Sermon: Prepare the Way 
Date: January 4, 2026 
Scripture: Matthew 3 
Speaker: George Veith 

In Matthew 3 we meet Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist. John the Baptist’s role was to prepare the way for Jesus. He was the embodiment of Isaiah’s vision of a “voice calling in the desert to prepare the way of the Lord”. (Is 40:3) John called the people of Israel to repentance and enacted this through baptism. The Church has a role that is similar to John’s. Just as he prepared the way for Christ 2000 years ago, we too are to prepare our lives to encounter Jesus, both now, and in expectation of his second coming. We are to live today as though Jesus is coming back at any time. We don’t live the way the world lives. We are a part of a revolution. We invest in the Kingdom. We revolt against the status quo. We work to bring about the Kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven. And as we do this, we hasten the Lord’s return. On this first Sunday of 2026, what might it mean to prepare the way of the Lord in our own lives? 

Desired Outcome: To encourage folks to examine their lives as we head into 2026—and ask how they might prepare the way to encounter Jesus this year. 

Sermon: Sing In Exaltation 
Date: December 28 
Scripture: Luke 2:8-20 
Speaker: Paul Walker 

Worship is not just something that happens at church. Worship is a state of your heart— which is expressed in our thoughts, words, and deeds. Look at the Christmas narrative and see how the central characters expressed their worship in a variety of ways: Mary was moved to sing a song of gratitude to God. Joseph obeyed and followed God’s plan. The shepherds stopped their work to go find and worship the Christ-child. Magi confronted anything that stood in the way of worshiping the one true God. Elizabeth opened her home in an act of hospitality. If we don’t begin the Advent season with a heart of worship, everything else will fall apart. The way we spend, give, and love will radically change when it comes from a place of true worship. This is not something you should do out of obligation. It is the opportunity to get back to the heart of the Christmas narrative. So what might it look like for us to fully enter into worship this advent season? 

Desired Outcome: To encourage our people to worship fully this advent season in our thoughts, words, and deeds. 

Christmas Eve Candle-light service 
Sermon: Joy Of Every Longing Heart 
Date: December 24 
Scripture: Selected Scripture Passages from Luke 1-2 
Speaker: Paul Walker 

At the heart of the Christmas story is longing. Elizabeth and Zechariah long for a child in their old age (Lk 1:5-25). Mary longs to be the servant of the Lord (Lk 1:38) as she sings about her God and Saviour whose mercy extends “from generation to generation”(Lk 1:50). This God is present to the longings of the world. God has “helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful”(Lk 1:54), “because he has come to his people and redeemed them”(Lk 1:68). The shepherds long to “see the thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” (Lk 2:15) We too have longings. In a world filled with conflict, anxiety, loneliness, and suffering, so many of us long for peace—to be complete and whole. Jesus offers us personal wholeness and peace with God and his people through his first coming, and we now long for the ultimate eternal wholeness he will bring when he returns. Christmas reminds us that all our longings, hopes, and dreams are encountered in the God who came as a baby to be with us. 

Desired Outcome: To preach the Good News that all our longings are met in Jesus — who invites us to receive his joy, peace, and love to replace our conflict, anxiety, loneliness, and suffering. 

Blue Christmas Evening Service 
Sermon: Far As The Curse Is Found 
Date: December 21 
Scripture: Matthew 2:13-23
Speaker: Paul Walker 

The Magi do not return to Herod. The response from Herod is to eliminate any possible challenge to his power-hold over Israel. Herod commands that all male baby boys under two years old be put to death. It is a tragedy. Perhaps no event in the gospels challenges our sentimental depiction of Christmas than the slaughter of these innocents. Most North American Christians don’t like to sully their sentimental version of Christmas with the account of King Herod’s collateral damage. But Matthew gives a prophetic witness to truth that becomes good news for all those on the underside of empire and evil. God is not distant to the suffering of our world. God is like Jesus — born into a dark world of trouble, trial, violence, and fear. Jesus comes to shine his light far as the curse is found. Jesus comes to heal us of the curse and darkness that sin has wrought upon us. 

Desired Outcome: To announce the good news that Jesus joins us in our world of pain and suffering. 

Sermon: The Unexpected Worshipers 
Date: December 14 
Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12 
Speaker: George Veith 

We often picture the Magi as three Kings or three wise men who arrive alongside the shepherds in an epic Nativity evening of worship on an O Holy Night. The story that Scripture tells us is far more complicated. For starters, the Magi arrive on the scene after the birth of Jesus— likely years after the shepherds. (Mt 2:1) Secondly, the Magi were not kings, they were Persian astronomers, astrologers, magicians who discerned an auspicious sign in the stars and made a thousand mile journey to worship the Christ child in Bethlehem. In other words, the Magi are the last people you’d expect to show up in a story about the Jewish Messiah. And yet, the appearance of the Magi tells us that those on the outside and the fringes can find themselves at the centre of what God is doing. We learn in the story of the Magi that Jesus is calling all people to himself to worship and be transformed. And when we dare do this— we discover the journey home is by “another way”(2:12). 

Desired Outcome: To discover the Good News that Jesus is calling all sorts of unexpected people to come follow Him and thus journey by “another way”(2:12)”.

