As we enter the third week of Advent, we turn our attention to joy—a theme that can feel elusive in a season filled with both celebration and challenges. How do we embrace joy when life feels heavy?

This Sunday, we’ll explore how joy is not simply a feeling but a practice rooted in community, service, and God’s abiding presence. As we continue to hear a story of anticipation through the life and activities of John the Baptist, we’ll reflect on how Christ calls us to cultivate joy in our lives and the lives of others, even in the midst of it all.

Join us for worship, reflection, and preparation for the light of Christmas.

Pastor Michael Vollbrecht

the manger scene when John the Baptizer jumps out and scares the bejeebers out of us. When it comes to John the Baptizer, no doubt we think of the Judean wilderness and the wild and untamed personality living in a place so stark one is hard pressed to call it sustainable. John was an outlier warning people to get themselves ready for “the One who was coming.”

Jesus and John were the sun and moon to one another. One paved the way; the other came as promised from ancient days. They argued on the river’s edge over who should baptize whom and Jesus pressed John with Hebrew prophecy of centuries before. They were the oddest of couples, this sun and moon in orbit together.

See you Sunday as we explore the depths of Advent!

Pastor Keith Herron

There are two faces of expectation on this first Sunday of Advent. The first is a look to the past, a way of seeing backward in time to when a savior was hoped for. Advent also looks to the future in an attitude of expectancy over what God has yet to do in history.

It’s Advent’s face toward the past we usually seek. Four Sundays are set aside for the expectation of Christ’s birth and we have a wonderful Christmas Eve service that helps us center our thoughts on what the wonder of that night might have been like.

We have the beautiful songbook of hymns and Christmas songs that celebrate Christ’s birth. The expectation of Christ’s birth is full of sweetness and grace. Even the most hardened skeptic can feel the pulse of the season and celebrate that magical night.

The first Sunday of Advent is given over to consider the world’s chaos that bubbles just beneath the surface. It’s like the molten core that steams and liquifies unobserved until it explodes and spills over the quiet world above. The first Sunday of Advent forces us to reflect upon that hidden chaos, the world the Redeemer was sent to enter.

Advent is the season of expectation.

Pastor Keith Herron

Gratitude has the power to transform—our lives, our community, and even the world. In a time when it’s easy to focus on what divides us, choosing gratitude reminds us of the abundance we share and the strength we find together.

This Sunday, we’ll turn in our pledges for the coming year, celebrating the generosity that sustains and grows our community. After the service, join us for a Thanksgiving lunch as we share a meal and give thanks for the blessings we create and receive together. Don’t miss this special day of gratitude!

Pastor Michael Vollbrecht

We journey through life scattering seeds of gratitude that have the power to sweeten life.

One of my friends once told me about the amazing discovery that if you fly over the North Atlantic Ocean and carefully observe the icebergs floating in those frigid waters, you will see some icebergs moving in one direction, while other icebergs are moving in another. The explanation for this phenomenon is that surface winds drive the smaller icebergs while the deep ocean currents push the larger icebergs in a different direction.

Our lives are like that. Two opposing forces drive us. Small lives are ordered by the surface winds of selfishness and fear and a stingy spirit. But great lives, gigantic in character and moral stature, are not affected much by such surface winds. Rather, the deepest movements and currents of faith in a God who will bless and provide drive them.

Pastor Keith Herron preaching

Generosity is paradoxical. It goes against the grain of what we assume we can only gain by keeping close at hand. Notre Dame conducted a study called, The Science of Generosity, a nationally representative survey of Americans’ practices and beliefs about generosity with hundreds of interviews around the country on generosity. Here are the results: First, the more generous Americans are, there was more happiness, health, and purpose in life they enjoy. Second, the correlation between these things is sufficient to believe generous practices cause enhanced personal well-being.

Generosity is like love in this way. One of the best ways to be truly generous is simply to start behaving this way. New beliefs and insights are frequently provoked by doing and we perfect our new habits by practicing them.

On the flip side, one can be miserly. The word “miser” is etymologically related to the word, “miserable.” No one wants to be miserable, but that’s the result by holding the gifts of life back.

Happy, healthy generosity … Joy! See you Sunday as we think deeply about generosity!

Pastor Keith Herron

When someone passes through a Jobean season, there are no simple fixes, no miracle fixes that will reverse the tragedy one is facing. There’s no advice worth giving, no fixing one another, no setting one another straight. The only thing we can offer is kindness and love. In the communal life of the church, there are occasions when a church member has lost a loved one or they are present to watch a dear family member take their last breath.

The complexities of life and death, of sorrow and pain, of contrition and reconciliation are ever-present possibilities and the caring church must allow these things to exist while also testifying of the grace of God and the depths of friendship.

The phrase, “as fate would have it,” is a robust way of observing that sometimes we twist and turn on the events that occur in our lives recognizing that sometimes they are good events and sometimes they’re tragic. But on occasion, more often than we can know, even the tragic events have a tendency to act positively in our regard. Isn’t that how life turns for us as well?

See you Sunday as we peel back the last layer from the amazing, ancient story of Job!

Pastor Keith Herron preaching

Our minds simply can’t wrap our thoughts around the size and scale of the recent storms we’ve witnessed, whether they‘re forest fires in California, tornadoes across the Midwest, or the hurricanes that percolate in the overly-warm waters of the Gulf. Perhaps we could consider these natural disasters as the type of calamity Job faced. They are mysteries. They happen and are not aimed toward the righteous or the damned. They are notoriously impersonal and yet we are trapped in how personal our disasters are experienced as if they’ve been directed to us. They just happen and we’re left wondering what they mean.

To this point, the story of Job has been like an old-time silent movie. There’s action and story and character development; there’s betrayal and disappointment and the suspense of Job’s faithful grasp on God’s providence. All of this in silence until suddenly the slumbering God awakens and utters in perfect poetry what the Divine has held silent to this point. God speaks! At long last, the Divine breaks the painful silence.

Last time, Job unloaded on God with defiant anger about the injustice guiding the sequence of bad luck. This week, God responds. See you Sunday as we peel back more from the amazing, ancient story of Job!

Pastor Keith Herron preaching

Join us this Sunday as we continue exploring the story of Job and the moments when God feels distant in our lives. In a world that often gives us more questions than answers, we’ll dive into the raw honesty of Job’s struggle and discover how even in the silence, God’s presence remains. If you've ever felt abandoned or lost in the midst of your own challenges, this message is for you. Come and find hope in the stillness.

It’s also World Communion Sunday, a special day when Christians around the globe gather at the Table. All are invited, and all are welcome—no matter where you are on your journey.

Pastor Michael Vollbrecht preaching

This Sunday you will be given a handout, Playbill: Job, that is a reminder that the enigmatic story about an ancient man named Job is understood dramatically. It’s a faith story of suffering and loss and eventual restoration so universal it could be a gothic novel. So universal, this could be placed in any historical setting … from the Deep South, to the western frontier, or even in the canyons of Wall Street.

Playbill will be given to you to help you know and understand the story, to hear it as a divine parable meant to teach us the difficulty of living even as we face questions about the meaning of life’s difficulties we can’t handle. For the next few Sundays, we will visit this story with all its haunting questions, and we will struggle with answers that press our understanding of life’s meaning.

See you Sunday as we peel back more from the amazing, ancient story of Job!

Pastor Keith Herron preaching