Litchfield Church of the Nazarene Podcast

Philip was in the middle of a revival. People were getting saved all over Samaria, the kind of ministry most pastors only dream about. And right in the middle of it, God told him to leave. Go south, to a desert road in the middle of nowhere, where there was nobody. In part eight of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe opens with his own version of that story, a phone call in 2021 that sent him and his wife to Valley City, North Dakota, a place he's quick to say is not a vacation destination. They went anyway. The first month, they baptized 21 people.

That's the thread Jon pulls through this message. When we're willing to go, God shows up. He walks through the story of Philip and the Ethiopian official from Acts 8, a divine appointment on an empty road that opened the gospel to an entire region of Africa, and lands on three things Philip got right: he was attentive, he was available, and he was willing to be a friend. Jon's challenge is personal and direct. God isn't just looking for people to fill a building. He's looking for people who will leave the crowd to go after one. And the question Jon leaves hanging is the one worth sitting with: are you available?

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

He was the most dangerous man in the early church, and not in a good way. Saul of Tarsus spent three years hunting down followers of Jesus, dragging men and women out of their homes, throwing them in prison, and casting his vote when they were executed. He wasn't a fringe character. He was educated, well-connected, and absolutely convinced he was doing God's work. He was also the last person anyone expected Jesus to recruit.

In part seven of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe traces the conversion and life of the Apostle Paul from that blinding encounter on the road to Damascus all the way to a Roman prison cell, where Paul is chained like a criminal, writing letters that would eventually become half the New Testament. Jon uses Paul's story to surface something the modern church has quietly lost: the awe and wonder of what the gospel actually is. Paul never lost it. He called himself the worst of sinners and spent the rest of his life staggered by the fact that Jesus would forgive someone like him. Jon's question for the rest of us is simple and a little uncomfortable: when did we stop being staggered by that?

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

Nobody told you it was going to cost you something to follow Jesus. Or if they did, you probably didn't believe them. In part six of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe goes somewhere most sermons avoid: the real price of being a disciple. Not just inconvenience or social awkwardness, but the kind of cost the early church actually paid. Reputation. Relationships. Safety. Stephen, one of the brightest preachers in the early church, got stoned to death. The apostles got beaten and thrown in jail. And then went right back out and kept talking about Jesus.

Jon traces how the persecution that broke out in Jerusalem after Stephen's death didn't kill the movement. It scattered it. Judea, Samaria, and eventually the ends of the earth, which is exactly what Jesus said would happen. Along the way Jon pulls from Peter's letters to Christians living under Nero's Rome, where "fiery ordeal" wasn't a metaphor. The early believers rejoiced through it all, not because they were naive, but because they had counted the cost before it happened and decided Jesus was worth it. This message asks whether we've done the same.

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

Jon Stoe opens this one with a story about a former gang member named Gerber Gomez, a young man from Guatemala who survived a brutal initiation, joined a gang in Chicago for the sense of family it offered, and then had his life turned completely around by a girl at his locker who refused to stop telling him that Jesus loved him. It's a story about belonging and what people will risk to find it. And it sets up the central question of part five of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth perfectly: what would the church look like if it offered that same kind of all-in, show-up-at-any-hour community?

Jon traces the early church's unity through Acts 2 and 4, through the creation account in Genesis, and all the way into Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17, where Jesus prays not just for his disciples but for every future believer, that they would be one with each other the same way the Father and Son are one. That's not a low bar. Jon is honest about what gets in the way, including politics, division, and the enemy who benefits every time the church turns on itself. But he lands in a place of real hope. Unity, he says, is what makes the church's message believable to a watching world. And Jesus already prayed for it.

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

It started with 100-to-one odds. In 1987, the Minnesota Twins were the biggest underdogs in baseball — outscored during the regular season, dismissed by every expert, and picked by nobody to win. They won the World Series anyway. Lead Pastor Jon Stoe opens part three of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth with that story to set up something even harder to explain: how a small group of ordinary people with no Bible, no building, no army, and no institutional backing turned the entire world upside down.

Jon takes us into Acts 2 to look at the origins of the early church — what they were actually devoted to, how they lived together, and why it worked. Along the way he doesn't shy away from the hard stuff. He names church hurt directly, calls out what happens when a church loses its way, and then brings it back to Jesus's one command that was supposed to prevent all of it. The local church, Jon says, is the hope of the world. There is no plan B. And whether you love the church, left it, or aren't sure what you think about it, this message is worth your time.

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

George Whitefield crossed the Atlantic in 1738 with nothing but a message and a willingness to preach it in the open air. No army, no institution, no platform. An estimated 50,000 people were transformed in New England alone. In part two of Acts: To the Ends of the Earth, Lead Pastor Jon Stoe uses that story to ask a question that lands closer to home: what if God wants to write a volume three through ordinary people like us?

Jon walks through the opening chapters of Acts to show that everything happening in the early church, from the choosing of the apostles to the healing at the temple gate to Peter's jaw-dropping boldness in front of the religious leaders, was divine activity working through completely ordinary people. The religious leaders themselves said it. They looked at Peter and John and saw unschooled, unremarkable men. And they were astonished. Jon argues that the same offer is on the table today, but it starts with one question: are you available?

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

If your faith has ever felt shaky, or you've watched someone you care about walk away from the church, this message is worth your time. Lead Pastor Jon Stoe opens the new series Acts: To the Ends of the Earth by asking a question most Christians have never seriously sat with: if the first followers of Jesus never owned a Bible, never read one, and still turned the world upside down, what exactly was the foundation of their faith? The answer isn't what a lot of people assume.

Jon traces the explosive beginning of the early church through Acts chapters 1 and 2, from Jesus' final conversation with his disciples before the ascension to the moment the Holy Spirit fell on Pentecost and 3,000 people converted in a single day. Along the way he takes on the new atheists, compares how Christianity spread against Islam and Judaism, and lands on something that's both historically defensible and personally urgent. The foundation wasn't a philosophy or a set of teachings. It was a single, verifiable claim: they saw a dead man walking. And that, Jon argues, is still the only message with enough weight to hold the next generation.

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

Most Easter sermons start at the empty tomb. This one starts somewhere darker. Lead Pastor Jon Stoe takes you back to the hours right after the crucifixion, when there were no Christians, no church, no Bible, and no believers. Just a handful of brokenhearted Galileans who thought they'd been following God's chosen king, now watching Rome claim his body. Nobody was keeping the dream alive. There was no dream left.

Jon builds from that moment forward through 350 years of history, through Peter and John sprinting to an empty tomb, through disciples who wrote themselves into the story as cowards and quitters, to make the case that the resurrection isn't just a Bible story. It's the explanation for everything. And more personally, it answers the question most of us quietly carry: how do I know where I actually stand with God?

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

Jon Stoe opens this one with a story from his 25th anniversary trip to Antigua — an all-inclusive resort where the staff anticipated every need before you even asked. It was wonderful, he says. And also a little unsettling. Because being served that well has a way of making you feel things you weren't expecting. That feeling is exactly where this sermon goes.

This is the final message in The Jesus Way series, and Jon brings it home with one of the most jarring scenes in the gospels. The night before the crucifixion, Jesus already knows who's going to betray him, who's going to deny him, and who's going to run. He knows all of it. And what he does next stops the room cold. He picks up a towel and washes their feet. One by one. Starting with Judas. Jon walks through what that moment would have meant in Roman culture — who washed feet, and who absolutely did not — and why what Jesus did wasn't just humble. It was shocking. And then he asks the question that lands: when you have all the power and all the leverage, and the people who wronged you are right in front of you — what do you do?

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.