The Harvest Sarasota: Sermons for Deconstructing and Challenging Traditional Faith with Pastor Dan Minor

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“Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is moving into what the Spirit is trying to do right now.”

In this bold and deeply moving message, Rev. Dr. Erin Edwards brings humor, honesty, and holy fire to a conversation about Pride, humility, justice, and what it really means to follow Jesus.

Preaching during Pride Month, Rev. Dr. Edwards challenges the idea that humility means shrinking, hiding, or becoming less than who God created us to be. Instead, she calls us into a deeper kind of courage: knowing we are beloved, walking humbly with God, serving without needing recognition, and becoming a church where healing, restoration, and transformation are actually possible.

With stories from her own life, her family, and Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, this message asks a powerful question: What could happen if we were proud of who we are, but humble enough to let God keep changing us?

Listen in for a message about belovedness, service, Pride Month, and the kind of humility that can change a church, a community, and a life.

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Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

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Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative

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What happens when religion stops seeing people as people and starts using them as ammunition?

In this sermon, Pastor Dan uses the story of the woman caught in adultery to confront one of the cruelest habits of modern Christianity: turning vulnerable people into talking points, culture-war targets, and proof texts for someone else’s agenda.

But Jesus refuses to play that game.

When the religious crowd drags a woman into the center to make a point, Jesus sees what they refuse to see: a human being. Not a prop. Not a scandal. Not a sermon illustration. Not ammunition.

This message is a call back to the heart of Jesus, a Jesus who stands between the accused and the accusers, between the vulnerable and the stones, between the person being used and the people using them.

Because if people cannot find mercy, grace, and hope in our communities, whatever else we are defending, we are not defending it in the way of Jesus.

#HarvestSarasota #HumanAmmunition #ProgressiveChristianity #PastorDan #InclusiveChurch #FaithWithoutFear #John8 #JesusAndMercy #PeopleAreNotProps #StopDehumanizingPeople #LGBTQAffirmingChurch #ImmigrantJustice #ReligiousTrauma #FaithAfterHarm #MercyOverMorality #CultureWarChristianity #Deconstruction #Exvangelical #JesusNotEmpire #NoMoreStones #LoveYourNeighbor #ProgressiveFaith

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Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

Follow us on Social Media:
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TikTok CLICK HERE

DONATE to support our podcast HERE

Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative

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What if Jesus was bad at starting a religion because he was never trying to build a machine?

In this sermon, Pastor Dan Minor reminds us that Jesus did not come with a five-year plan, a brand strategy, a headquarters, or a hustle-culture blueprint. He came with twelve friends. He came with dinners, stories, weddings, walks, children, bread, wine, and the unhurried work of connection.

At Harvest Sarasota, we are not trying to build a church that runs people over in the name of results. We are trying to follow the way of Jesus, where belonging comes before mission, connection comes before service, and people matter more than efficiency.

Because things can grow and still be unhealthy. Things can work and still wound people. Things can look impressive and still have nothing to do with Christ.

The kingdom of God is not a machine. It is a table. It is a community. It is the slow, sacred work of being with God and with one another.

#HarvestSarasota #PastorDanMinor #ProgressiveChristianity #ProgressiveFaith #InclusiveChurch #JesusSavesTheParty #ConnectionBeforeMission #PeopleOverResults #TheWayOfJesus #FaithCommunity #BelongingBeforeBelieving #ChurchIsNotAMachine #EfficiencyIsNotFaithfulness #JesusAndCommunity #TableNotMachine #SlowFaith #SpiritualCommunity #SarasotaChurch

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Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram - Instagram.com/harvestsarasota
Facebook - Facebook.com/harvestsarasota
TikTok CLICK HERE

DONATE to support our podcast HERE

Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative

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In this Pentecost Sunday sermon, Pastor Stan Mitchell invites us into one of the most tender and disruptive moments in the resurrection story: Jesus telling Mary Magdalene, “Don’t hold on to me.”

