Sermon Text: Matthew 18:18-20

Intercessory prayer remains at the heart of a local church. When someone asks us to pray for them, they are opening for us an entry to the sacred. Prayer requests are a sacred trust, a sacred encounter that needs to be nourished, cared for, and respected. Intercessory prayer takes us into a bigger, more complex, more mystical world, where God is living and active, and we are invited to participate in the healing of the world.

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Sermon Text: Luke 18:9-14

For Jesus the most critical categories aren't sinner v. saint, but the proud and the humble. Whatever we believe about ourselves and our adversaries, we’re all sinners. The question is, are we proud sinners or humble sinners? If we’re proud sinners we create ways to justify ourselves in our own eyes by favorably comparing ourselves to those whom we deem worse than us. But if we are humble sinners we throw ourselves entirely on the mercy of God.

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Sermon Text: 2 Corinthians 3

We serve a Christ who was prophesied about, came to us born of a virgin, did miraculous healings, said that he and God are one, walked on water, calmed the storm, raised the dead, was crucified and raised himself, ascended into heaven, and our only takeaway is, “Be a good person"?

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Sermon Text: Exodus 19

Rural churches sit on the margins of society and have an opportunity to live deep faith in the wilderness. Wilderness is volatile, and challenges us. But we have the opportunity to become acquainted with our deepest selves, to think God's thoughts in a contemplative community. Let us seek living into the quiet that strengthens souls and communities.

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Sermon Text: Matthew 15

Churches can find themselves leaning into personal devotion or social justice, when both are necessary to a full and vibrant mission, and fear will then drive our work. But God is already at work in the world, and there are wonderful and beautiful things for us to find. We should be prepare to be surprised as we seek the renewal of our communities and the world.

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Sermon Text: 1 Peter 2:1-10

Faith is a work of imagination, seeing what cannot yet be seen. As we draw near to the cross, we discover a community forming around it. We are called to embrace that community, and to imagine what it means to have the crucified Christ at the very center of it. Imagination allows the church to grow strong and beautiful.

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Sermon Text: Luke 9:51-62

Amongst a distracted and undisciplined age, Jesus asks his church to set our face, to be serious about cultivating the life of Christ. The only thing we have to offer the world is Christ, to make him known. And that alone feeds the world, heals the world. Jesus says, “Here’s who I’ve made you to be. Allow me to cultivate that: tear out what isn’t truly you, form you into what you already are. Just keep looking at me, your eyes ahead, keep plowing.”

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Sermon Text: John 16:12-24

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Sermon Text: Matthew 6:5-15

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Sermon Text: Luke 5:17-26

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