🕯️💗 Joy doesn’t wait for everything to be fixed. Joy doesn’t ask permission. Joy enters the room.

In this Advent Week Three Bible study, we sit with one of the most surprising moments in Scripture: Mary and Elizabeth, two women carrying promises the world doesn’t yet understand—and joy showing up before anyone explains it.

This is not sentimental joy. This is not manufactured happiness. This is joy that recognizes mercy when mercy walks in the door.

Walking through Luke 1:39–56, we explore how joy arrives in ordinary rooms, among weary people, before certainty, before resolution, and often before we’re ready. This study is for anyone who’s tired of being told to “feel joyful” and ready instead to notice when God draws near.

Whether you’re carrying hope, peace, grief, exhaustion, or all of it at once—you are welcome here.

Light the pink candle with us. Stay for the song. And watch what happens when joy enters the room.

Some stories in Scripture thunder. Joseph’s barely whispers. But sometimes the quietest man in the room is carrying the heaviest load.

Tonight we sit with a carpenter who didn’t get angels while awake, didn’t get a song, didn’t get applause—just a dream, a dilemma, and the strength to stay when walking away would have been easier.

This episode walks tenderly through Matthew’s telling of Joseph: the man who chose mercy over reputation, obedience over image, and faithfulness in the shadows over applause in the light. 🌾✨

If you’ve ever stayed when no one noticed… If you’ve ever held together what felt like it was falling apart… If your obedience has cost you more than anyone knows… Brother, sister—Joseph is your companion tonight.

Settle in with something warm. Breathe deep. Let’s walk slow through this story of quiet righteousness.

If this teaching helped you, toss a like in the offering plate as it comes by. 👍 And if you want to stay with us through Advent, go on and tithe your subscribe. 🔔 That way you’ll know when the next candle gets lit.

Be blessed, friends. Grace is already on the way. ✨

This week on the Semi-Seminarian Podcast, we step straight into the tension between the peace the world expects you to hold together and the peace Christ actually brings. 🌱✨

Isaiah shows us a stump where everything looked finished… and a shoot that shouldn’t exist. Jesus offers a peace the world can’t mimic or manufacture. Paul tears down the walls we’ve lived behind for generations. In this Advent reflection, we explore how real peace doesn’t come from our effort—it arrives as a Person.

If you’ve ever tried to keep the family calm, hold your emotions steady, or negotiate your way into a little inner quiet, this episode is for you. Christ doesn’t hand you a technique—He hands you Himself. 🕊️

And friend, as you listen, you’re stepping into our little country church—creaky pews, warm coffee, Advent candles glowing. Welcome in.

I’ll see you on the other side. 🔔

✨ Welcome to Week One of our Advent journey. Tonight we step into Luke 1:26–38—the moment the angel Gabriel showed up in a nowhere town and spoke world-changing hope to a girl nobody expected. If you’ve ever wondered whether God can start something holy in a life like yours…this study is for you.

📖 What we explore tonight:

• Why God begins His work in overlooked places
• The meaning of Gabriel’s announcement to Mary
• What “favored one” really means
• How Advent reveals grace before transformation
• What happens when ordinary people say “Let it be”

🍽️ And it all happens on a Wednesday night, surrounded by fellowship, supper dishes, Advent decorations half-hung, and the honest hope that God still walks into ordinary rooms with extraordinary grace.

If you’re looking to understand Advent, dive deeper into the Christmas story, or grow in weekly Bible study—welcome. Pull up a chair. Let’s walk to Bethlehem together.

👍 If this study stirred something in you, throw a like in the offering plate. 🔔 And if you want to follow this whole Advent journey, tithe your subscribe—so you’ll know the moment the next candle gets lit.

I’ll see you on the other side.

Hope isn’t something you muscle through. It isn’t a feeling you manufacture or a ladder you climb. Scripture tells a different story—one where light breaks into darkness long before we’re ready for it, long before we can summon the strength to believe. In this episode, we walk through Isaiah 9 and Luke 1 to rediscover a hope that descends instead of demands. A hope that comes as gift, not achievement. A hope that shows up in forgotten places, unexpected people, and unsteady lives.

If you’ve ever felt tired of pretending you’re fine… If you’ve ever felt the weight of trying to “stay positive”… If you’ve ever wondered why your own hope keeps running out…

Then this reflection invites you to breathe again. Advent begins with a promise whispered into the dark: The dawn is coming, and it is not waiting on you.

Pull up a chair with us. The Light you didn’t make is already breaking in.

