Claremont United Church of Christ

Watch our full Good Friday Service as we travel the stations of the cross and pay attention to the ways today's headlines intersect with the Gospel story. Jump to 4:17 for the start of the service and 39:30 to catch the sermon.

The Center for Disease Control found that only 65 percent of women and 31 percent of men washing their hands after using the bathroom. We have a hard time washing our hands, but an easy time washing our metaphorical hands when we shouldn't. How can we tell the difference between those experiences that we should just wash away, and those we can't?

The noise and chaos of Palm Sunday soon takes a precipitous decline a week later when Jesus finds himself before Pontius Pilate and his accusers. Pastor Jen contrasts the noise and silence of Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday and asks why Jesus stood silent before those who were trying to kill him.

How can we have faith when God is silent? Pastor Jacob explores those moments in life when we have so many questions, but God seems nowhere to be found.

This story from Mark 3 has a lot of interesting elements, but in this sermon, Pastor Jen zeroes in on the silence of the Pharisees after Jesus questions them. What happens in that moment when our silence starts to solidify as stubbornness?

We all know that death can come at any time. What's hard is that we don't know when that time will be and Scripture doesn't give us any answers. What do we do in the face of the silence surrounding our own deaths?

In this famous passage, Elijah is running for his life and hiding in a cave when he hears a "still, small voice." But what did God actually say in the silence of that moment? Have you ever thought about the conversation between Elijah and God? Join Pastor Jen and she explores what it means to have a Divine Dialogue with God.

There are over 600,000 word forms in the English language. We are inundated everyday with a constant stream of words. But with so many words, sometimes they lose they power--particularly, the words we use to talk about God. When we have said so many wrong words about God, how do we know which to believe? Perhaps we need to take Jesus' lead and stop talking about God long enough to actually listen to God instead.

We begin our journey to Easter Sunday with this year's Ash Wednesday service, a night to remember and reflect on our own mortality. Join us this Lent as we enter into the silence of Scripture. Tonight, hear the words of the Psalmist: Selah. Pause...breathe...reflect...God is forever.

Moral of the story: never underestimate a woman. Deborah and Jael seem like such different characters, but in the same story (gruesome though it is) God calls them both. In the last sermon of our Women of the Bible series, join Pastor Jen as she explores the call of God on all of our lives.