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Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Texts: Matthew 25:35-40 & Luke 7:36-50

A quiet act can carry a whole sermon. We open Matthew 25 and step into Luke 7 to watch a nameless woman kneel with an alabaster jar, turning tears into hospitality and scent into witness. Around a table guarded by status and unspoken rules, she offers what the official host withholds—water, a kiss, and oil—and Jesus reframes the room with a story about debt, forgiveness, and the love that follows. The message lands hard and hopeful: the one forgiven much loves much, and real faith becomes visible in the simplest gestures that meet real needs.

From there we connect the dots to the Good Samaritan, where compassion travels light and speaks little. Oil and bandages do the talking while religious experts pass by with perfect words. That echo across Luke’s gospel exposes an old temptation: to admire grace without arranging our lives around it. We ask practical, grounded questions—how do calendars, budgets, and guest lists reveal what we value? Where does our love for Jesus at the table become mercy for the neighbor in the ditch? And what does restitution look like when we care enough to repair what’s broken?

Across stories and streets, we keep circling one truth: hospitality is not a courtesy, it’s a confession. When we’ve been seen and forgiven, we become people who notice and respond. Expect a warm, honest, and challenging walk through Scripture that trades slogans for presence and sentiment for service. If you’re ready to measure faith by lifted burdens, shared meals, and interrupted schedules, press play and journey with us. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who lives their faith out loud, and leave a review with one practice you’ll try this week.

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A hymn sing can be a history lesson, a prayer meeting, and a freedom school all at once. We gathered to honor Black History Month by lifting African American spirituals out of the margins and into the center, pairing each song with the stories and scriptures that shaped it. With piano, liturgy, and rich context, we traced how melodies carried maps, how verses held warnings, and how worship became a language of survival.

We start with Kumbaya, reclaiming its Gullah meaning—come by here—as a serious plea for God’s nearness. From there, Go Down Moses reframes Exodus as a protest anthem, echoing along Underground Railroad routes and invoking Harriet Tubman’s courage. The set moves through companionship-in-sorrow songs like I Want Jesus to Walk With Me and Guide My Feet, where call and response turns the room into a convoy of care. Along the way, we dig into the oral tradition that kept these hymns flexible and alive, explaining why rhythms and words shift across regions and years.

Midway, My Lord, What a Morning opens a window on apocalyptic hope that doubles as a liberation vision, while reflections on radical welcome root hospitality in love of neighbor. Lord, Make Us More Holy becomes a sung prayer for character that can carry the work. Balm in Gilead answers Jeremiah’s ache with healing and courage, and Were You There invites reverent witness to the cross and the rising. By the closing charge, we’re holding a clear throughline: honor the past, live awake in the present, and build for a freer future with God’s help.

If this journey moved you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more thoughtful worship and history, and leave a review telling us which hymn gives you strength today.

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Texts: John 2:1-11 & Matthew 13:31-32

Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

What if Lent began with laughter, a full dance floor, and a secret only a few people notice? We kick off a different kind of season by walking through the wedding at Cana and the parable of the mustard seed to uncover a throughline of holy surprise: where the world sees not enough, grace keeps overflowing. Along the way, we share a family story about a five-year-old who switches languages mid-argument, and how that unexpected moment became a window into God’s delight, cultural breadth, and the everyday ways the Spirit interrupts our scarcity reflex.

We talk about why joy is not naive, not selfish, and definitely not a crumb. Joy can hold grief and still choose courage. It is a renewable resource that equips us to pursue justice without becoming brittle, to resist division without mirroring the contempt of our age. Cana reframes Jesus’ first public sign as a celebration that refuses to end, and the mustard seed reframes power as small, steady, and sheltering. Together they form a counter-story to fear, hoarding, and despair, inviting us to practice attention: to notice jars quietly filling and seeds quietly rooting.

