Blue Ocean Church Ann Arbor Sunday Sermons

The Easter story tells us that Jesus is near, he knows our name, he knows our pain, and his living presence is all around. We are a resurrection people. Even when things are scary, or hard, or don’t turn out how we want them to—this presence brings peace and assurance that hope and love will overcome. Words of hope from Emily, plus A “Mama Bear Minute” from Liz Dyer.

When we’re going through a global crisis, it helps to tune into a different drama from a different time—the ups and downs, celebration and sadness of Palm Sunday, for example—with its gestures that proved so meaningful. Ken and Liz Dyer share words of encouragement.

Via our virtual service, from Ken: “Late at night, an awareness of my maternal grandmother’s life-verse, in the context of all she went through, has been a help to coping with anxiety.” Mama Bears founder Liz Dyer also joins us to share a word of encouragement to all Mama Bears.

In the second sermon of our Lenten series, we talk about seeing the book of Job as the spiritual transformation of a man in the face of suffering and how he forges a new path in the midst of his pain and confusion. Learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time and location, at a2blue.org.

In this introduction to our Lenten Sermon Series, Job & the Religious Mob: A Courageous Dissent, we talk about where the book of Job fits into the larger revelation of God to humanity.

Taking Bonhoeffer’s lead, we look at what it means to be led by the Spirit discerned through the Jesus of the Disinherited. This is the final sermon in our Nurturing the Spirit in Spirituality series.

In the Pentecostal tradition, praising God is a community event. People gather together to sing praises because it helps focus on a communal expectation that God can, and will, act on behalf of the oppressed, because God has done so throughout history. Praise is the bridge between thankfulness for the past and hope for the future.

The first to be filled with the Spirit in the gospel of Luke were women used to being shushed, who then spoke up to challenge the powers of the day—this is the deeper purpose of strange-to-many practices like speaking in tongues and loud vocalizations.