Radical Hospitality: The Bravest Love - June 18, 2017

Radical Hospitality: The Bravest Love - June 18, 2017
Julie Pennington-Russell

 “Cultivating an empathetic imagination isn’t all that complicated. It’s simply asking, in some intentional way, ‘What does it feel like to be you, and how can I join you there?’”

 Text:  1 Corinthians 9:19-23

Matters of Life & Death: Faith in the Second Half of Life - May 14, 2017

Matters of Life & Death: Faith in the Second Half of Life - May 14, 2017
Julie Pennington-Russell

“The prevailing task of the second half of life is to let go of anger and forgive. To forgive everybody--your family, your church, your nation, your enemies, yourself...and ultimately, to forgive God because life isn’t fair.”

May 14, 2016 Text:  Luke 15:11-31

Matters of Life & Death: Why We Hate Death - April 23, 2017

Matters of Life & Death: Why We Hate Death - April 23, 2017
Julie Pennington-Russell

“The first word about death must be the one we already know to be true in our gut, and the truth Scripture affirms: Death is our enemy. And yet, we have a Friend...”

Text: 1 Cor 15:20-26

Matters of Life & Death: The Death of Death

Matters of Life & Death: The Death of Death - April 16, 2017
Julie Pennington-Russell

“Death isn’t finished hurting us down here. But the news of Easter is that no tomb you ever enter—least of all the one with your name on it—will be able to hold you in the end, because death cannot keep what Jesus Christ holds in his hands.”

Text: 1 Corinthians 15:20-22, 51-57

Turning Points: The Cheering Stones - April 9, 2017

Turning Points: The Cheering Stones - April 9, 2017
Julie Pennington-Russell

On the first Palm Sunday, Jesus told the religious cynics: “If these people don’t praise me, the very rocks will cry out.” Which is to say: God’s song is bigger than you and me. It’s deeper than our disillusionment and greater than our doubt.  God’s song runs through all creation.

Turning Points: The Last One You’d Expect - March 26, 2017

Turning Points: The Last One You’d Expect - March 26, 2017
Julie Pennington-Russell

“When other people see you, what do they see? A body? An age? A gender? A haircut? A tattoo? This is not how God sees, who looks deep into the real heart of your real life.”

 Text: 1 Samuel 16:1-13

Turning Points: The Thirsty Woman - March 19, 2017

Turning Points: The Thirsty Woman - March 19, 2017
Julie Pennington-Russell

When Jesus meets up with Samaritan woman at the well in the town of Sychar, there are three significant barriers that really ought to have prevented these two from any kind of conversation: Race. Religion. Gender. (Sound familiar today?) So what does Jesus do with barriers like these?

Pursuing an Elusive God - February 26, 2017

Pursuing an Elusive God - February 26, 2017
Glenn Hinson

Our preacher this morning is Dr. E. Glenn Hinson, a world-renowned church historian and respected and sought-after leader in Christian Spirituality, who sees himself as very much a Baptist while also describing himself as a “Bapto-Quakero-Methedo-Presbyterio-Lutherano-Episcopo- Catholic.”

Glenn earned degrees from Washington University in St. Louis (B.A.), the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (B.D., Th.D.), and Oxford University (D.Phil.). During his academic career he taught on the faculties of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville (1962-1992) and Baptist Theological Seminary in Richmond (1994-2000). During the 1960s, Glenn’s friendship with Trappist monk and spiritual writer Thomas Merton led him to become involved in the ecumenical movement of spiritual renewal—connecting the revivalist spirituality of many Baptists to ancient and medieval spiritual practices. He maintains a deep commitment to Christian nonviolence and the work of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, serving as the original editor of The Baptist Peacemaker.

Glenn is the author of more than 30 books, including his most recent publications, A Miracle of Grace (Mercer University Press) and Baptist Spirituality: A Call for Renewed Attentiveness to God (Nurturing Faith, Inc.) He is married to Martha Burks. They have two adult children, Christopher and Elizabeth.