What do we do when the dancing turns to mourning? The holidays can be a time when gladness turns to grief. Traditions and rituals are disrupted when we remember what we have lost. Lamentations 5 reflects on a similar situation as God’s people lament over all that they have lost, land, family, temple, nation, and rituals. Tune in to learn more about how to navigate times like these through the practice of lament.

There are times when lament is not only necessary for healing, but also for hope. It can be easy to bypass the process of lament. However, Lamentations 4 teaches us that lament can serve as an autopsy that reveals where our false hopes led us and how they harmed us. In the process, God uses lament to lead us to Him, our true hope. Tune in to this sermon by Pastor Emmanuel to learn more.

When we go through grief, it is always helpful to find someone “who has been through it.” And yet, it is so hard to find someone who is willing to help us remember, reflect, and wrestle with the loss. Tune in to this sermon from Lamentations 3 which shows us how we can go through loss faithfully.

It's often hard for Christians to talk about anger? This is especially true when anger accompanies grief. Sometimes, Christians re-frame their anger or deny it. And yet, as we will see, scripture gives us a different way of addressing anger. When God's people lost all they had, they brought their grief and the accompanying anger before the Lord in a series of poems that we call Lamentations. Tune in to learn more about how the third poem teaches us to bring our anger to God.

It can be easy to ignore or even downplay grief. Sometimes, it can be easy to fall into the trap of what some have called "toxic positivity." And yet, scripture validates grief time and time again. The book of Job, the psalms, and the book of Lamentations give voice to the cry of our hearts as we grieve. Tune in to this summarized sermon as Pastor Emmanuel preaches from Lamentations 1 and answers the question, "What do we do with our grief?"

There are many competing visions of the future today. Politicians, business leaders, and "futurists" all sell us a vision of the future. In times of crisis and anxiety, it can be easy to listen and believe these voices. But what if God has a vision for the future that is much greater than anything anyone else can promise? Tune in to this sermon by Pastor Emmanuel to learn more about God's promises for the future.

Exile, Eugene Peterson writes, means living in a place you do not want to be, surrounded by people you do not like. This is precisely where God’s people end up and in Jeremiah 29 God’s people find out that God sent them there, sustains them there, and sanctifies them there. Tune in to learn more about how God does each of these things in their (and our) experience of exile.

Where is home? It is a question that we ask when we meet someone for the first time. It’s also a question that we see played on movie screens or on the pages of great novels. God’s people also ask this question on the pages of scripture. Tune in to learn where God’s people find their true home when all is lost.

It can be easy to confuse hope with optimism. What we often find in scripture, however, is different. As Jerusalem is surrounded by Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah speaks words of truth that––while hard to accept––are also words of hope. Tune in to this sermon to learn more about what God does in the hard moments of life.

What is God doing when he sees the sin and evil in the world? It can be easy to think that God is far-removed or even apathetic to the things happening around us. What should our response be to the hard things that we read about or see everyday? Tune in to this sermon as Pastor Emmanuel shares from Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 and speaks about God’s action and our response in a world broken by sin.