May 10, 2026

In this sermon, we explore the defiant nature of joy as an unbidden guest that arrives precisely when we expect it least. Drawing on the series Surprise Party: 50 Days of Enchantment, we examine how the Apostle Paul—writing from the claustrophobia of a prison cell—aligns himself with a "do-it-again" God whose very nature is delight. We are invited to stop resisting these fleeting moments of grace and instead receive them as a holy resistance against a disenchanted world. Ultimately, we discover that when joy finds us amidst our grief, it is not a betrayal of our pain but a profound encounter with the nearness of God.

Scripture: Philippians 1:1–18

For more information about The Local Church, visit our website. Feedback? Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear it. Email Brent at [email protected].

To invest in what God's doing through The Local Church and help support these podcasting efforts and this movement of God's love, give online here.

May 3, 2026

In this sermon, we confront the "surprise" no one wants: the devastating gap between the miracle we prayed for and the reality of grief. Amidst the heartbreak of losing a beloved child, we set aside the party to sit in the honest, defiant landscape of Psalm 23. We discover a God who doesn’t offer trite explanations but a relentless, pursuing presence—a love that chases us even into the darkest valleys. When words fail, we find our way forward by simply showing up and mirroring the stubborn, enduring mercy that refuses to let us go.

Scripture: Psalm 23

For more information about The Local Church, visit our website. Feedback? Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear it. Email Brent at [email protected].

To invest in what God's doing through The Local Church and help support these podcasting efforts and this movement of God's love, give online here.

April 26, 2026

In this sermon, we explore the radical, countercultural surprise of staying put. In a world that profits from our restlessness, we investigate how the "vow of stability" offers a defiant path toward reenchantment. By looking at the grounded presence of Paul and Silas in a midnight prison cell, we discover that the grace we seek isn't found in our escape, but in our commitment to remain present to the beautiful, heavy reality right where we are.

Scripture: Acts 16:16–34

For more information about The Local Church, visit our website. Feedback? Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear it. Email Brent at [email protected].

To invest in what God's doing through The Local Church and help support these podcasting efforts and this movement of God's love, give online here.

April 19, 2026

In this sermon, we explore the scandalous reach of Easter hope through the lens of Saul’s blinding encounter on the road to Damascus. We confront a God who subverts our hierarchies of belonging, trading our rigid "safety patrol" certainties for a grace that reaches the very people we have labeled as "out." By examining the quiet bravery of Ananias, we are challenged to move beyond condemnation and embrace the radical humility required to call an enemy "brother." This is a call to inhabit the "Surprise Party" of the Gospel, where the scales of judgment fall away to reveal a kinship we never thought possible.

For more information about The Local Church, visit our website. Feedback? Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear it. Email Brent at [email protected].

To invest in what God's doing through The Local Church and help support these podcasting efforts and this movement of God's love, give online here.

April 12, 2026

In this sermon, we crash the best party you never knew was happening. Jesus doesn't wait for you to unlock the door — he walks through it, wounds showing, saying peace before you're ready to hear it. This is the God who descends rather than demands, who meets us in the locked rooms of our fear, hopelessness, shame, and apathy, and whose first word is always grace. We are not just invited to the party. We are sent to throw it.

Scripture: John 20:19–31

For more information about The Local Church, visit our website. Feedback? Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear it. Email Brent at [email protected].

To invest in what God's doing through The Local Church and help support these podcasting efforts and this movement of God's love, give online here.

April 5, 2026

In this sermon, we slow down long enough to see what cynicism keeps us from seeing — that resurrection isn't a one-time event that happened long ago, but the very shape of reality itself, breaking through in ordinary moments all around us. We sit with Mary Magdalene in her grief, name the ways disappointment calcifies into resignation, and discover that what finally breaks through isn't argument or evidence — it's Love calling us by name. The world is more alive than we've been giving it credit for. Do you see it?

Scripture: John 20:1-18

For more information about The Local Church, visit our website. Feedback? Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear it. Email Brent at [email protected].

To invest in what God's doing through The Local Church and help support these podcasting efforts and this movement of God's love, give online here.

March 29, 2026

In this Palm Sunday sermon, we repent of triumphalism—our desperate need for a God who wins—and discover what's revealed when those false images finally fall. We've all handed our hope to something that couldn't hold it, and called it faith. But the one who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey isn't heading for a throne. He's heading through death. And it turns out, that's exactly where the God who was always there has been waiting.

Scripture: Matthew 2:1–11

For more information about The Local Church, visit our website. Feedback? Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear it. Email Brent at [email protected].

To invest in what God's doing through The Local Church and help support these podcasting efforts and this movement of God's love, give online here.

March 22, 2026

In this sermon, guest preacher Alyson Tiwari invites us into the most honest question grief ever asks: Where were you? Using the story of Lazarus—and her own profound loss—she explores what it looks like to bring our full, unguarded selves to Jesus, anger and all.

Reenchantment, she reminds us, isn't relentless optimism; it's the kind of presence that can hold grief and hope in the same breath, and discover God already standing in the middle of it, weeping.

This week's invitation: release the cynicism that numbs, and dare to say, Show me something good.

Scripture: John 11:1–45

For more information about The Local Church, visit our website. Feedback? Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear it. Email Brent at [email protected].

To invest in what God's doing through The Local Church and help support these podcasting efforts and this movement of God's love, give online here.

A Camera Roll Examen for Week 4 of Reenchanted.

This week we're exploring what it means to repent of nostalgia and believe in possibility—the idea that God isn't only present in what has already happened, but is actively at work in what's unfolding right now. This practice is one small way to train your eyes to see it.

Using your phone's camera roll as a prayer tool, we scroll back through the last month of ordinary life and look for grace we didn't engineer. Moments we captured because something surprised us. Evidence that God was moving before we had words for it.

Reenchanted: A Series for Lent on Believing Again | The Local Church, Sundays at 10am at Woods Charter School

March 15, 2026

In this sermon, we ask what we might be missing when we get stuck pining for the past. Nostalgia is seductive—it feels like home—but it can blind us to what God is doing right now. We explore how the man born blind models a different way: not reaching backward, but saying hello to here. Part of our series Reenchanted: A Series for Lent on Believing Again. The past isn't a destination. It's evidence.

Scripture: John 9:1–41

For more information about The Local Church, visit our website. Feedback? Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear it. Email Brent at [email protected].

To invest in what God's doing through The Local Church and help support these podcasting efforts and this movement of God's love, give online here.