Continuing the Movement series, Dominic Jackson explores what it means to be a people of presence—with God, with one another, and in our own lives. Anchored in Matthew 28, he reframes the Great Commission not just as a call to go, but as a call to be with: a God who draws near to us, a community that shows up shoulder to shoulder, and a life that resists distraction in order to be fully attentive. From mountaintop encounters in Scripture to the quiet reality of our daily habits, Dominic asks a simple but searching question: not is God present?—but are we?

In a distracted and disconnected age, this sermon offers both challenge and invitation. We are given the gift of our time—1,440 minutes each day—and the opportunity to share it with others and with God. True presence isn’t accidental; it requires intentionality, attention, and pursuit. Whether in prayer, community, or ordinary moments, this message calls us to be fully where we are—present to the God who is already present with us.

In this opening sermon of the Movement series, Matt Crummy explores a word that many of us instinctively distrust: authority. Drawing from Matthew 28 and the famous image of The Treachery of Images, he invites us to consider how easily we confuse distorted images of authority—coercion, control, manipulation—with the real thing. In contrast, the risen Jesus meets a group of hesitant, doubting disciples not with force or pressure, but with nearness, presence, and a steady kind of authority that heals and invites.

Rather than demanding certainty or performance, Jesus shares his authority and sends his followers into the world with a simple, lived rhythm: show up, draw near, listen, and go. This sermon reframes the Great Commission not as pressure to achieve, but as participation in the life of Jesus—an authority grounded in love, legitimacy, and relationship. For anyone carrying wounds or skepticism around authority, this is an invitation to rediscover it as something that frees rather than constrains.

As Gateway steps into a new year, Dominic Jackson invites the church to reflect on a simple but searching question: what kind of community are we becoming? Through two contrasting stories—one of radical welcome and one of painful rejection—he explores how the church can either embody the heart of Jesus or distort it. Drawing from Hebrews 13, Dominic reframes hospitality not as entertaining or hosting, but as something far deeper: loving the stranger as family, not just making space for them, but making them feel like they already belong.

In a culture marked by loneliness, fear, and disconnection, this vision of hospitality is both urgent and costly. Dominic challenges us to move beyond surface-level friendliness into real, shared life—where invitations are accepted, relationships are pursued, and community is formed across differences. Whether you tend to hold others at a distance or struggle to let others in, this sermon is an invitation to become the kind of church where people don’t just visit—they find a home.

Matt Crummy reflects on joy through the story of the Magi in Matthew 2:1-12. Beginning with Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks and the idea of liminal, in-between spaces, he explores how Advent situates us between Christ’s first coming and his promised return. The Magi become a picture of people who reorient their lives around what they love most, traveling far to seek the long-promised King. Drawing on Daniel’s role as chief of the wise men, Thomas Aquinas’s definition of joy as “caused by love,” and Augustine’s line that “our hearts are restless until they rest in you,” Matt invites us to pursue our highest loves, encourage these loves to bloom into joy, and let joy move us into worship and a renewed imagination for who Jesus really is.

Dominic Jackson reflects on what it means to let “the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15) in a world that feels anything but peaceful. He begins by examining anxiety and invites us to see that peace is not simply calmness or the absence of conflict, but shalom—wholeness, restoration, and reconciliation in the midst of the mess. Christ’s peace comes as a gift we receive rather than an achievement we earn. We are invited to look forward to the healing of all things, look back to Christ’s first coming, look around at our present worries with honest prayer, and then pass peace on as peacemakers in our homes, workplaces, and world.

Dominic Jackson explores Advent as a season of hope in the waiting—rooted in God’s promises, centered on the coming King, and forming us into a redeemed people. He reflects on the tension we all feel between fear and expectation and invites us to distinguish between hope and optimism: hope is not dictated by circumstances but sustained by God’s faithfulness. With Jeremiah 33 as a guiding text, this message draws on the experience of waiting for life-changing news and the Bible’s language of expectant, stretched waiting, calling us to look back on God’s past faithfulness so we can live forward in trust as we await Christ’s promised arrival—past, present, and future.

Dominic Jackson wraps up our series on beauty by inviting us to rediscover mystery as a way God draws us into wonder, trust, and a deeper relationship. Through Elijah’s encounter with God in 1 Kings 19—where God is not in the wind, earthquake, or fire, but in a gentle whisper—we learn that God often meets us in ways we wouldn’t expect, yet exactly as we need. The New Testament deepens this invitation by naming Christ himself as the mystery of God (Colossians 4:3; 1 Timothy 3:16; Colossians 2:1–3), calling us to seek not just answers about God, but to truly know him.

Dominic Jackson explores the hard, honest question of suffering through John 16 and Romans 8. Jesus does not hide the reality of trouble, but he does promise his presence and his victory. This sermon invites us to name pain without minimizing it, to rediscover lament as a faithful practice, and to trust that God is at work even when healing or resolution feels far away. We are reminded that creation groans, we groan, and the Spirit even groans with us—and that the cross reveals God’s pattern of turning what is darkest into redemption and hope.

In week 3 of Beauty: See Again What God Calls Good, Matt Crummy turns to the created world as a living witness to God’s presence and love. Drawing especially from Psalm 104, this sermon reminds us that responding to creation with praise is not extra or peripheral, but a sign that we’re seeing a fuller picture of what’s real. We’re invited into a simple, transformative rhythm: direct our attention to the world already declaring God, learn to read what creation’s “speech” is revealing, and be reformed as this goodness reshapes our desires, pace, and way of life. The sermon closes with Augustine’s stirring invitation to “question” the beauty of earth, sea, sky, and stars—until creation’s confession leads us to the One who is beautiful and unchangeable.

In week 2 of Beauty: See Again What God Calls Good, Dominic Jackson explores how our identity is formed and healed in Christ. Starting with Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30–31), this sermon reframes self-love as learning to see ourselves as God sees us—so we can love others more truly. Drawing on Paul’s repeated language of being “in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3–14), Dominic invites us to resist the pull of competing voices that name us and, instead, to receive our truest identity as chosen, adopted, forgiven, and sealed by the Spirit. Along the way, he contrasts WWJD with the deeper question of what Jesus has already done for us, and what it looks like to live from that reality today.