You’ll hear reflections on humor in scripture, the danger of a Jesus confined to halls of power, and the freedom of a Savior revealed among ordinary people at an ordinary party. We offer simple, actionable practices for the week: fill the jars you already have, plant the seeds within reach, make room at the table, and stay for the celebration. If your days have felt heavy, this conversation is an open door to joy as resistance, rest as wisdom, and abundance as the truest word.

If this episode encourages you, share it with a friend, leave a review, and subscribe so you don’t miss what comes next. Tell us: where did grace interrupt your day?

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Text: Luke 14:15-24

Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

What if Lent felt like an RSVP instead of a diet for the soul? We open the season by stepping into Jesus’s parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14, where the first invitees bow out with thin excuses and the feast overflows with guests from the streets and the margins. That story doesn’t just tweak etiquette; it overturns the pecking order and asks us whether we can bear a grace that can’t be bought. We share why we’re choosing a Lent of invitation and good news in a year already heavy with fear and fatigue, and how the table image helps us swap scarcity for trust.

Around the Pharisee’s table, Jesus challenges the scramble for honor and teaches a new social logic: take the low seat and let the host do the lifting. From there we trace the shock of a guest list that widens instead of narrows, then connect it with C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, where heaven and hell are directions shaped by our willingness to accept “the bleeding charity.” It’s a bracing question: are we clinging to a moral résumé that makes joy unbearable? Ash Wednesday’s ashes meet that question head-on. You are dust can sound like doom, but we hear it as release from proving ourselves and permission to belong.

We bring the vision down to the sidewalk: the worker juggling two jobs, the neighbor with the yard sign that spikes your pulse, the refugee, the anxious, the disabled, the friend sleeping rough. If God keeps making room, then our practices should, too. We talk about resting first in unearned welcome, then taking one simple step to widen the table: set an extra plate, move down a seat, forgive a debt, learn a name. Along the way, we echo Jesse Jackson’s “I am somebody” liturgy as a benediction over every listener—loved, respected, never rejected. If your heart needs a lighter, truer Lent, pull up a chair. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs good news, and leave a review to tell us how you’re making room this week.

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Preaching: Owen Beale

What if the clearest map for your calling looks a lot like a dashboard? We open Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 and trace a living metaphor: you are designed like a car, uniquely engineered for a purpose, meant to move with the body of Christ on a shared road. Owen Beale joins us to connect Scripture to daily life with plain, memorable language—design, fuel, driver, maintenance, restoration, and motion—so you can trade comparison and control for clarity and courage.

We start with design: God doesn’t mass-produce people. Drawing on Romans 12, we unpack why different gifts aren’t problems to fix but instructions to follow. From leadership and teaching to service and mercy, each role keeps the church running. Then we check the tank. Prayer, Scripture, worship, and the Holy Spirit are the fuel that turns potential into power. If you feel stalled, it may not be a roadmap issue—it may be a refill issue.

From there, we hand over the keys. Proverbs 3 reframes surrender as wisdom, not weakness. Letting Jesus drive means delays can carry meaning, detours can spare damage, and destinations can stay steady even when the route changes. We talk real maintenance, too—repentance as routine care that scrapes off bitterness, unclogs pride, and keeps the heart responsive. And for those who feel too dented or too late, we lean into hope: the Manufacturer still restores. God rebuilds what shame says is totaled, repainting stories with mercy.

Finally, we put it in gear. James challenges us to move: purpose often clarifies in motion. Start small, serve somewhere, take the next right risk, and let God steer a moving life. Along the way, we honor the unseen parts of the body—those quiet alternators and brake pads whose faithfulness keeps the whole journey safe. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a tune-up of hope, and leave a review telling us: What’s your next mile?

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A city was thriving, a lie took hold, and democracy was overturned. We gather to unpack Wilmington’s Lie and trace how a coordinated white supremacy campaign in 1898 used fear, newspapers, and even pulpits to justify a violent coup—then rewrote the story for generations. Our conversation moves from Reconstruction’s fragile hopes to Fusion-era politics, showing how Black civic participation and modest prosperity were framed as an existential threat to the racial order. We revisit Alex Manly’s editorial, the sensational headlines that followed, and the militias mobilized to remove duly elected leaders, all while national power looked away.

