Claremont United Church of Christ

Today we celebrate 26 years of being an Open and Affirming church and welcome guest preacher, Rev. Brian Ellison, of The Covenant Network for an excellent sermon on the parable of the pearl of great price.

When Jesus introduces a series of three stories about lost items in Luke 15, he begins with a story about a lost sheep. Join Pastor Jacob as he connects this story to the Black Lives Matter movement and asks, "Who is really lost?"

The wilderness of the multiple pandemics we are experiencing are uncomfortable and challenging. What might be revealed to us in the midst of this dry place?

There is an Iroquois law that said decisions should be made based on how they impact the community seven generations into the future. What if God is calling us to invest in creating a better world, even if we never live to see it?

Like Ezekiel, we are surveying the dead, dry bones of our personal and communal lives. With God's Holy Spirit, may we one day take a collective new breath and begin a new era in which everyone can breathe together.

While they are in the wilderness waiting for Moses to come down from Sinai, the Israelites ask Aaron to make them some sort of god that they can see and touch. We always crave certainty. But what if the only thing that is certain is our uncertainty? How do we live in the uncertainty?

Our world certainly feels as if it is being refined by fire this year. We are being called to change many of our ways of thinking and our practices. Is it possible to find God in the midst of all of this change? Malachi thinks so!

Pastor Jacob admits he likes to check things off lists and felt compelled to preach out all of the remaining books before the series came to a close. He looks to eight different passages and asks if there might be a common theme unifying the entire canon of Scripture.

After generations of failure and chaos, the Israelites are left wondering how they could ever rebuild what they had before? Will it be possible for us to rebuild?

Doesn't it sometimes feel that Christianity has been hijacked by fundamentalists. But what if they think the same thing about us so-called "progressives." Pastor Jacob provides some guidance about how to have conversations regarding the heart of our faith.