This second week of the summer sermon series takes a look at the New Testament story of Jesus walking on water and inviting His disciples to do the same. How we live when it feels as if we are sinking into the waves crashing around us in our world? How do we hold it together and keep from unraveling by all the unknowns? What can we learn from this story during these times of pandemic / racial justice uprising / so many other things out of our control?

Link to readable sermon PDF

Guest Reader: Lawrie Gardner

Musician: Diana Martin

This is week 1 of a summer sermon series called Unraveled (A Sanctified Art). Each week considers:

“What happens when your world falls apart?

How do we press onward when our tightly-knit plans unravel into loose threads?

What do we become when our identity—or the path we’re on—comes undone?

What if all of this is not the end (that) we fear it will be?

In our unraveling, sometimes life surprises us with unexpected joy, love and hope—with a new beginning we couldn’t have imagined.

Sometimes we need God to unravel us, for we long to be changed.”

THIS WEEK WE LOOK MORE DEEPLY AT THE STORY OF ABRAHAM AND SARAH, who were finally receiving a long-awaited promise. What do we do, and how do we live, while what we hope for seems to be delayed? How do we receive the joy that does come to us in the every day?

Link to readable sermon PDF

Musician: Diana Martin

This sermon is guest preached by two active members of the COA Youth Group, Zoe Barbour and Sean Cain. They spent months putting this together, and it is filled with lessons that can apply to all of us at any age.

In this Pentecost season, as we think about the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives (in our broken world), how can we grow with that Spirit? How can we catch up to what God dreams for our world? What is the best thing for us to be doing at any given moment so that we can become the people God means for us to be? We use lessons from a simple, short story about two sisters visiting with Jesus.

Link to readable sermon PDF

In honor of Pentecost, this sermon explores the Holy Spirit and its gifts to us. One of God’s most important gifts through the Spirit is unity even amidst great difference and division. Our world needs that gift now more than ever, but are we open to it? Do we think unity means we have to all be the same? How does Pentecost reveal God’s dreams for our broken world?

Link to readable sermon PDF

VIDEO OF WORSHIP INCLUDING MUSIC

Order of Worship linked here