Blue Ocean Church Ann Arbor Sunday Sermons

God’s blessing, and the presence of encouraging loved ones, can transform disgraced outsiders into worshipful believers who wait with hopeful anticipation for his coming justice. Emily Swan shares the hopefulness of the Advent season in the third week of our sermon series.

Learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time and location, at a2blue.org.

The Jewish background to the angel's announcement of Mary's pregnancy is loaded with surprises, including a divine presence that approaches her in feminine, not masculine form. Ken Wilson references Luke 2:26–38 in the second sermon of our Advent series, subtitled, "What We Miss When We Focus on the Virgin Birth Like A Bunch of Gentiles."

Learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time and location, at a2blue.org.

Using the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah from the Gospel of Luke, we talk about how we learn to wait on God. The story provokes us to look at the world wide-eyed, looking for signs of God that could astonish us—leaving us breathless, silent, and pondering the overwhelming beauty breaking through.

It’s easy to assume Christianity is all about feeling bad about sin so we can turn to God. But Jesus often opposed labeling people as sinners, and his practice of forgiveness often deviated from our well-worn norms. Ken Wilson explores our practice of labeling and forgiveness in “Questioning the Sinner Label.”

Learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time, location, and membership, at a2blue.org.

In her study of Mark 12–13, Emily Swan takes a less traditional approach to the familiar parable of the widow’s mite. She also offers strategies for dealing with family anxieties over the holidays.

Learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time, location, and membership, at a2blue.org.

Agency is the capacity to make choices independently, without outside interference. It’s a key to being human in the image of God…and there’s room in our connection with God for us to exercise it. As Jesus showed Bartimaeus. Ken Wilson expands on these ideas in this week’s message, “Bartimaeus and the Affirmation of Agency.”

You can learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time, location, and membership, at a2blue.org.

Contemplating death and what comes next can be stir up a range of emotions and thoughts. Emily shares from her personal experiences and reflections and how they have shaped her faith in her sermon to commemorate the Feast of All Saints.

You can learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time, location, and membership, at a2blue.org.

Blue Ocean is about re-integrating faith with an identify under assault from toxic religion. We are called to the spiritual-ally disciplines of humility, non-defensive listening, and expanding our hearts. This sermon, the final in our annual membership renewal series, includes a powerful testimony from a member of the Kiowa and Comanche peoples.

You can learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time, location, and what it means to become a member, at a2blue.org.

Guest Speaker Liz Dyer shares her journey from a conservation Christian background to affirming her gay son, supporting other moms of LGBTQ children, and becoming an ally and advocate for LGBTQ individuals. Liz is the founder of the first private FB group of Christian moms with LGBTQ+ kids (3,660 and growing!). 

This is the fourth message in our annual membership renewal series. You can learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time, location, and what it means to become a member, at a2blue.org.

Is our current political climate, or other life situation, causing you ongoing anxiety and/or feelings of hopelessness? Emily Swan looks to the Old Testament prophets, and the return of the Israelites from exile, for examples of how to tend to our emotional health. While acknowledging that there is a time for grief and active resistance, she encourages us to cultivate spaces of joy and rest as a spiritual practice, and as acts of resistance against the forces and events trying to discourage us.

Emily’s sermon, “Self Care as an Act of Resistance,” is the third in our annual membership renewal series. You can learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time, location, and what it means to become a member, at a2blue.org.