche continues the Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire series by exploring Colossians 2:6–15 and what it means to be faithful to Christ in a world shaped by empire. Drawing from Paul’s letter to a fledgling church in Colossae, Donnell frames the passage as a deeply subversive text—one that directly confronts the ideologies, powers, and allegiances of the surrounding Roman empire. For Paul, and for us today, to declare that Christ—not Caesar, not the economy, not nationalism—is Lord, is to resist the false narratives that shape our lives and identities.

Pastor Donnell draws sharp connections between Paul’s world and our own, exposing the subtle and not-so-subtle ways empire exerts its influence today—from militarism and economic control to curated media narratives and Christian celebrity culture. He names modern forces—TikTok, Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Warner Bros, and even popular pastors—not to shame, but to awaken the church to how deeply these forces shape our desires, fears, and theology. “Don’t be taken captive,” Paul warns, and Pastor Donnell echoes that call with urgency, reminding us that resistance starts by rooting ourselves in Christ, not in power, performance, or fear.

The sermon crescendos with a bold declaration: Jesus, crucified by empire, disarmed the powers not with violence, but through the cross. Pastor Donnell invites the weary, the skeptical, and the disillusioned to see Jesus clearly—not as a tool of empire, but as the one who triumphs by love, truth, and resurrection. “Empire doesn’t get the last word,” he proclaims, “Jesus does.” The call to the church is clear: Wake up. Resist. Stay rooted in Christ. And when overwhelmed by the noise of the world, pray the simple prayer of resistance: “Jesus, free me from the voices that hold me captive. Root me in you again.”

 

Colossians: The People of God in the Age of Empire – The Unco-opted Christ (Colossians 1:15-20) - Rev. Donnell T. Wyche - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard 

Summary:

In this opening message of our new series on Colossians, Pastor Donnell Wyche invites us into a powerful re-centering of our lives around the crucified Christ. Preaching from Colossians 1:15–20, he reminds us that in the midst of empire, cultural pressures, and leadership failures, Paul does not begin with fear or anxiety but with a bold proclamation: Christ is the image of the invisible God, the one who holds all things together. Pastor Donnell challenges us to see worship not as private devotion but as public resistance — an act of allegiance to a kingdom that values humility, peace, and sacrificial love over the power, dominance, and platform of empire.

Drawing on rich historical context and vivid contemporary parallels, Pastor Donnell names how empire continues to shape our world through fear, fragmentation, and injustice. Yet in a world that feels unstable and disillusioned, Christ invites us to a different imagination — one rooted not in scarcity but in abundance, not in domination but in reconciliation. He reminds us that Christ’s death was not a defeat but the planting of a seed that bursts into new creation, calling us to participate in God’s ongoing work of healing, resistance, and restoration.

Throughout the sermon, Pastor Donnell gently yet boldly calls us to faithful resistance: to make Christ, not empire, the center of our lives; to embody peace, generosity, and mercy in a world hungry for hope; and to trust that even in the ruins, Christ is making all things new. As we contend with grief, fear, and low trust, we are invited to breathe deeply, to anchor ourselves in Christ’s sustaining love, and to live as witnesses to a kingdom that does not co-opt or conquer, but sets us free.

All Things New: An Invitation to Hope, Restoration, and Life (John 20) - Rev. Donnell T. Wyche - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard 

Summary:

In this Easter Sunday sermon, Pastor Donnell Wyche invites the congregation into the heart of the resurrection story—not just as a historical event, but as an unfolding promise. Drawing from John 20, he weaves together the emotional power of personal remembrance, the cosmic implications of Jesus’ resurrection, and the deep yearning we each carry for renewal. The story of Mary at the tomb becomes a powerful symbol of recognition and restoration, where Jesus, mistaken as the gardener, is revealed as the firstborn of a new creation. Pastor Donnell challenges us to see ourselves in this story—to remember who has loved us into being, and to believe that even in our grief, doubt, or despair, God is present and active.

Throughout the sermon, he speaks to those who feel abandoned, cynical, or weary—those who have given up on faith, sobriety, relationships, or themselves. Using metaphors like the potter and the clay from Jeremiah 18, Pastor Donnell emphasizes that God does not discard us when we resist or falter. Instead, God reshapes us, breathing new life into what we thought was lost. The resurrection, he reminds us, is not a divine do-over but a bold declaration that nothing is beyond redemption. The promise of Easter is that God is making all things new—not all new things—redeeming rather than replacing.

In closing, Pastor Donnell calls each listener to respond: What have you abandoned that God still wants to redeem? Whether your faith feels strong or faint, whether you are hopeful or skeptical, the invitation of Easter is the same—Jesus is alive, and he is still making all things new. That includes you. This sermon is a stirring call to remember, to hope, and to believe that the worst thing is never the last thing when Jesus has the final word.

