A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. What must it have been like for Job when God showed up! One second the young Elihu is encouraging Job to “Keep listening to the thunder of His voice and the rumbling that comes from His mouth [because] God thunders wondrously with His voice; He does great things that we cannot comprehend,” and “then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind” (Job 37.2,5; 38.1)!!! Job’s been desperate for God to show up, to answer His unanswered appeals. Maybe you’ve...
Jul 14, 2025•26 min•Ep. 242
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. I once found myself in conversation with a futurist. He’d published several books and was well-known for his study of the future and his predictions on where things were headed. At times it was as if he was looking past the curve of the earth and seeing what tomorrow was bringing. When I asked him how he went about making his predictions for the future, his response was just as surprising. He said the best way to predict what will happen tomorrow is to be fu...
Jul 14, 2025•27 min•Ep. 241
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. I think Mark Twain was right when he said, “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” The little book of Ruth is driven by kindness. Amid famine, decimation, and loss, the whisper of kindness soothes deafened ears. In the clashing cymbals of time, when the cacophony of anxiety and worry flood our vision, kindness reveals the movement of God’s invisible hand. To paraphrase Nietzsche, an enduring kindness in the same dire...
Jul 14, 2025•30 min•Ep. 240
A Sunday morning sermon by Peter DuMont. Gregory Wagenfuhr, member of the ECO Standing Theology Committee, has spoken of time as a difficult thing to live within. In his telling, we are continually ground between two stones: between processing and making sense of the past, and anticipating and planning for the future. Our task as humans is to live between the weight of past experience and the looming shapes and questions of the future. In this pressure-packed space, it can be very easy to become...
Jul 14, 2025•27 min•Ep. 239
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Every year during the festival of Weeks, the time more commonly known as Pentecost, the people of God would read the little book of Ruth. Annually they would take this short story from their past and listen to it again as it spoke into the current realities they were facing as well as the unknown, unseen possibilities of the future. Starting Sunday, we will walk in the fullness of Pentecost, reflecting on the story of Naomi and Ruth and what their Sp...
Jul 14, 2025•28 min•Ep. 238
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Elise and I just got back from our own Emmaus road. We set out walking from our Jerusalem, like Cleopas and his companion into the unknown. And walk we did! Over the last two weeks we averaged six miles a day. Our peripatetic journey took us across the British isles. We worshiped in Westminster and Glasgow, the castle heights of Edinburgh and the cliffs of Howth. But of all the amazing places we visited, there was one spot I was particularly excited ...
Jul 14, 2025•29 min•Ep. 237
A Sunday sermon by Peter DuMont. Why do we worship Jesus? Six weeks ago we gathered on Easter Sunday with a palpable sense of joy to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection. Since then we have been walking through his disciples experience of grief, disorientation, and sorrow between his death and resurrection. This week we arrive at the incredible finale to Jesus’ earthly ministry where he is revealed in resurrection wholeness to his gathered disciples. Seeing him is staggering to the disciples, but Jesus...
Jul 14, 2025•43 min•Ep. 236
A Sunday morning sermon by Kathleen Hudson. It is not an altogether uncommon experience in our home for someone to shout out to another person asking where something is. The irony of this is that, often, the person seeking what they cannot find is positioned directly in front of the “missing” item. The one called walks in and quickly grabs the item and hands it to them. Now, say it with me if you can hear it reverberate in your own head: “How did I miss that?” That’s where we find ourselves this...
Jul 14, 2025•23 min•Ep. 235
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. After moving back to Kenya for my senior year, I was flying home for a break. Without a direct flight between the island and Nairobi, I stopped in Cameroon on my way. Landing in Douala, the port city close to Malabo, I heard from a friend that a well-known author was in Yaoundé leading a spiritual emphasis week for the group of Bible translators I’d lived with the year before. I’d recently devoured his book on God’s missionary call for His people and...
May 20, 2025•28 min•Ep. 234
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. After a few weeks home, it was time to fly back to Cameroon. With a new visa in my passport and a new semester ahead, I was ready to get back to work. I also had a new lease on the days ahead of me. I didn’t want to miss “why” I was in Yaoundé. We all have reasons. I realized I need to reshuffle mine. Some reasons we know. They’re written in billboard sized letters. Other reasons we think we know, but they ultimately have little real purpose in our l...
