Sunday, Mar 1, 2026 | The Good News Embodies Love for God and Neighbor

Second Sunday in Lent
Luke 7:36-50

March 1, Pastor Julie continues the series Tell Me Something Good with a sermon titled "The Good News Embodies Love for God and Neighbor," drawing from the story of the woman with the alabaster jar in Luke 7:36-50. We will also celebrate Communion together in worship, followed by our church potluck, where we'll also celebrate Pastor Julie's milestone anniversaries.

When a woman from the city slips into Simon's home and kneels at Jesus' feet, weeping and anointing him with costly oil, the Pharisees see a scandal. Jesus sees something else entirely: great love. And in a quiet, subversive moment, he turns to his host and asks him to truly look at her—to see not what she has done wrong, but what she has done right that Simon himself failed to do.

This is the shape of the Greatest Commandment made flesh. Love God with everything you are. Love your neighbor as yourself. And here, in an act that crosses every social boundary, Jesus shows us that these two loves are not separate. They are one.

So this Sunday, as we gather around the table for Communion and then share a meal together at the potluck, perhaps we carry a question with us: Where am I being invited to love more extravagantly? Who in my path is waiting to be truly seen?

The good news is that love this lavish—poured out like perfume, given without reserve—is exactly what the world is waiting for.

Additional text: Isaiah 58:6-12

Sunday, Feb 22, 2026 | The Good News Catches Us By Surprise

First Sunday in Lent | John 2:1-11

This Sunday, February 22, we begin our Lenten journey as Pastor Julie launches the new series "Tell Me Something Good" with a sermon titled The Good News Catches Us by Surprise, drawing from the story of the Wedding at Cana in John 2:1-11.

Wine. Weddings. Laughter. It's an unusual place to begin Lent.

But John's Gospel doesn't open Jesus' ministry with forty days in the wilderness. It opens with a party—a wedding banquet running dry—and a miracle performed seemingly for no other reason than to keep the joy going. Fine wine, saved for last, poured out in abundance when everyone expected the celebration to wind down.

This is the good news Jesus embodies: better than we bargained for, more generous than we calculated, arriving precisely when we assumed it had run out.

Throughout this Lenten season, we'll discover that the good news is genuinely good—joyful, subversive, and wonderfully unsettling. Like a mustard seed that becomes an unruly, magnificent tree, it refuses to stay small or contained. It has a way of upending our assumptions, expanding our imaginations, and catching us off guard.

So what do you expect from Lent? Somber reflection? Quiet endurance? Perhaps the good news has something more in store. The best wine has been saved for last. God's love is so good it will never run dry.

Additional scripture reading: Genesis 18:1-9.

Wednesday, Feb 18, 2026 | Ash Wednesday Worship

Sunday, Feb 15, 2026 | A Christ-Soaked Witness

We gather for Transfiguration Sunday as Pastor Julie preaches the last sermon in the current series on "A Christ-Soaked Witness," drawing from Matthew 5:13-20.

Salt and light. Two simple metaphors that describe the Christian witness. Salt preserves and flavors. Light illuminates and guides. Both work quietly, permeating their surroundings, making everything around them different by their mere presence.

Jesus doesn't call us to be sugar—artificially sweet. He calls us to be salt—bringing out the best flavors in others, preserving what's good, making people thirsty for something more. What does a Christ-soaked witness look like in a world hungry for authenticity and desperate for hope?

Additional scripture readings include Isaiah 58:1-9a and 1 Corinthians 2:1-12.

Sunday, Feb 8, 2026 | A Christ-Soaked Contradiction

The Beatitudes turn our assumptions upside down. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Jesus describes a Christ-soaked life that looks nothing like what power promises or what culture celebrates.

These aren't requirements for blessing—they're descriptions of reality in God's upside-down economy. What changes when we stop trying to earn God's favor and start recognizing where divine presence already dwells? Today we'll explore how the Beatitudes reveal what it means to live fully immersed in God's transforming love.

Additional scripture texts are Micah 6:1-8 and 1 Corinthians 1:18-31.

Sunday, Feb 1, 2026 | A Christ-Soaked Disruption

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Matthew 4:12-23

The Winter Storm last week interrupted our sermon series, “Christ-Soaked: Divine Love Saturating Everything.” We've shifted this series back one week; it will now conclude Sunday, February 15.

In today's Gospel passage, Jesus walks up to fishermen on a beach and calls them with those two words. No lengthy explanation. No gradual discovery. Just a disruptive, authoritative invitation that changes everything.

