Richmond's First Baptist Church

Jim Somerville: "Our culture loves success. It's the most honorable thing there is. And the most shameful thing? It's losing. Losing the big game, losing your job, losing your house. [But] God doesn't see things the way the world sees them. What looks like success to the world doesn't look like success to him, and what looks like failure to the world doesn't look like failure to him..."

Ellen Lipford: "I was mourning the loss of a dear friend [who] took her own life. I distinctly remember the numb, confused feeling of my heartbreak. I knew that God was good. But I started to question what his goodness looked like against the backdrop of such a broken world. What does good look like when there is nothing good about a situation? Is there hope for such a world...?"

Dr. Jim Somerville's "Pastor's Class" from Sunday, March 18, 2018.

Jim Somerville: "I was talking with one of our members last week who grew up Catholic, and I asked her if she missed anything about [it]. She admitted that she did. There was a lot of certainty in that tradition. You kind of knew whether you were following the rules or not. This free church tradition is different. On one hand it's liberating—you don’t have all those rules—but on the other hand it's frightening—how do you know that you're right with God...?"

Jim Somerville: "It wasn't that God sacrificed his son for the sake of our sin. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself..."

Tiffany Jana: "I was the only African-American child in all-white schools. The truth is, I had a really great experience. I was not treated poorly. And then one day, they taught us about slavery. It was the most horrible five minutes of my entire education..."

Dr. Somerville's "Pastor's Class" from Sunday, March 11, 2018.

Jim Somerville: "Imagine yourself waking up in a hospital room. You come to slowly. You see the bright fluorescent lights overhead, the pale green curtain hanging to your right, an IV tube taped to your left wrist. 'Where am I?' you ask. 'You’re in the hospital,' [the nurse] says, matter-of-factly. You were dead.'"

Dr. Somerville's sermon to the children from Sunday, March 11, 2018.

Jim Somerville: "Think about our own practice, where worship is often not about what we can give, but what we can get. When is the last time that giving something to God felt like a sacrifice...?"