The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is hospitality. Paul writes in Romans 15:4-13 to welcome one another because hospitality is how people glorify God and dwell in hope with each other. Jesus also comforts His disciples in John 14:1-3 that God prepares space for them. Hospitality flows from God’s abundance. When God fills us, we are able to make room for others.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is compassion. Luke 10:25-37 shows the compassion of the Good Samaritan, who went out of his way to care for the robbed man. Then, Luke 16:19-31 tells the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, where the rich man showed no compassion to the poor Lazarus while alive. Compassion cannot be proved by our belief in it, but by proximity: who we are drawn to and how we disrupt our lives to tend to their needs.

The next spiritual discipline in Pastor Dana’s sermon series is silence and solitude. Matthew 14:22-23 and Mark 1:35-37 show us that Jesus made time to pray in solitude, while James 3:6-10 and Psalm 46:10-11 continue to teach us that silence is valuable. We need silence to teach us to quiet the world around us, to listen, and rediscover the weight of words. To practice silence and solitude, we must confront our fear of silence, schedule it, find somewhere to be attentive to God, and be patient.

Pastor Dana’s first series of 2026 begins in Colossians 3:12-17, which contains Paul and Timothy’s call on God’s people to gratitude, and Luke 17:11-19, where the Samaritan leper returns to Jesus to give Him thanks. Gratitude as a discipline of worship focuses our attention on God’s beauty and is defined by a loving and thankful response to God for His presence within us and the world around us.

Steve Tramel brings us to Luke 2:21-35, in which a righteous man named Simeon meets the infant Jesus, who he recognizes as the Messiah that he was promised to see in his lifetime. We can learn the ways that those who do and don’t recognize the Messiah differ with three tests: detecting deeper meaning in the scriptures, responding appropriately to God’s other evidence, and earnestly seeking to know God.

The fourth Sunday of Advent represents love, so Pastor Dana takes to Matthew 1:18-25, which shows love through Joseph’s obedience, and John 1:1-18, which shows love through the divine initiate of the Word made flesh. When we follow the ways of Christ, the way we love others includes visibly showing how we care for one another. Darkness only flees if it is broken by the light. When we show our love, we stamp out little pieces of darkness over and over again.

The third Sunday of Advent represents joy, so Pastor Dana takes to Psalm 146:5-7 and Luke 1:46-55 (Mary’s song), which both sing praises of God’s goodness. The anticipation of Christ coming into the world is about joy, not fear. When we are downcast or weary or see grief in others, do we point them (and ourselves) back to our source of joy? God has chosen us to usher Christlikeness into the world and that is a joyful gift.

The second Sunday of Advent represents peace, so Pastor Dana focuses on the peace found in God and how we can act to pave the way here on earth. Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 11:1-10 describes the world of God’s peace that follows devastation and Paul calls on the church in Romans 15:4-13 to sacrifice our ego for the sake of bringing unity so that the Prince of Peace may be revealed.

The first Sunday of Advent represents hope, so Pastor Dana focuses on the hope we hold as we wait for Jesus Christ to come again. Paul tells the church in Romans 13:11-14 to be alert for Christ’s return and cast off their old lives and Jesus declares in Matthew 24:36-44 that we must be ready when His Second Coming arrives at a time we don’t expect. Are you ready?

Pastor Dana prepares us for Thanksgiving by presenting a trio of scriptures to teach us about gratitude. Philippians 4:4-9 shows us that Christian joy flows from recognizing God’s goodness, Colossians 3:15-17 tells us that prayer with thanksgiving forms trust in God to ease our anxieties, and Psalm 100 conveys that gratitude and praise in times of suffering are declarations of hope.