Before we get to sweet baby Jesus, we have to deal with apocalyptic Jesus. Even as we put up our Christmas trees and turn on Frank Sinatra, Advent won’t let us get away with skipping right to the merry and bright. No, we are reminded—urged—to bear witness to the way that Christ coming into the world completely upends it.

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).

It’s the last Sunday of Ordinary Time! Ecclesiastes may seem like a weird place to end Ordinary Time, but as the writer says, “For everything there is a season.” This text helps us to discern what our role is in making meaning of the time we are in now, as the world changes every day, as we change every day. How will we let the stories and songs that are so familiar to us speak something fresh to us in the coming months?

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).

The feeding of the five thousand is one of the more familiar stories of scripture. We know the details—the disciples have just returned from their mission and are faced with a big hungry crowd. They only have a few loaves and fishes, and somehow it becomes more than enough. But perhaps the details we don’t have can inform how we approach stewardship. What did the disciples do on their mission specifically? And what does it mean that there are leftovers, that giving away seems to multiply rather than subtract, in the reign of God? We get to answer those questions today in our context.

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).

On the first Monday of each month, we will be offering a Lectio Divina podcast.

Lectio Divina is a practice of reading scripture not for learning something practical or theological, but rather to allow the Living Spirit of Christ to speak to us through a word, a phrase, a pause. It lets the text be the text as it speaks to our own hearts.

You’ll hear the same scripture from a couple of different voices. We invite you to close your eyes or find a quiet place to listen. During each reading, consider what God is bringing to your awareness.

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).

We began our stewardship series, A Future with Hope, on Sunday! We’re drawing from the story of exile in Jeremiah, the promise of return, and the call to root down right where we are in hope.

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).

Be careful that you don’t fall into the trap laid for you in this parable! If we walk away from this parable praying, “Thank God, I’m not like the Pharisee!” then we have indeed fallen into the trap. To understand the landslide of grace in this parable, we have to understand our characters as they were to Jesus’s audience and resist making caricatures of them.

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).

Parables are meant to disturb and unsettle, and this one surely does. What should we make of a widow who pounds on a door and a judge who couldn’t care less until he does? And how is this parable about prayer?

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).

The story of the ten lepers seems like a simple lesson in gratitude. Didn’t our grandmothers always tell us to say thank you? But there’s something more going on here—especially if we consider that the one who turns back is not your typical religious person.

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).

We join back up with Jesus in the gospel of Luke for our new series: Let Me Tell You a Story: Jesus Stories from Luke. In today’s text, we wonder what it means that Jesus responds to a request for more faith with a metaphor and a terrible parable.

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).

On the first Monday of each month, we will be offering a Lectio Divina podcast.

Lectio Divina is a practice of reading scripture not for learning something practical or theological, but rather to allow the Living Spirit of Christ to speak to us through a word, a phrase, a pause. It lets the text be the text as it speaks to our own hearts.

You’ll hear the same scripture from a couple of different voices. We invite you to close your eyes or find a quiet place to listen. During each reading, consider what God is bringing to your awareness.

Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram. Or, contact us through our website: www.azlechristianchurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Azle Christian Church, you can give on our website or find us on Venmo (@Azle-ChristianChurch).