We’re starting a new series this week that will take us from the first Sunday after Epiphany through the beginning of Lent. As we journey from one holiday season in the life of the church to another, we try to live our lives as best we can in between. So, as we live in this time between Advent-Christmas and Lent-Easter, let’s take a look at what life together as the people of God might be like. This is the life we live that isn’t just a special occasion or holiday way of life, but an everyday life where the ordinary isn’t ordinary. Let’s look at how we can live out the kin-dom here on earth, to bring it closer to the Kingdom of Heaven.

The stories and traditions of Christmas have been passed down to us through our families: both the families of our birth and our families of faith. This season holds a lot of emotion and memories with us as we journey through it together. Sometimes those emotions and memories might be good, and sometimes they might be difficult. Through it all, though, our stories always have God’s story as a part of them. In our stories and the stories of those who came before us, God continues to show up and help us continue to move towards love, peace, and liberation as we come to behold the God who chose to make the Divine’s home here among us in flesh and blood. This is not just a story about us, but about those who came before and those who will come after, a family story that continues on, transcending space and time, as its work continues building on what has been toward what is to come. Join us as we journey through Advent together looking at our family story.

We are getting ready to begin a new year on the church calendar, but even though something new is beginning it’s too easy for us to get stuck in the same old routine. Let’s prepare for this new year by renewing the direction, purpose, and soul of who we are, so that we can claim the fresh start God makes available to us. Let’s not just renew ourselves but let us re-new or make new again who we are and who we are called to be!

We start a new series this week called "Face Off" and it's going to focus on people who have up close and personal encounters with Jesus. We might expect them to face off and go in one direction, but we will see that what happens when people encounter Jesus is that what people least expected to happen is what did. Instead of reacting as we might, or we might expect others to, Jesus instead takes people in a new direction, off the beaten path to someplace new that is filled with possibilities.

Today we're starting a new series called "Forecasting!" In it, we're going to take a look at many of the prophets in the Bible and some of the unusual ways they guided the people. Today we're starting with Elisha and Naaman. Naaman and his king thought his wealth, status, and power were enough to get special treatment from the God of Israel and get a miraculous healing for his condition. However, what he found out was that God is no respecter of wealth, power, and influence, and the backroom deals of humans. This is a God who heals ordinary people through ordinary water and cannot be bought, sold, or controlled. Our work with God should be less about being in the spotlight and more about being with the ordinary people who need help and healing.

This week we’re starting a new series looking at the fact that a lot of time when we think about serving or helping or finding ways to do ministry in the world, it can seem overwhelming. The problems are too big to tackle, the people are too many, and we don't even know where to start. That can lead us to get frozen in place because there are just too many options and we're not sure what to do. When we look at Jesus, though, we see that most of the time, when he affected real change in the world, it was through a one-on-one relationship with someone. Yes, he had big sermons with thousands of people that absolutely made an impact. But those times were few and far between. Mostly it was a one-on-one relationship where he really got to see the other person and know them for who they are and where they are. Join us as we learn from Jesus more about how to “one” another.

Our current series takes a look at the way the resurrection is unsettling. Because while it might be joyous for us, it's unsettling to the powers that it acts in opposition to: death, division, shame, and all of the forces in the world that want to keep it quiet, to keep people in line, to keep the status quo the status quo, and who certainly don’t want any change, oh heavens no. To all of these forces and others like them, like a flower growing among weeds, resurrection breaks in and unsettles their ability to keep hold over us, to keep control over this world, and to keep us apart. So, let's look for the ways we can unsettle this world together through the power and message of the resurrection.

This year, as we journey through Lent together, we're going to see Scriptures that are filled to abundance with grace. We’ve done nothing to deserve or earn this grace, and yet, like water, pours out and washes over us. So, this year, we invite you into a radically different Lent with an invitation to be authentically who you are and to pour out even more grace wherever it is needed in this world. When we allow ourselves to be filled with this abundance of God’s extravagant love, it spills over from us onto the world around us, touching everything in its path.

In our next message series starting this week, we’ll be asking about how following our preparation for Christ’s arrival, celebration of his birth, and seeing ourselves in his baptism… now what? Where do we go from here? How do we live it out as the body of Christ for the world of today? The lectionary texts for this season are taken from 1 Corinthians where Paul was writing to a church that was going through a lot of problems as they tried to figure out how to live this new life together in ways that people can see. What can we learn from them about how to live out our faith in the world today? Christ has been born! Hallelujah! Now what?

"Home" is something that carries a lot of meanings for all of us, and each of them is different. Home might be a place we go to for safety and security or it can be someplace we dread. Home can be filled with our loved ones, or home might be the place we miss our loved ones who are no longer with us. Home is something that is heavy and carries with it all different sorts of emotions. This Advent, join us on a journey where we seek comfort from the One who made their home with us and to find, wherever our home might be, joy, hope, courage, and love.