Today in worship we will also celebrate communion and welcome Christne Lafferty from one of our Compassion and Justice partners, AMOS Health and Hope. Additional scripture texts are Isaiah 9:1-4 and 1 Corinthians 1:10-18.

Sunday, Jan 25, 2026 | Snow Sunday Greeting from Pastor Julie

Sudden Snow

~ Frederick Buechner

You wake upon a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there—the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.

~ Originally published in Telling the Truth.

Sunday, Jan 18,2026 | A Christ-Soaked Calling | Pastor Eric Mathis

John 1:29-42

Pastor Eric Preaching

“Look! The Lamb of God!” John the Baptist's proclamation draws two disciples toward Jesus. But when they begin to follow, Jesus turns and asks them a question—the first words he speaks in John's Gospel: “What are you looking for?”

Christ's question invites us to discern and articulate something significant about our lives, even our deepest desires. What are we looking for? Jesus doesn't demand right answers or theological precision. He simply says, “Come and see.”

These words hold one of the most gracious invitations imaginable: to discern what we desire most deeply and to pursue it in the company of one who is patient with our uncertainty, our missteps, our wrong-headed striving. Jesus Christ is the beginning and end of all we want or need... but it's fine with him if we don't understand that yet. Come, learn what you want, he says. Come, figure it out. Come and see.

What happens when encountering Christ becomes less about having all the answers and more about extending this same gracious invitation?

Additional scripture texts are Isaiah 49:1-7 and 1 Corinthians 1:1-9.

Sunday, Jan 11, 2026 | A Christ-Soaked Baptism | Baptism of Christ Sunday

A Christ-Soaked World
Baptism of Christ Sunday
Matthew 3:1-6, 13-17

Why did the sinless Christ stand with repentant sinners? At the Jordan, Jesus chose identification over separation. When heaven opened, two Scriptures merged—Sovereign and Servant. Jesus defined sovereignty as servanthood.

His baptism defines ours: we exist to serve, not climb ladders. In a world obsessed with status and achievement, what does it mean to follow a Messiah whose first public act was to wade into the river with the broken and searching? This Sunday we'll explore how Jesus' humility and service redefine what it means to carry divine presence into the world.

Additional scripture texts are Isaiah 42:1-9 and Acts 10:34-43.

Sunday, Jan 4, 2026 | A Christ-Soaked World | Epiphany Sunday

A Christ-Soaked World
Epiphany Sunday | First Sunday Communion
John 1:1-18

The Epiphany story begins with light—a star leading seekers to Christ. In this new sermon series we reach back even further, to Creation itself, when God's presence first permeated all things. Richard Rohr calls this a "Christ-soaked world."

We'll trace Divine Love, embedded in everything, revealing itself through Jesus' life and teaching, moving from cosmic wonder to personal encounter. John's Gospel traces our story to Creation—when Divine presence first permeated everything. We live in a "Christ-soaked world" where God's love has been embedded from the beginning. This Epiphany, we receive an invitation to open ourselves to the Light shining in darkness that can't be extinguished.

Additional scripture texts are Isaiah 60:1-6 and Ephesians 3:1-12.

Christmas Eve, Dec 24, 2025

After weeks of waiting and wondering, the light breaks through. Not in the places power expected. Not with the fanfare empire demands. But in a stable, among shepherds, wrapped in vulnerability itself.

Today is the sacred celebration of Christmas Eve, as we gather around the manger and remember: the light that came into the world that night still rises. In every generation. In every dark season. In us.

The service includes Christmas carols, music from choir, organ, and brass, holy communion, and a Christmas Eve meditation from Pastor Julie. We conclude with the lighting of congregational candles.

Monday, Dec 22, 2025 | Celebrating the Life of Sadye Doxie

We celebrate the life of our beloved church member Sadye Elizabeth Dunn Doxie (March 18, 1937 — November 21, 2025).

Sadye and her late husband, Mel, joined First Baptist Church in April 1986. During the next four decades, Sadye served FBC in a variety of ways: as a deacon, greeter, archivist, church moderator and member of the Tapestry Bible study class. For nearly forty years, Sadye was a luminous presence in our faith community—a woman of kindness, strength, and spiritual depth.

Sunday, Dec 21, 2025 | Light Rising Through Joseph's Trust

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Matthew 1:18-25

Joseph had every reason to walk away. Every legal right. Every social justification. But in a dream, he sees another way—a harder way that requires him to trust what he cannot fully understand and to protect what the world will not value.

On this final Sunday of Advent, we'll explore how Joseph's quiet faithfulness models a different kind of strength. Sometimes the most revolutionary act is choosing to stay when everyone expects you to leave, to trust when doubt would be easier, to become light-bearer when it costs you everything.