For anyone who has ever lost the Jesus they once knew, this message offers a startling word of hope. Maybe losing an old understanding of Christ is not the failure of faith. Maybe it is faith growing up. Maybe Jesus is always lovingly uncurling our fingers from the version of him we have clung to, not because he is leaving us, but because Spirit is leading us into a larger, freer, more inclusive revelation of who Christ is.

Pentecost reminds us that Jesus does not ask to be preserved in the past. He keeps returning in new ways, expanding our consciousness, disrupting our certainty, and inviting us to stop clinging so tightly to what we have known, so we can receive what love is revealing next.

#HarvestSarasota #PastorStanMitchell #ProgressiveChristianity #Pentecost #Eastertide #Deconstruction #FaithAfterCertainty #StillChristian #StillPentecostal #MaryMagdalene #ResurrectionHope #InclusiveChurch #LGBTQAffirmingChurch #SpiritualReconstruction #TheChristWhoReturns #ProgressiveFaith #FaithJourney #GodCallsYourName

Support the show

Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram - Instagram.com/harvestsarasota
Facebook - Facebook.com/harvestsarasota
TikTok CLICK HERE

DONATE to support our podcast HERE

Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative

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In this Mother’s Day sermon, Pastor Dan Minor continues the conversation around the 99 and the one, asking what love looks like when it refuses to stay comfortable. With humor, honesty, and a deeply pastoral challenge, this message reframes community as something active: noticing who is missing, moving toward pain, refusing disconnection, and becoming the kind of people who go with Jesus to the margins.

Because when Jesus goes searching, love does not just make room. Love makes joy.

#PastorDanMinor #HarvestSarasota #SermonPodcast #TheLostSheep #Luke15 #MothersDaySermon #LoveMoves #InclusiveChurch #ProgressiveChristianity #Belonging #FaithInAction #TheMarginsAreHolyGround #CommunityHealing #DisconnectionIsAnIllusion #LovePaysAttention

Support the show

Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram - Instagram.com/harvestsarasota
Facebook - Facebook.com/harvestsarasota
TikTok CLICK HERE

DONATE to support our podcast HERE

Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative

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What if the story of the 99 and the one isn’t just about a lost sheep coming home, but about whether the 99 have become the kind of community anyone would want to return to?

In this sermon, Pastor Dan Minor reimagines repentance not as shame, humiliation, or moral failure, but as metanoia, a change of mind, a reorientation toward belonging, joy, and love. This message challenges the church to ask harder questions: Who has been pushed to the margins? Who left because they felt unsafe? And what would it look like for the 99 to repent too?

#PastorDanMinor #DanMinor #HarvestSarasota #SermonPodcast #ProgressiveChristianity #RethinkingRepentance #TheLostSheep #Luke15 #Belonging #InclusiveChurch #FaithDeconstruction #Metanoia #ChurchHurt #LoveChangesEverything #GraceOverShame

Support the show

Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram - Instagram.com/harvestsarasota
Facebook - Facebook.com/harvestsarasota
TikTok CLICK HERE

DONATE to support our podcast HERE

Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative

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What if the version of Jesus we’ve been following…
is the version that costs us the least?

What if we’ve gotten so comfortable, so certain, so in control…
that we literally can’t see the parts of Jesus that challenge us anymore?

In this message, Dan Minor takes aim at a hard truth:
the Church didn’t lose the Bible—
we lost the lens to read it.

From the Beatitudes to the rich young ruler, from refugee camps to American Christianity, this sermon pulls no punches:

• Why “blessed are the poor” doesn’t work from the top
• How certainty can replace truth and control can replace faith
• Why the biggest barrier to following Jesus might be… what you’re not willing to lose
• And the one question Jesus keeps asking that we keep avoiding:
  Who is this not working for?

This isn’t safe.
It’s not polished.
And it’s definitely not comfortable.

