Crossings Knoxville

Isaiah 40 offers comfort to a people who have lost their home, their security, and their understanding of faith. For them, and for us, sometimes comfort looks like the reminder that life, even for the most powerful empires, is temporary. This invitation to comfort may help us imagine new possibilities and the energy to rebuild what is broken.

Worship Songs:

Abide with Me 

Great are You, Lord

Lord, I Need You 

All Ye Refugees

How do we live as an alternative community amid empire? How do we actively wait as an act of faith? How do we move beyond our personal and political containers and enter into the "second half of life"?

Worship Songs:

Sovereign

Build My Life

We Will Feast in the House of Zion

You Hold It All

What's your one story, sermon, or voice you feel yourself trying to get into the world? How can we see Isaiah and prophecy as an invitation to add our voice to an ongoing story, rather than accepting the past as closed? How can we keep faith alive despite disappointments?

Worship Songs:

Holy, Holy, Holy

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

We Will Feast in the House of Zion

Teaching Song: 

Lay Down

Our study takes a turn to a love song in Isaiah 5 about a farmer and his vineyard. The love song quickly becomes a devastating one that turns the questions back to us. This text forces us to confront the dehumanizing practices in our society and what we actually expect justice to look like.

Worship Songs:

Abide with Me

For the Beauty

The Valley

Where Is Love Now?⁠

How do we tell a true story when the details of the past don't seem complete? How do we keep telling our stories as we evolve? What story do we want to tell about ourselves in 5-10 years?

Isaiah 7-8 introduces a complex historical situation that, if we take the time to study it, will remind us of God's ongoing presence with us, including in the birth-of-Christ narrative in Matthew. It's a poem and prophecy that asks us to name the physical signs of God's presence in ways the rulers of the world fail to offer.

Worship Songs:

God With Us

Path of Sorrow

Rest in You

King of Kings

What comes to mind when we picture a prophet or a prophetic book? How might the book of Isaiah challenge us to evaluate our biases or unconscious participation in culture? How can we join an ongoing conversation of prophecy as we reinvent traditions, correct past mistakes, and build a more resilient community for the present?

Worship Songs:

All Creatures of Our God and King

Holy, Holy, Holy 

Revelation Song

Teaching Song: Hairpin Turns

As we begin our 12-week study of Isaiah, we hope to ask questions about what it would mean for us to find home again. How can we engage the impossible task of being human, finding meaning, and searching for God? What would it mean to find healing and build a more resilient faith from ancient traditions? How can we add our voices to those of the past and join the conversation?

Worship Songs:

Build My Life

You Hold It All

Path of Sorrow

Our Great God

When Jesus invites his friends to breakfast, he's inviting them to reenact a story. Reenacting the story is essentially what we do together each week, and Molly unpacks why it's the reason she stays Christian. This is the last part of a series where Molly shares reflections of her sabbatical.

Worship Songs:

This is My Father’s World

Steadfast

King of Kings

So Will I

What if faith doesn’t require us to choose between a grounded, reality-based life and a sense of wonder, mystery, and enchantment? In the story of Peter walking on water, we explored what it means to step beyond certainty, encounter the sacred in the natural world, and trust that something might be holding us up even when faith feels preposterous.

Worship Songs:

Sovereign

Be Thou My Vision

Your Steadfast Love

Teaching Songs:

Beyond the Blue