Additional scripture texts are Isaiah 7:10-16 and Romans 1:1-7.

Sunday, Dec 14, 2025 | 67th Annual Christmas Candlelight Carols

Capture the joy of the season with this beloved First Baptist tradition featuring organ, brass, and the First Baptist Church Chancel Choir. We will collect a love offering to benefit DC Central Kitchen, and will welcome Mike Curtin, CEO of DC Central Kitchen, as our honored guest. DC Central Kitchen uses food as a tool to strengthen bodies, empower minds, and build communities, training unemployed adults for culinary careers while providing healthy meals to those in need.

Sunday, Dec 14, 2025 | Light Rising in Mary's Yes

Third Sunday of Advent
Luke 1:26-39

 A teenage girl in an occupied territory receives an impossible announcement. The angel speaks of thrones overturned and proud rulers scattered—a revolution beginning not in palaces but in the womb of a young woman from nowhere important.

 Mary's "yes" wasn't naive optimism. She knew the risks. She knew the scandal. She knew what empire does to prophets and troublemakers. Yet she said yes anyway. Today in worship, we'll consider what our own "yes" might look like when God asks us to carry light into impossible situations.

Additional scripture texts are Isaiah 9:2-7 and James 5:7-10.

Sunday, Dec 7, 2025 | Light Rising Through Desert Doubts

Second Sunday of Advent
Matthew 11:1-11

John the Baptist—wild prophet, truth-teller, Jesus' own cousin—sends a desperate question from his cell: "Are you really the one?" Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is admit we're not sure anymore.

In a world that demands certainty and punishes questions, what if doubt itself can be an act of faith? Today in worship, we'll explore how Jesus responds not with judgment but with evidence—and an invitation to keep watching for light breaking through.

Additional scripture texts are Isaiah 43:19-21 and Romans 15:4-13.

Sunday, Nov 30, 2025 | Light Rising in the Time of Herod

First Sunday of Advent
Luke 1:5-13
Pastor Eric Preaching

This Advent, we begin a journey through stories of stubborn hope in a year marked by war, division, and democracy under strain. Like those who first bore witness to the light Isaiah saw coming and John proclaimed arriving, we're invited to discover the light that's already rising, even when we can barely see.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and we begin in the shadow of empire, in what Luke calls "the days of Herod." An elderly couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, have lived with barrenness for decades. They've remained faithful through unanswered prayers, but they've stopped expecting miracles. Then an angel appears with impossible news. Zechariah's doubt silences him for nine months. But Elizabeth speaks first, filled with the Holy Spirit, naming what God is doing in her body and in the world.

Their story reminds us that God specializes in impossible births, planting seeds of light in the darkest nights, choosing unlikely people to carry hope. Light is rising, even now. Will we notice?

Our Congregational Care Team will light the Candle of Hope. Additional scripture texts are Isaiah 2:1-5 and Romans 13:11-14.

Sunday, Nov 23, 2025 | First Place in Everything

Reign of Christ & Gratitude Sunday
Colossians 1:11-20

Most of us keep Jesus on our priority list somewhere between work and family, nestled among the many good things competing for our attention. This Sunday—"Reign of Christ" Sunday on the liturgical calendar—we'll explore what changes when Christ moves from being one item on our list to the center that reorders the whole list.

As we gather today, we'll discover how gratitude deepens when we recognize Christ not just as something to be thankful for, but as the source and center of all things. What does it mean to live under the reign of the One who holds everything together?

Additional scripture texts are Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Luke 23:33-43.

Sunday, Nov 16, 2025 | Saving Your Life | Amanda Tyler

Today, we welcome Amanda Tyler as our guest preacher in worship. Amanda is preaching the sermon “Saving Your Life” from Luke 21:5-19. Additional passages are Isaiah 65:17-25 and 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13.

Amanda is a former FBC member and Executive Director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC). There, she leads the organization as it upholds the historic Baptist principle of religious liberty: defending the free exercise of religion and protecting against its establishment by government. She is also the lead organizer of BJC’s Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign, co-host of BJC’s Respecting Religion podcast, and the author of How to End Christian Nationalism.

Sunday, Nov 9, 2025 | Clothed with Christ | Galatians 3:23-29

Every morning we stand in front of our closet deciding what to wear. This Sunday we’ll ask, “What if those choices included anger or patience…envy or generosity…fear or love?” As we celebrate baptism, we'll discover how "putting on Christ" means daily exchanging old patterns for God’s beautiful wardrobe: compassion, kindness, forgiveness. Come explore what it means to be clothed with Christ. Additional scripture texts are Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 and Luke 6:20-31.