Sermons

This week, Pastor Dennis Allan walks through the story of Jesus’s final week from the perspective of the crowd who received Jesus with shouts of “Hosanna!” as he entered Jerusalem and, less than a week later, shouted “Crucify Him!” How does one crowd receive Jesus as a king and another crowd condemn Jesus as a criminal? What happened in that one week that moved people from believing Jesus might be the long-awaited Messiah who would sit on David’s throne, overthrow Rome, and restore Israel to its rightful place in the geo-political order to thinking He was just another pretender? The Jewish people had been taught be their religious leaders to expect a particular kind of Messiah. They weren’t prepared for a king who told them exactly who He was by riding a donkey, a symbol of humility and peace, into the city. When Jesus doesn’t do what we want and when He doesn’t perform how we expect we can, like the crowd, turn on Him. But, if we lean in and listen as Jesus tells us who He is, we will discover a person who can transform us.

When Jesus is crucified there is a group of women who position themselves near the Cross and bear witness to Jesus’s agonizing death while all the other disciples are in hiding. These women show up at Jesus’s tomb, ready to tend to His body, only… Read More »Faithful Presence

This week, Pastor Dennis Allan continues our Lent series by talking through a story found in John 18-19. Jesus is brought by the Jewish religious leaders to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor in Jerusalem, in the hopes that Pilate will condemn Jesus to death. The… Read More »No Friend of Caesar

This week, we trace Peter’s story from the moment Jesus first called him while he was fishing in the Sea of Galilee to the moment Jesus restores Peter, after he had denied Jesus three times, over a meal while. In Peter we see a person… Read More »Grace Pursues Us

We know how Judas’s story ends before it even begins. The first time Matthew introduces Judas in his gospel, he does it by naming him this way: “Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.” But what if we slowed down long enough to see Judas as something… Read More »Grace Awaits

In Deuteronomy 5, Moses is reminding the Israelites to follow the Law and, in particular, the Ten Commandments. When Moses speaks the command to observe the Sabbath, the reason he gives for observing it is different than the reason God gave to Moses in Exodus.… Read More »Sabbath as Liberation

Why is it so hard for many of us to stop and rest? Sabbath is a good gift that God has given to His people, a gift that Jesus and His disciples embraced, and yet many of us either won’t rest or feel like we… Read More »Sabbath as Trust

This week, Dennis Allan explores the way that practicing Sabbath is a form of active resistance against dehumanizing systems and structures. We’re immersed in a culture that values productivity, efficiency, and seems to reward exhaustion, almost like it’s a badge of honor. We’re told time… Read More »Sabbath as Resistance

This week, Dennis Allan discusses the way prayer is meant to be done in community and how it’s supposed to expand outward. Jesus invites His people to come to God and ask for the things they want, to be vulnerable and honest as they express… Read More »Prayer that Bears Burdens

This week, Pastor Dennis talks through Jesus’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He asked God if there was a way to fulfill His mission without dying on the Cross. It’s here that we see Jesus practice a radical form of vulnerability and honesty… Read More »Prayer Requires Honesty