It is easy to feel isolated these days, to long for connection, to wonder if there is more in life than this (whatever "this" is to us). Faith calls us to the recognition of a deeper reality but also it calls us to the recognition of our need for one another, the sense of transcendence pushes us not just vertically but horizontally, to a sacredness before us. This week, join Pastor Juan Carlos for worship.
Jul 13, 2025•13 min
This weekend, Pastor Jim will hone in on BEAUTY as a key aspect of the faith. All beauty in our world harkens to the transcendent beauty of the divine. And to strive for a more just world is at the same time to strive for a more beautiful world. As a great theologian said “we must move people toward truth, goodness, and liberation through beauty. Frenetic and harried and labored activism won’t shift people. We need to appeal to their dreams and hopes and sense of beauty.”
Jul 06, 2025•16 min
Jul 06, 2025•11 min
Gospel means good news but what happens when said good news sounds more like bad news? This week we hear one of the most difficult teachings of Jesus. At first it seems impossible but as we engage it in the day to day of life, it opens up a pathway to freedom, belonging, and community.
Jun 29, 2025•17 min
At a few moments in his life Elijah was overcome with negative thinking. To be sure, it was mostly an appropriate response to brutal hardship. However, many of us are prone to a more chronic, low-grade type of negativity. This weekend Dr. Jim Keck will speak about different personality types and the essential role our faith plays in creating a more joyful approach to life.
Jun 22, 2025•17 min
In life we often wonder why we are where we are, at times with joy, and at others with regret. This week we hear from an ancient social critic and thorn in the flesh to those in power, he is tired and wondering why, in spite of his faithfulness, he finds himself in a very difficult situation. Where is God? Where are we? And Why? The questions of our lives.
Jun 22, 2025•9 min
Jun 15, 2025•22 min
Jun 15, 2025•11 min
God and Jesus are bigger than religion. That is, human hearts can be in love with God and Jesus even though they might not attend church. Religion is a human construct and is always evolving. On this Pentecost Sunday, Dr. Keck will speak of a new pentecost that is underway that is changing the very concept of religion itself.
Jun 08, 2025•24 min
It is Pentecost, the day when the Christian tradition remembers the coming of the Spirit and the birth of the church. Long ago our ancestor in faith tried to explain human divisions (and maybe human strife), this week Pastor JC invites us into that ancient story and reminds us why Pentecost is seen as a story of reversal, restoration, and re-start for all of creation. What was once scattered is now gathered again and again towards flourishing.
Jun 08, 2025•12 min
These days so many of us feel powerless, so much happening, so much suffering, hatred, and struggle. We want to do something, but we know it will probably not make a difference. This week, disciples are left behind, what are they going to do now that Jesus has left them? What are we to do now, in the midst of life, in light of our encounter with Jesus?
Jun 01, 2025•17 min
There is so much fear these days, so much fear mongering, and so much to be fearful of. This week Pastor JC invites us to pay attention to our fear but not to let it take over our lives. Instead there is an invitation, to embrace community, to lean into uncertainty, and to trust in the love that is all around us. Do not be afraid becoming an invitation to not allow fear to control us, an invitation to be free.
Jun 01, 2025•11 min
Near the very end of the Bible is a beautiful description of heaven and how we will live in the full light of God. But Heaven is not only something that we experience after we die. There are many chances to experience a slice of heaven in this life and Dr. Keck sees in Revelation 21 some clues to hearing the angles sing in your life right now.
May 25, 2025•20 min
Humans mark time in a variety of ways, holidays originally were days of observance, of remembering something that was important. Now it often turns into time off, or a time to celebrate with friends, disconnected from the Holy or is it? This week Pastor JC invites us into remembering, time keeping, and how the holy is present in our day to day of life.
May 25, 2025•12 min
We often think of God's home as otherworldly, above, heaven, ethereal, maybe even sublime. This week the scriptures gives us a much more common and accessible picture, God's home is among us. Yes, right here, where we live, work, and play. This says something about God, but it also says much about us.
