The Local Church

In this sermon, we keep company with St. Macrina the Younger as our November series, In Good Company, helps us find our place in the long line of saints. Her brothers became famous bishops, but she was the one they called “the Teacher.” Macrina freed her household’s servants, shared their table, and opened her doors to the hungry and the abandoned. Her life raises a disruptive question: what if the kingdom of God is meant to be built in your own backyard?

Today begins year five of our saints series, In Good Company. In this sermon, we look at the life of Dolly Parton. From an abandoned chapel to hundreds of millions of books, Dolly built a life out of letting ordinary, broken things catch the light. It’s a gut-check for anyone wondering how to stay faithful, curious, and open-handed when the world feels like it's fraying at the seams.

Where you go, I'll go. Where you stay, I'll stay.

There is another voice...

Homecoming is a series on how to be human, tracing the questions we ask on our way home. In this sermon, we head to Jacob's well, where there's no going back, but there is a way forward and a God who meets us right where we are.

This week in our series Homecoming: A Series on How to Be Human, we look at what happens when going back means facing things we left behind. In this sermon, we talk about why conflict is so hard to avoid and even harder to sit with. Jacob spent twenty years running from the brother he cheated, but he eventually had to stop running, wrestle with his own past, and show up. True repair doesn’t mean pretending nothing happened—it means trusting that God meets us right in the middle of the mess.

Scripture is full of people going home—and it rarely goes as they had expected or hoped.

Artist, writer, and creative Scott Erickson joins The Local Church as guest preacher.

In this sermon, we find ourselves at a threshold place. Behind us, a season that's ending; ahead, a wilderness of school mornings and full calendars — and in between, a moment we will almost certainly rush past. Israel didn't. They stopped and sang. Maybe we should, too.

We’re wrapping up The Gospel According to Ted Lasso with one of Ted’s most famous bits of wisdom: “Be a goldfish.” But in this sermon, we talk about why shaking it off can be so hard—and wonder what happens when we discover that God isn’t keeping score on us, either.