What emerges is a recognizable playbook. Manufactured panic sold as news. Morality weaponized from the pulpit. Voter intimidation dressed up as “law and order.” We name the throughlines to today’s disinformation wars, gerrymandering, and efforts to narrow access to the ballot. Along the way, we talk candidly about how history gets buried, how institutions preserve the winners’ version of events, and why recovering suppressed stories matters for civic health. We also challenge the misuse of scripture to sanctify domination, offering a counter-vision: treat voting as a sacred act and faith as a resource for human dignity, not a shield for power.

Yet this isn’t just a lament. We hold space for hope—especially in younger organizers who are learning, mobilizing, and refusing fatalism. If fear spreads fast, so can clarity. If coups calcify into memory, communities can still break the spell by telling the truth and defending the franchise. Join us as we connect the dots between 1898 and now, and commit to the everyday work that keeps democracy from becoming a museum piece.

If this conversation moved you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review with one takeaway you’ll act on before the next election. Your voice—and your vote—matter.

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Preaching: Dylan Lewellyn

What if “so glad you made it” isn’t the finish line, but the starting bell? We open with Genesis 2 and Revelation 21, then move through a seminary walk, a well-timed lyric, and a fragile cat to uncover a deeper truth: our place in the garden is not ownership, it’s guardianship. Instead of lingering on survival, we pivot to responsibility—tilling and keeping, serving and guarding, receiving and returning.

We talk honestly about how “dominion” became a license for harm, and why the text actually points us toward devotion and restraint. The story of The Little Monk and his cat exposes how even the smallest life bears the weight of our choices. From oil-choked seas to throwaway habits, we name the wounds without despairing. Then we reach for practices that heal: consuming less, restoring habitats, honoring limits, and treating creatures as neighbors rather than resources. Along the way, we connect sacrament to soil—baptism’s waters to streams, bread and cup to fields and vines—so grace is no longer abstract but rooted in living systems.

Hope threads through every moment. Revelation’s promise that God makes all things new does not excuse waste; it energizes repair. We offer two invitations: delight in creation’s goodness and take up the daily duty of care. Learn your place’s names, mend what you can, and make choices that let others live. If only humans have sinned and yet all nature suffers, then our repentance must be ecological and communal.

Listen, reflect, and then act in your own watershed and neighborhood. If this conversation moves you, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves the outdoors, and leave a review with one commitment you’ll make to tend your corner of the garden.

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Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Texts: Proverbs 4:25-27 & Philippians 4:6-9

What happens when Scripture sits on the bench and your phone takes the stand? We put social media and AI through a playful mock trial, using Philippians 4 and Proverbs 4 as the judge and jury, and followed the evidence toward a surprising, practical middle way. Instead of a simple guilty or not guilty, we asked sharper questions: Does technology pull our gaze off the path or help us walk it with others? Does it feed panic or deepen prayer? Does it form people of peace or keep us on edge?

We share stories from both sides of the aisle. On one side, the all-too-familiar cycle of doomscrolling, outrage, and comparison that scatters attention and crowds out silence. On the other, real wins: livestream worship that welcomes homebound neighbors, prayer chains that mobilize care, clergy across the country organizing on Zoom to support immigrant and refugee communities in fear. The tool isn’t the villain or the hero; the heart of the matter is attention—our most precious, finite resource. Where we aim it shapes who we become.

You’ll hear simple, repeatable practices to reclaim focus: adding friction with a “brick” that locks news and social apps after 9 p.m., batching updates, removing home-screen temptations, and using a daily digital examen to notice what feeds the soul and what frays it. We end with Mary Oliver’s three-line compass—pay attention, be astonished, tell about it—and a charge to let technology serve love, not steal it. If you’re longing for less noise and more peace, for tools that help you serve your neighbor without mastering you, this conversation offers a grounded, hopeful path forward.

If this resonates, share it with a friend, subscribe for more thoughtful conversations, and leave a review with one practice that helps you guard your gaze.

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