May 17, 2025•27 min•Ep. 233
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. I boarded the little Cessna on the hot tarmac of the Yaoundé international airport. I had just received the grace of the customs and border patrol I surely didn’t deserve. I’d been an illegal alien in Cameroon for several months, assuming—as most naïve teenagers are wont to do—the school would keep my papers in order. After a few hours, however, the man behind the desk forgave me. He wiped away my debt and stamped my passport, releasing me. He didn’t even bl...
May 17, 2025•27 min•Ep. 232
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Back in 1999, I found myself in hot water. As a high school junior, I was living in Cameroon, going to school in Yaoundé. For most of my schooling years I’d benefited from the meticulous care and attention of a much larger academy in Kenya. That year, however, I attended a much smaller school, closer to home. Everything seemed fine until I went to fly home for break. That was when I discovered, much to my surprise, my visa was long expired! Where the other s...
May 17, 2025•30 min•Ep. 231
An Easter Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Have you ever noticed how each Gospel speaks from a unique vantage point? Matthew and Mark, Luke and John all speak from a distinct place in the story. Eyewitnesses have shared their personal experiences of being with Jesus. They take several others’ testimonies of Thursday’s washing and communion, of Friday’s execution, of Saturday’s traumatic silence. Each Gospel arrives at the dawn of the next day. This Sunday we will take up Luke’s account (Luke ...
Apr 23, 2025•23 min•Ep. 230
A Palm Sunday morning sermon by some of the youth at Eternity Church. One of the best questions anyone ever asked Jesus was, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” As Jesus entered Jerusalem, with great fanfare and acclaim, as the long-awaited Messiah of Israel, people crowded along the roadside. They raised up palm branches and laid their cloaks beneath the foal’s footfalls. In the gathering were children, singing and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” These boys and girls were wit...
Apr 23, 2025•27 min•Ep. 229
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. There’s no excuse for my sense of humor. That’s an important place to start. It pops up in the strangest of places. For example, in high school my best friend and I named our dorm room. No, that wasn’t a normal practice. Dorms had names. Rooms didn’t. But I’d been spending dedicated time in the Psalms of Ascent, and I was taken by the thought of pilgrims crossing arid valleys to reach the Temple (Psalms 120-134). Some would pass through valleys like ...
Apr 23, 2025•26 min•Ep. 228
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Have you ever heard a great song or watched an incredible movie then afterwards learned the inspiration for it, and it made it all the more powerful? Years ago, Elise and I were in a little art shop in a mall. Among all the large and impressive art for sale, there was a fairly small oil replica of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers. So simple. Flowers in a vase. I walked out with that little framed painting for my office. Later I learned Van Gogh painted ...
Apr 23, 2025•28 min•Ep. 227
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Have you ever lost the thread? I imagine the phrase “lose the thread” began in a time when tapestries were still primarily made by hand and the careful design required mindful attention to the weaving. Despite the fact most of us do not mind the literal progress of thread, we still use this phrase to indicate we have lost focus, that the task or talk at hand got jumbled. As we as Christians have walked penitently through Lent for nearly two millennia, I thin...
Apr 23, 2025•27 min•Ep. 226
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. All of us know what it feels like to fail. The sear of shame, the burning against the skin of our neck born of embarrassment or humiliation. Some of us may hide it better than others, but we’ve all fallen short of our intentions. We all know what it feels like to regret. Whether it was the weight of our actions or the expense of our words, we’ve all played back the minutes riddled with guilt, at times unable to break the loop that keeps our minds spi...
Mar 17, 2025•28 min•Ep. 225
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. As far back as the sixth century in recorded history—and probably even further back than that—Christians have reflected on seven psalms as they enter Lent (Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143). These songs in the hymnbook of Israel sing over us the joy of confession and the gift of repentance. As followers of Jesus, we find in these lyrical prayers the peace with God found through lament. Today, as we kneel before the Lord our God, taking the shape of the...
Mar 09, 2025•34 min•Ep. 224
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Do you ever find yourself asking, “now what?” I was recently at a conference, and during a follow up session, with the main speaker alongside two respondents, the moderator of the discussion voiced those words. Repeatedly as he was walking with people he was counseling, he would find himself thinking, “But now what?” He’d given them all he had to give, all the best listening he could render, all the best empathy he could muster, all the counsel he could offe...
