In this teaching, George shared from Matthew 5:33-37 where Jesus talks about the importance of our words—they have tremendous creative power to heal or wound, help or hinder, build up or tear down. 

How many of us have said, "I'm only human!" as if it's a deficit to be human. We are continuing to learn that Jesus has a profound belief in the possibilities of being human. Jesus is raising us up in what could be called "asset framing," defining people by their inherent worth and potential. 

Could being human be the description of the best version of ourselves instead of the worst? Seems that Jesus might be trying to show us that it is.

The end of a marriage is one of the most emotionally painful human experiences. In this teaching, George focuses on Jesus' words from the Sermon on the Mount about lust + divorce [Matthew 5:27-32 ]. Ultimately, people who are learning to see the image of God in others, are people who are learning to live out the image of God in themselves.

George spoke to us from Matthew 5:17-20, in which Jesus talks about not coming to abolish the law but to fulfill it. In these 3 verses, we learn from Jesus to put the past and the present, a rooted faith and a changing world, sacred memory & holy imagination together. This is the question of every church in every generation: what are we going to do with these two things side by side? 

In this episode, Stacia Freeman guides us in part 2 of being the salt of the earth and the light of the world [Matthew 5:13-16].

In this episode, George takes us a little further on our journey through The Sermon on the Mount [Matthew 5:13-16], talking about how Salt & Light are about being a certain kind of gift to the world and others. People who take this seriously are bearers of redeeming love and creative stewardship,  joining Jesus in his work of blessing people who don't think they deserve it. 

On Sunday we created some sacred space in our gathering to reflect on Memorial Day as well as to mourn and pray and sing and respond with our hearts to the tragic shooting last week in Uvalde, TX.

Sometimes to mourn is the only thing that makes sense. But we’re also learning and trusting that in these moments of crying out, God’s loving and guiding us forward with grace and wisdom and hope and comfort.

On this Memorial Day, as we all remember the sacrifices of so many, may we also be reminded of the words of Jesus from the beatitudes: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

In this episode, we take another step on our journey through The Sermon on the Mount and work through the first four blessings of the Beatitudes [Matthew 5:1-6]. There is an order, progression, and brilliant flow here in which Jesus teaches us to imagine the more beautiful world and life our hearts know is possible. 

An Imaginarium is a place devoted to imagining + practicing how to actually live in the kingdom of heaven on earth. In this sermon series George invites us on a journey through the Sermon on the Mount from the book of Matthew. Many scholars believe these three chapters (5, 6, & 7) are the best summary of Jesus' teaching and seem to be the heart of it all. Jesus’ words gathered here forever changed human imagination about what life and community can look like. 

Life coming through death is a gift and reality we’ve learned from Jesus. We can also see this pattern of renewal and resurrection happening all around us, and in us, everyday, from seasons to salsa. The whole physical and biological universe affirms this everywhere.

Prayer was central to Jesus and to the early church in the book of Acts. Prayer is important for us too, and it can also bring conflicted and complicated feelings to us about how it works and what it accomplishes. In this teaching, George explores this to discover, as Eugene Peterson says: "prayers are tools not for doing or getting but for being and becoming."

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