After a month of Red Flags, Pastor Rebecca finally preached about green flags (!) — the ones we need and the ones we have to offer, as a church.

Rev Dr. Katie Hays brought us greetings from Galileo Church (a Disciples congregation on the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas) and a dispatch from “the badlands,” preaching that in the Gospel reading (Luke 9:57-62), Jesus waved his own red flags.

As part of “Red Flags” worship theme for August, Pastor Rebecca’s sermon this week centered on regret: the regret of a lost love, the regret of electing the wrong leader, and even the regrets of God themself. Focusing on 1st Samuel and an anecdote about time travel, she reminds us that the only path is forward.

Pastor Rebecca, in an attempt to contextualize the book of Daniel, threw some unexpected shade against the musical Hamilton.... Mostly, though, her sermon was about the good news that the empires of this world are always and ever teetering on the edge of collapse.

Anyone who knows former student pastor and Bethany member Kelli Manning might be surprised to know that she was once hugely self-conscious. Well, she didn't manage, understand, or grow through it on her own. It required caring and collective curiosity. Preaching from Numbers 22, she encouraged us likewise to journey together:

"When people ignore or don't know to look for repeated warning signs...they keep walking on a dangerously lonely path. Seeing the warning signs is one thing, but allowing someone else to help navigate them is transformational."

Pastor Vince apologizes right at the start of this sermon for biting off more than he can chew research wise (Epistemology! Geology!) By the end, he shares an invitation to ground ourselves in the certainty of God’s power and care.

Preaching on the story of the shipwreck in Acts 27, Pastor Vince describes baptism as a means of confronting the powers of evil, choosing sides and facing our own mortality.

Pastor Vince’s sermon this week shares that God doesn’t ask us for extravagant gestures. Rather, they ask that we do what little we can and trust God to make more of it than we can imagine.

Pastor Rebecca's sermon centers the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, which was organized in 1987 with an absolutely singular mission: direct action to end the AIDS crisis. In the face of neglect, negligence, indifference, they behaved badly to save lives — a move that may sound familiar from stories about Jesus.

Examining Psalm 9 and 2 Samuel, Pastor Rebecca delivers a sermon on doing the right thing even when your actions seem fruitless.