But it might be the clearest invitation you’ve heard in a long time
to actually follow Jesus.

Support the show

Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram - Instagram.com/harvestsarasota
Facebook - Facebook.com/harvestsarasota
TikTok CLICK HERE

DONATE to support our podcast HERE

Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative

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In this message from Harvest Sarasota, we rethink one of the most familiar phrases of Jesus: “Follow me.”

What if it was never meant as command and control? What if it was never about pressure, coercion, or falling in line? What if “follow me” was always an invitation into close companionship?

In this episode, we explore Luke 9:23 through a fresh lens and consider how Jesus invited people not into fear, but into relationship. Along the way, we confront the ways faith has too often been used to burden people, control people, and pressure people, and we reclaim a more faithful vision of the gospel: one rooted in presence, dignity, belonging, and love.

This is a conversation about carrying heaven with us. About what it means to embody good news. About why witness is less about making a case and more about making space.

If you’ve ever felt burned by religious pressure, exhausted by performative faith, or curious about a more compassionate and Christlike way, this message is for you.

#HarvestSarasota #ProgressiveChristianity #FollowMe #CarryHeaven #PresenceOverPressure #MakingSpace #BelongingBeforeBelief #InclusiveFaith

Support the show

Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram - Instagram.com/harvestsarasota
Facebook - Facebook.com/harvestsarasota
TikTok CLICK HERE

DONATE to support our podcast HERE

Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative

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What if doubt isn’t the problem… but pretending is?

We’ve turned “Doubting Thomas” into a warning. Don’t question. Don’t wrestle. Just believe. But what if Thomas wasn’t weak in faith—what if he was the only one being honest?

In this message, we dismantle one of the most misunderstood stories in Scripture and expose a deeper truth:
faith that can’t handle questions isn’t real faith.

Thomas refused to build his life on someone else’s experience. And Jesus didn’t shame him for it—He met him in it. 

This episode explores:

• Why doubt isn’t disbelief—it’s the beginning of real faith
• How church culture rewards silence but punishes honesty
• The danger of living off borrowed belief
• Why your questions might actually lead you closer to God

Here’s the tension:
We’ve normalized quiet doubt… and condemned the people who say it out loud.

But the one we labeled “the doubter” ends up seeing Jesus more clearly than anyone else.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to fake it to belong, this one’s for you.

You don’t need less doubt.
You need a real encounter.

Support the show

Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram - Instagram.com/harvestsarasota
Facebook - Facebook.com/harvestsarasota
TikTok CLICK HERE

DONATE to support our podcast HERE

Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative

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Let’s be honest—“holiness” has been weaponized.

For years, it’s been used to divide, exclude, and label people as “clean” or “unclean.” But what if we’ve been getting it wrong the whole time?

In this bold message, we flip the script.

Jesus didn’t define holiness by who you avoid—He defined it by how you love. And that changes everything.

Walking through Mark 7 and Acts 10, we confront a hard truth: holiness isn’t about distance from “those people.” It’s about refusing to become the kind of person who harms others. 

This episode dives into:

• Why “unclean” was never about categories of people
• How Scripture has been misused to justify harm
• What holiness actually looks like in real life (hint: it’s not behavior control)
• Why love—not fear, not rules—is the clearest evidence of God in you

If your version of holiness creates division, shame, or harm… it might not be holiness at all.

This is a call to something better.
A faith that looks like Jesus.
A holiness that actually heals.

Support the show

Harvest is a fully affirming, inclusive (including the LGBTQ+ community) progressive Christian church located in Sarasota, Florida.

Follow us on Social Media:
Instagram - Instagram.com/harvestsarasota
Facebook - Facebook.com/harvestsarasota
TikTok CLICK HERE

DONATE to support our podcast HERE

Recorded live at Harvest Church in Sarasota by Michael Thomas Regina and Stephen Lehman of Boardtown Creative