Mar 09, 2025•31 min•Ep. 223
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. You ever have one of those songs you learned as a kid come back to you and get stuck in your head? It’s too random to be random! As we move toward the conclusion of our Sermon on the Mount series, I’ve been thinking about mountain passes. In boarding school, our fourth-grade dorm was on the edge of the school, and a narrow pass was cut into the cliff rock wall for the track. On a few occasions, we were able to get up close as the train chugged by. It...
Feb 25, 2025•27 min•Ep. 222
A Sunday morning sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. I’m always amazed when someone can encapsulate a big idea with a small word count! It’s incredible! I could write 40,000 words on just how powerful that talent is… but I digress. Sitting with the many thoughts Jesus presents in Matthew 7.1-12, I find myself once again in the presence of master wordsmiths. Reflecting on Jesus’ inspired words, Michael Card wrote, “Our confidence in prayer is not rooted in our ability to pray but in the manifestly lovin...
Feb 21, 2025•33 min•Ep. 221
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. In the middle of Jesus’ sermon on the Mount we find ourselves being challenged in countless ways. With a simple statement of when and where we give to the poor and pray, He has called our hearts to deep reflection on the why beneath our benevolence and piety. It isn’t enough to give; we must examine why we give. It isn’t truly satisfying to pray in public to garner the praise and admiration of others. These rewards are hollow and fleeting. Instead, when we g...
Feb 14, 2025•25 min•Ep. 220
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Pools are amazing. There is something so refreshing and enlivening about swimming in a pool. The various depths make the waters accessible to young and old. Because the pool was intentionally designed, it removes the dangers of currents and debris. But pools are amazing for one particular reason. Without fail, any time families gather around the community pool, at some point you will hear a kid shouting, “Mom! Watch this!” Followed a few seconds later by a c...
Feb 03, 2025•31 min•Ep. 219
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. I remember like it was yesterday how long it took me to read through the whole Bible. I must have read the New Testament through a few times, but after the amazing stories of Genesis and the adventures times of Exodus, I, like many, got lost in the slog of Leviticus! Finally, I made it through, only to find myself surrounded by some sort of never-ending census in the book of Numbers! Would relief ever come!? One such lifeline that kept me going on my way bac...
Feb 01, 2025•33 min•Ep. 218
A Sunday sermon by Peter DuMont. Jesus’ earthly ministry broke some of the favorite rules of religious leaders in his day. Rules about what you should do on the Sabbath, or who you should associate with, or what rituals you should follow. Because he was breaking their rules, some people thought Jesus wanted to abolish all of the rules, even the Law of God given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Jesus surprised his critics on this second mount by saying, “I have not come to abolish [the Law and Prophets] ...
Jan 24, 2025•45 min•Ep. 217
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. In the middle of the second century, around AD 160, a Christian by the name of Justin found himself in a deep discussion about the Messiah with a Jewish teacher named Trypho. For two days, they dialogued back and forth about the belief of Jesus’ people that He was the long-awaited Messiah. Together they discussed from the richness of the Old Testament. Justin expressed the gospel of Jesus as the fullness of the Law and the fulfillment of the Prophets. Whole ...
Jan 15, 2025•35 min•Ep. 216
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Beloved People of God, The older I get the more I’m convinced the longing for “new” is universal. I can’t think of a culture or language that doesn’t hold dearly to the experience of hope and promise of newness. This longing is inherently human. It brings out the best and worst in us. Our eagerness for the new leads us out into the cold of winter, surrounded by strangers into culs de sac and city squares. We want hope and we want it with others! I remember o...
Jan 09, 2025•31 min•Ep. 215
A Sunday sermon by Pastor Brett Deal. Beloved People of God, Today is Christmas, and with it Christide follows in its marvelous wake! Christide, also known as the twelve days of Christmas, carries us on its waves of rejoicing into the new year. Beloved, perhaps this past year has felt like a rocky shore that has shaken your faith or like a desert island scarred by loneliness. I pray the days of Christide would sweep you into the newness of a new season. Maybe 2024 was your best year, and the tho...
Jan 09, 2025•26 min•Ep. 214
A Christmas Eve sermon by Pastor Brett Deal.
Jan 09, 2025•19 min•Ep. 213
