Richmond's First Baptist Church

Dr. Jim Somerville's Lenten homily from Wednesday, March 20, 2019.

Jim Somerville: "If you could ask all the people who have ever prayed for healing why their prayers didn’t work, the number one answer would be: 'Because we didn’t have enough faith.' How many times have you thought that the problem may have been your lack of faith, and begged God to give you more...?"

Patrick Jackson's Lenten homily from Wednesday, March 13, 2019.

Jim Somerville: "It’s easy for us to assume that we know what a good Christian looks like, and it’s easy for us to imagine we aren’t doing a very good job of living up to those usual expectations. But what if Jesus is trying to teach us something different -- that we can’t allow our lives to be controlled by the false narratives of spirituality...?"

What kind of God do we see when we look through the lens of Jesus? Dr. Jim Somerville's homily from Ash Wednesday, March 6, 2019.

Jim Somerville: "When the Father looks on you, he looks on you with love, and his face lights up. Yes, he sees the sin in your life. He knows all the bad decisions you’ve made, all the poor choices. But like a mother shaking her head at a child who has just come in from playing in a muddy back yard he also sees you, and no matter what you have or haven’t done he loves you, and when he looks at you through the eyes of that love he sees not only what you are, but what you have it in you at your best to be..."

The Rev. Dr. Yvette Jackson's homily from the Service of Prayer for Healing, February 24, 2019.

Kathy Hales Thompson: "Some people are easy to love and care for. It's a natural expression. Then there are those people who get on our nerves..."

Father Michael Renninger's sermon from the Gathering @five, Sunday, February 17, 2019.

Jim Somerville: "He called me and said, 'Al thinks today might be the day. He wanted to say goodbye.' He put me on speakerphone and suddenly there was Al, sounding almost cheerful. We talked for less than a minute. I couldn't understand everything he said, but I could hear in his voice that kind of deep inner peace I'm talking about..."