Amongst mountain bikers, the word is “dirt therapy.” Gotta get out onto the trail, get the blood pumping, and sweat out the stress. It comes in liquid form, if you didn’t know! This is, in my humble opinion, is some of the best self care that a person can do. Our culture loves self-care these days, which is natural given the immense amount of stress most people carry around. If we could find a way to power cities with cortisol, we’d be in great shape! But amongst the many voices clambering for attention are those who would tell you that anyone and anything that isn’t positive in your life should be cut as a toxic presence. If your friends/family/work isn’t fully behind you no matter, you’ve got to make changes. Gratefully, Jesus is also in our ears, commanding us to resist such a culture of disposability and teaching us to love one another enough to reconcile. Join us this Labor Day weekend to discover the closest thing to a handbook for reconciliation that Jesus ever gave us in the book of Matthew. See you at 9am or 10:30am!

Some people meet God on a mountain. Moses met God in a bush that wouldn’t stop burning on an ordinary work Tuesday, tending someone else’s sheep. This Sunday, we’re ordaining and installing new elders and deacons, and we’re reading the story of the burning bush alongside Paul’s field guide for what real, unmasked, sleeves-rolled-up love actually looks like. Come and be surprised to hear that your own ordinary ground is actually holy ground where God is calling you to live and work in ways unique to you. Come stand with us as we send new leaders out into that work. See you Sunday.

We’re running out of room on our bumper, so we’ve come to our last Christian cliche. It is “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Admittedly, you might not have heard this one put quite this way, but the loudest Christian culture in America interacts with Scripture in this way. We call this “biblicism,” and while it passes as a respect and honor for Scripture, it may well belie a deep discomfort with the living and active God who gave those Scriptures to us. So this Sunday, join us as we ask questions alongside Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount about what Scripture is for and how we engage it in 2026. Come, listen for God to speak!

This week, we’ve got triplets. Terrible Triplets. They are a constellation of sayings we reach for when we don’t know what else to say in the midst of tragedy. We’ve got “everything happens for a reason,” “God needed another angel,” and “God will never give you more than you can handle.” To be fair, people say things like this because they want to help and they want to fix it. But this sometimes turns into an episode of “when helping hurts.” The question remains, if we’ve tried these out and they don’t seem to work, what should we say? We will reach to Job’s friends (before they open their mouths) and Paul’s encouragement to the Corinthians where he suggests that “[God’s] grace is sufficient for you” for some wisdom for how to navigate these waters faithfully. Join us for another week of “Bumper Sticker Theology” this week at 9am in Bethel Chapel or 10:30am in the MPR. Morning Light is back!

We are back with week two of “Bumper Sticker Theology,” but really this week we should just call it “Things your grandma said a lot” because the Christian cliche of the week is “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” So we are going to talk Leviticus’ holiness code, contagious disease, hypocrisy, and how cleanliness might be next to godliness, but it sure is no substitute. Pastor Jake hopes to see you - in your neatest clothes (kidding!) - on Sunday morning at 10:30am.

p.s. Don’t forget that before worship, we are gathering to talk about stewardship; during worship, we are going to bless backpacks; and after worship, we are going to have a brief congregational meeting to nominate elders, deacons, trustee, treasurer, and nomination committee!

This week, we begin a new series about the pithy, axiomatic statements that sometimes pass for Godly wisdom, Biblical truth, or theological thoughtfulness but are sometimes just cheat codes to get out of difficult situations or cultural touchpoints. We are calling it, “Bumper Sticker Theology.” We’ll spend time putting these easy, often overused, and sometimes misleading thoughts under the microscope to winnow the chaff and amplify the good and true. We are going to start with a favorite: “Give a man to fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Where’s that at in the Bible again? See you Sunday at 10:30am.

We have come to the end of our Fruit of the Spirit series. Our final fruit is “self control,” which is absolutely the easiest of all these fruits to bear, right? RIGHT?! On Sunday, Pastor Jake will make the case that self control is the support that holds all this fruit of the Spirit in the tree of our lives. Self control is a crucial piece of the puzzle if we hope to be the loving, peaceful, joyful, generous, good, patient, kind, gentle, faithful people God has made us to be. What is more, self control gets that much easier when we have a goal. So, what do you really want? Looking forward to seeing you in worship.

This week, Pastor Jake is back in the pulpit and will be preaching on our penultimate fruit of the Spirit: gentleness. To make it spicy - we are going to be talking about the woman caught in adultery from the gospel of John, so spend some time considering what the connection is there. Indeed, what is gentleness and why might it be considered a fruit that comes from God’s own Spirit? See you in worship.This week, Pastor Jake is ACTUALLY back in the pulpit and will be preaching on our penultimate fruit of the Spirit: gentleness. To make it spicy - we are going to be talking about the woman caught in adultery from the gospel of John, so spend some time considering what the connection is there. Indeed, what is gentleness and why might it be considered a fruit that comes from God’s own Spirit? See you in worship.

Join us this week as the Reverend Naveen Nischal preaches on Seeing the Spirit- Faithfulness. Rev. Naveen Nischal is a pastor, theologian, mission leader, and nonprofit founder with more than twenty-five years of ministry experience in India and the United States. His ordination was recently received and recognized by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) following a distinguished pastoral ministry within the Lutheran tradition. He holds M.Div., M.Th., and S.T.M. degrees and has served congregations across multiple cultural contexts, including Indian, African American, and Anglo churches. Rev. Nischal is the Founder and President of People for Forest and Wildlife Conservation of India, has served as a Mission Director, and has participated in numerous interreligious, theological, and gospel-and-culture conferences. He and his wife, Neena, have been married for over twenty-five years and are blessed with three children—Emil, Erin, and Eva. His ministry is marked by a commitment to faithful pastoral leadership, cross-cultural mission, creation care, leadership development, and the transformative witness of the Gospel.

Join us this week as the Reverend Sarah Cowther-Dixon preaches on Seeing the Spirit- Goodness. Sarah is the Campus Minister & Executive Director of UKirk TCU, a campus ministry of Grace Presbytery. She has been shaped by her experiences at Oklahoma State University, her Young Adult Volunteer year in Denver, Austin Seminary, and her amazing home church, Trinity Presbyterian Church in Flower Mound, TX. She is grateful to be back at Trinity this Sunday!