Palm Sunday: The Subversive King – (Mark 11; Matthew 16, 26; Zechariah 9:9) - Rev. Donnell T. Wyche - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard 

Summary:

In this Palm Sunday message, Pastor Donnell explores the tension between divine hope and human expectation. He contrasts Jesus’ humble entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey with the imperial procession of Pontius Pilate entering from the other side of the city. Drawing from Zechariah 9:9, Donnell invites us to notice how Jesus subverts conventional power—not through violence or domination but through vulnerability and prophetic obedience.   Pastor Donnell reflects on how the people gathered for Passover saw Jesus as the fulfillment of their long-held hopes for liberation. Yet as the story unfolds, the crowd’s enthusiasm turns to disillusionment. Jesus doesn’t lead a rebellion against Rome—he cleanses the temple, is betrayed, abandoned, and eventually executed. In that dissonance, Donnell challenges us to consider what happens when our expectations of God don’t match how God actually moves. Do we give up—or do we surrender our expectations to follow Jesus in his way of costly, transformative love?   This sermon ends with a sobering invitation: the way of Christ is not triumphalism but surrender. Palm Sunday forces us to sit with a God who enters the world not to dominate, but to die—and in dying, to usher in a new kind of kingdom. Pastor Donnell calls the church to live awake to this reality, to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus, even when it costs us everything.

Unfinished: Encountering Jesus, Becoming Disciples – Learning Who Jesus Is-and Isn't - Dan Lewan - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard

Summary:

In this powerful and deeply personal sermon, Dan Lewan opens up about a fifteen-year journey exploring the life of Peter, a disciple whose failures, impulsiveness, and transformation make him a compelling leader in the early church. What began as a college observation—that Peter was often wrong—grew into a lifelong fascination with how Jesus patiently shaped Peter through moments of correction and grace. Dan introduces the series by situating Peter’s story in its historical context, tracing Jewish hopes for political liberation through figures like Judas Maccabeus, and showing how those hopes colored Peter’s expectations of Jesus as a Messiah.

Dan explores Peter’s journey from a responsible, middle-aged fisherman to a man willing to leave everything to follow Jesus. Through vivid storytelling, he walks us through Peter’s highs—confessing Jesus as the Messiah, witnessing miracles—and his lows—rebuking Jesus, denying him, and facing bitter regret. Dan highlights how Peter struggled to reconcile his own vision of who Jesus should be with who Jesus actually was. Jesus wasn’t a political revolutionary like Judas Maccabeus, but a suffering servant who called Peter not to reign, but to shepherd.

The sermon culminates with Peter’s restoration on the beach, where Jesus calls him to love and tend his sheep—not to lead with power, but with humility. Dan draws a clear arc from Peter’s first call to his eventual martyrdom, showing how Jesus patiently dismantled Peter’s false assumptions to prepare him for true Kingdom leadership. Ultimately, Peter’s story is one of surrender—learning who Jesus is not was just as vital as knowing who he is. Dan concludes by reminding us that like Peter, we must lay down our own agendas to embrace the mission of God fully.

Unfinished: When Faith Gets Interrupted – Acts 10 - Rev. Donnell T. Wyche - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 10:45am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard

Summary:

In this week’s message, Pastor Donnell continues the Unfinished series by exploring Acts 10 and the story of Peter and Cornelius. Framing the journey of discipleship as one that continues to unfold, Pastor Donnell reminds us that even Peter, a foundational leader of the church, still had much to learn. The sermon highlights how God disrupted Peter’s expectations through a vision that challenged his deeply held religious assumptions, ultimately preparing him to recognize the work of God in someone he would have considered an outsider.   Pastor Donnell draws out four major movements in the Acts 10 narrative: encountering ordinary people with unseen faith, experiencing a discipleship interruption, transforming a shared table into a pulpit, and finally, the unmistakable arrival of the Holy Spirit. The story of Cornelius—a Gentile centurion who was generous, prayerful, and spiritually attuned—underscores a powerful truth: God is already at work in the lives of those we often overlook. Peter’s vision of unclean animals and the Spirit’s directive to “not call unclean what I have made clean” becomes a metaphor for how God redefines belonging and holiness.   The sermon culminates in Peter’s surprise as the Holy Spirit falls on Cornelius and his household—a moment that forces him to acknowledge that God’s family is far more inclusive than he had imagined. Pastor Donnell invites the congregation to live with prophetic imagination, to be willing participants in God’s unfolding story, and to extend welcome where we least expect it. His practical encouragement: live as if “maybe, just maybe, God is already at work.”