Sermon: A Life Interrupted 
Date: December 7  
Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25 
Speaker: Paul Walker 

Joseph was pledged to be married to Mary. As was the Jewish custom during the betrothal period, Joseph was probably away building a home and preparing for his marriage to Mary. Joseph surely had plans and dreams about what his future would look like. However, God had other plans for Joseph. Joseph’s life turned upside-down. Mary became pregnant. The child was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but Joseph did not believe this story. His future wife was pregnant and the child was not his. This was considered very scandalous, and his reputation within the community was probably at stake. Joseph first thought about divorcing Mary quietly, but then the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him what to do. He could have not believed this, ignored the dream and said “no”. However, he listened and obeyed God, and the birth of the saviour of the world, Jesus, took place. In the same way that God spoke to Joseph, God is speaking to us. Jesus is looking for those who will listen to His voice and follow Him, even if that means giving up our own plans and dreams. 

Desired Outcome: To encourage our people to listen to the voice of God— even when it is costly and inconvenient. 

Sermon: Bad Blood 
Date: November 30 
Scripture: Matthew 1:1-17 
Speaker: Paul Walker 

The Gospel of Matthew opens with a genealogy— or a family tree— of Jesus the Messiah. In our modern day, we tend not to care too much about genealogies and long family trees. We might even view genealogies as incidental information, but this list of Jesus’ family tree tells a story about Israel, a story about us, and even a story about God. In mentioning Jesus as “the son David, the son Abraham”(1:1) Matthew’s audience would be clued in about a story of royal lineage and covenant promises. They might expect that the Messiah and Saviour of the world would come from a long line of faultless heroes and notable dignitaries. The opposite is true of Jesus’ family record. You have the scandalous stories of Judah treating his daughter-in-law Tamar as a prostitute (1:3), Boaz being the son of the Jericho prostitute Rahab (1:5), David committing adultery with Bathsheba the wife of Uriah the Hittite (1:6), and even the recounting of exile (1:11,17). Matthew does not try to hide away the faults or sins of the past—and that is the point! Jesus willingly chose to unite himself to a broken family story in order to heal all our family stories. 

Desired Outcome: To announce the good news that Jesus has joined us in our broken stories and family histories — to heal them from the inside out. 

Sermon: What do you see? 
Date: November 23 
Scripture: Matthew 6:22-23, Matthew 9:27-31 
Speaker: Paul Walker 

Jesus taught us that what we see is shaped by how our eyes are trained to see the world. If our eye is bad, our sight will be corrupted. We need good eyes to see the world rightly. When we see things, we project our own biases upon what we are seeing. What we see out there is interpreted through our own personal filter. Jesus here is challenging his listeners to think about the kind of eye that they are developing. Do they have an evil eye or a good eye? Is their eye able to see what is true and good or is it tainted by greed and malice? We rarely examine the lens in which we see the world around us. And if we do —we may be shocked at how much our sight needs to be healed. But the good news is that just like the two blind men who called out for mercy and healing (Mt 9:27-31)— we too can call out to Jesus our Great Physician to heal our distorted lenses. 

Desired Outcome: To challenge folks to examine if they have healthy or unhealthy eyesight— and to ask Jesus to continue to shape our vision. 

Sermon: The Heart of the Matter 
Date: November 16 
Scripture: Matthew 6:19-24
Speaker: George Veith

One of the ingrained messages we receive in our culture is to do all you can do to get rich and stay rich. We spend a majority of our lives in the workforce earning and storing up wealth in the hope of an eventual retirement. Into our modern day consumeristic context we hear an invitation from Jesus to store up treasures that last. “Treasure” moves from things we value that are temporary— to things we value that are moral and eternal. It’s not that Jesus has a problem with using our days to work and earn. We need to pay our bills and provide for ourselves and others. (2 Thess. 3) Jesus is asking us: what do we value? Where is our treasure? We will know what it is based on what we spend our energies on and what is the driving force of our life. If we are not careful, our possessions will possess us. Instead, Jesus invites his disciples to let God’s reign take center stage.

Desired Outcome: To examine what we are giving ultimate value to in our lives —and to challenge people to store up treasures that last.

Sermon: “And When You Fast…” 
Date: November 9 
Scripture: Matthew 6:16-18
Speaker: Paul Walker 

Jesus comes out of teaching on prayer and begins to talk about another spiritual practice. “When you fast…”. Jesus doesn’t say, “IF you fast” but rather he assumes that people will be regularly fasting. This might strike us as odd in our modern North American context that tends to disparage the idea of self-denial. What is fasting? Fasting is abstaining—often from food and water. This abstaining creates a longing for more of God and can paradoxically be a feast of spiritual encounter. Fasting can even have medical benefits. But we don’t fast for what we can get out it. Fasting is firstly an expression of worship to God that reminds us we are sustained by God alone. In this practice of fasting Jesus wants us not to be like “the hypocrites” who do things for the sake of public display and fame. The only way to fast, or pray or engage in any other spiritual activity that brings about a heavenly reward is to do it “in secret.” Whatever discomfort or pain we are experiencing is to be kept hidden as much as possible. The “reward” that we are storing up when we pray and fast in secret is simply the beauty of the character that we develop when we learn how to be singularly motivated by God’s will and thus not motivated by social applause.

Desired outcome: To challenge us to know that the spiritual life is not always about constant filling, but also includes seasons of fasting, abstaining, and disengagement —- so that we can be singularly motivated by our Heavenly Father.