In yesterday’s bible reading, we read Matthew 17 – which has the story of the Transfiguration. If you’re not familiar with it, I encourage you to take a few minutes and read the story.   It’s always been a story that is a bit (or a lot) puzzling.  Here’s the rough gist: Jesus and some guys go up a mountain, he’s ‘transfigured’ (whatever the heck that means – besides the fact that he’s glowing and shining!), a couple of dead guys appear to Jesus (ghosts? spirits? bodies?

Today’s bible reading, Matthew 13, begins in a way that *kind of* reminds me of what we do at the gazebo on Sunday mornings in the summer:  1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach.  I put “kind of” in asterisks because, a) I’m most definitely NOT Jesus, b) we had a good crowd

By Rebecca DeLucia, Next Generation Pastor Today’s Bible reading, Matthew 8, reads more like a comic book than a passage of Scripture. Miracle after miraculous miracle unfolds before us, each one building to one epic conclusion: the authority of Jesus. His authority extends to and supersedes disease, distance, downpour, and demons

Today’s a hot one. This whole week will be. Stay cool, and stay hydrated! If you need a place to cool down, please don’t hesitate to reach out.This week in Burning Hearts, our 2026 bible reading plan, we’re reading selections from the book of Isaiah. It’s a wonderful book, and as I said in the weekly video, it is a vitally important book when it comes to understanding how Jesus and the New Testament writers understood him. Don’t miss out on reading with

Recently in our Wednesday emails, I’ve been connecting our Sunday theme in the Jesus Breathed series (the Holy Spirit) with our daily readings and bible studies, to help draw out more understanding of the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives and community. Today, I want to draw on today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Colossians.Colossians is one of those letters, however, where the Spirit barely plays a role. In most translations, in fact, the Spirit only appear in one verse (1:8). However, in

Right now on Sundays in our Jesus Breathed series, we are exploring the role of the Holy Spirit for our ongoing mission as Jesus’ followers. We spent last week in John 14, and in our bible studies this week, we looked at John 16. These chapters (13-16) all spring out of the reality that Jesus is trying to impress upon them: that he’s ‘going away’, and they won’t ‘see’ him any much more. What he means is, he’s going to die and won’t be

Last week, we continued in our “Jesus Breathed” series about the role of the Holy Spirit in the mission of the church. If you missed last week, here’s the logic of the sermon in a quick Q&A: Q: Jesus calls us to be his witnesses, but how can we be witnesses if we cannot see or hear Jesus ourselves? A: The Holy Spirit. Essentially, the Holy Spirit is who opens our eyes to see the risen Jesus who is unseeable (because he’s ascended

A guest post by Rebecca DeLucia, Next Generation Pastor I retroactively apologize for the popping, booming, and banging this past Sunday morning. During our BIBLEPALOOZA Sunday, we held what was affectionately dubbed BALLOONAPALOOZA. On Saturday evening, I blew up and labeled 66 balloons; one for every book of the Bible. The elementary students were then challenged to sort them into the Old Testament and New Testament. I was fairly impressed by how accurate they were, even though some of the Old Testament

A guest blog by Rebecca DeLucia, Next Generation Pastor In today’s Bible Reading plan, we are in Luke 23—a chapter jam-packed with action, a slew of characters, plenty of plot, and so much more. In this chapter, we come across the stories of three unexpected individuals. None of them are the “main characters,” yet each shows us something about what it means to follow Jesus. The first character we meet is Simon of Cyrene. Simon doesn’t wake up that morning planning to serve Jesus;

Sunday’s message was all about how one of the most fundamental things that Jesus DID, was to inaugurate the Kingdom of God: the reality that God is truly in charge in a way that touches real life for real people in real ways with real meaning in the real world we really live in. In today’s bible reading in our Burning Hearts reading plan, Jesus (as he often does) addresses the Kingdom of God again, this time in reference to little children (“even infants”).  Here’s what