Tonight we step back and look at the entire journey we’ve taken through the Parables of Jesus—from the Sower to the Prodigal, from the Mustard Seed to the Vineyard, from the Lost Sheep to the Leaven in the dough. 🌾🐑🍞

And because it’s the night before Thanksgiving—and because Jan and Gigi deserve a well-earned Sabbath from the church kitchen—we’re recording from the vestry tonight, letting the quiet carry the Word.

This episode is a full recap of our series on the Parables of Jesus, exploring how these kingdom stories shape us, soften us, and invite us to see the world through the eyes of grace. If you’re looking for a Bible study on parables, kingdom teaching, or the teachings of Jesus—welcome. Pull up a chair.

If this blesses you, go ahead and throw a “like” in the offering plate 👍⛪️ And if you’d like to know when we turn the lights back on for church, tithe that subscribe button 🔔—it’ll tell you every time a new teaching or sermon goes live.

Wishing you a gentle and grace-filled Thanksgiving. I’ll see you on the other side. 🌙

🔥 When God shows up, nothing stays the same. In this week’s episode of The Semi-Seminarian Podcast, we step into Malachi 3 — that razor-sharp moment when the Lord says He’s coming to His temple, not with applause… but with fire.

This is a story for anyone who’s ever prayed, “Lord, fix this,” not realizing that God might start with you. Malachi won’t let us hide behind ritual, nostalgia, or half-hearted obedience. He talks about a God who refines like silver, burns like holiness, and loves us too much to leave us the way we are. ✨🔥

Walk the rubble with us. Feel the heat. Hear the prophet ask the ancient question: “Who can endure the day of His coming?” And discover the gospel truth: 🔥 The Refiner doesn’t walk away. 🔥 He sits with you in the fire until His image shines back.

If you’re longing for renewal, aching for justice, or wondering why the world feels like a crucible — this episode is a fire-lit doorway into Advent hope. 🌟 Pull up a chair. Tune your heart. Let the fire walk in.

Tonight we walk the dusty Galilean road with Jesus as He tells a story we’d rather not hear — a parable about forgiveness, mercy, debt, and the violence we do to ourselves when we cling to grudges we were never meant to carry. Peter asks the question we all whisper in the dark: “Lord… how many times do I really have to forgive?” And Jesus answers with a story that breaks the calculator and rewrites the ledger.

In this episode, we explore the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:21–35) with Red Dirt gospel honesty, lyrical storytelling, and deep scripture-rooted teaching. You’ll hear ancient context, Greek insights, pastoral reflection, and that late-night AM-radio mercy that you’ve come to expect from this Little Digital Church.

So settle in. ⚡️ Let the Spirit loosen your grip. 💨 Let the text read you. 📖 And maybe—just maybe—you’ll walk out breathing freer than you came in.

If this episode blesses you, helps you breathe deeper, or reminds you of grace in the static, throw a 👍 in the light and tithe a subscribe so you’ll know when we’re having church again.

As always— be blessed. ✨

In this week’s message, we step into the rubble of Haggai 2, where the returned exiles stand staring at a temple that looks embarrassingly small compared to the one they lost. Their memories torment them. Their comparisons paralyze them. And into that ache, God speaks a word that still reaches us today: “Be strong… Work… For I am with you.”

If you’ve ever felt crushed by what used to be—if the glory days haunt you more than they help you—this sermon is for you. We’ll walk through the dust with Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the old men who can’t stop weeping over former glory. And we’ll hear how God fills second houses, smaller stones, and tired hearts with a greater glory than anything we left behind.

Wherever you’re listening from, you’re part of our little church in your headphones. Throw your like in the offering plate, tithe that subscribe, and meet us again next Sunday. I’ll see you on the other side.

In this week’s study, Pastor Jim Wilhelm walks us straight into one of the most unsettling—and most hope-filled—teachings Jesus ever gave: the separation of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31–46. It’s a passage about recognition, compassion, and the quiet ways grace reveals who we’ve become when no one’s watching. What if the face you passed in the parking lot, the grocery store, or the fellowship hall wasn’t just “someone in need”… but Christ Himself?

Join us around the Wednesday-night table at a real church with real people opening a real Bible as we explore what it means to see Jesus in the hungry, the lonely, the overlooked, and the forgotten. Convicting and comforting, this episode challenges us to open our eyes—and our hearts—before the King returns.

Pull up a chair, friend. The fluorescent lights are humming, the Bibles are open, and grace is moving.

Welcome to The Semi-Seminarian Podcast. Revival for your ears.