May 18, 2025•14 min
With so much noise and so many things vying for our attention, it's what we truly value that holds our focus—even amid the distractions.This week Pastor Juan Carlos Huertas invites us to consider what we are listening to, why that matters, and how an adjustment might help us live a more flourishing life.
May 11, 2025•13 min
Dr. Jim Keck will share how Dr. Martin Luther King played such a large role in his childhood. He will also explain that they share the same theological perspective that was developed at Boston University in the mid-twentieth century. Pastor Jim believes this theology is most true to scripture and could change our world.
May 11, 2025•11 min
Jesus calls us into a vision, to make the kin-dom of God known. This is a kin-dom of wholeness, healing, community, connection, and new life. It would be easier to talk about it, and yet the call is to follow the Spirit’s leading into rehearsing it, making it known a bit, however imperfect. This week Pastor Juan Carlos takes us into the story of our next neighborhood initiative, the Hope House, its story, its vision, and its potential to make the good news of Jesus evident in our neighborhood, o...
May 04, 2025•14 min
This Sunday, Pastor Jim Keck brings a powerful message on Spirit and Truth—come be inspired and uplifted!
May 04, 2025•14 min
Apr 20, 2025•10 min
Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. According to the synoptic gospels, Jesus then goes to the temple and throws over the tables. What an incredible juxtaposition of gentleness and strong protest. What is Jesus up to? Dr. Jim Keck will explore how our times demand a simple humility mixed with a strong sense of right and wrong.
Apr 13, 2025•18 min
In one of the great stories in scripture, Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem on a donkey where he is received as a hero by the crowds. This celebration is called Palm Sunday and it initiates the holiest of weeks in the Christian calendar. It turns out that before Jesus can enter the city he needs a little help from those around him. It turns out that 2,000 years later God still needs our help, our coming alongside, in making the kin-dom known in the world? What does that say about God? What does...
Apr 13, 2025•10 min
It's amazing what we remember and how we remember it, it is also amazing how much we forget. Memory is a complex function of our being human that allows us to make sense of our current situation. This week the truth-teller and social critic tells us to leave behind nostalgia and make room for the new thing that God is doing. It turns out that the new thing is nothing short of what God is always up to in the world!
Apr 06, 2025•17 min
It's amazing what we remember and how we remember it, it is also amazing how much we forget. Memory is a complex function of our being human that allows us to make sense of our current situation. This week the truth-teller and social critic tells us to leave behind nostalgia and make room for the new thing that God is doing. It turns out that the new thing is nothing short of what God is always up to in the world!
Apr 06, 2025•7 min
Saint Augustine taught that human beings are driving by their desires, so we must strive to have the right desires. Using C.S. Lewis, Augustine and a great poem by Coleridge, Dr. Jim Keck will call for us to desire the most noble things in life.
Mar 30, 2025•22 min
Evil is manifested around us in so many ways. It is the antithesis of love, freedom, and God-self. In the ritual for baptism people are often called to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever form in may present itself. Resistance is a call for all of us who are seeking to follow Jesus. This week Pastor Juan Carlos Huertas invites us to think about resistance, its importance in every season, its importance today, and how we might become the kind of holy resisters that witness to the g...
Mar 30, 2025•12 min
Hell Revised with Dr. Jim Keck
Mar 23, 2025•10 min
Mar 23, 2025•16 min
Mar 16, 2025•21 min
Family traits are always interesting. Often we see traits in us that remind us of a parent, grandparent, at other times we see our ways in our children, grandchildren, a niece or a nephew. Sometimes the way one looks goes back to a previous generation. It is in us! This week Pastor Juan Carlos invites us to consider what it would look like to claim the way of Jesus as in us. All of us sealed by the Spirit with the image of God, all of us able to move, act, be like the one who is love made flesh....
Mar 16, 2025•11 min
