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If you're looking for a collection of highly polished oratory, may we suggest Sermon Audio. If you want the Sunday Morning sermons of FUMC, you've come to the right place! :) Seriously, FUMC is grateful to have a variety of gifted speakers on our staff and as volunteers from our church. We “share the pulpit” between several people because we believe that God speaks through all of us and no one person or perspective can fully speak God's Word on their own.

We are posting the text version of most of our weekly sermons here, with the recognition that they are intended to be spoken presentations so they will undoubtedly lose something when they are read outside of the context of our gathered worship services. They are posted for your encouragement, education, and exhortation, so please receive them as such.

May 8 - Saved from insignificance...Saved for identity

Posted May 10, 2011
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Deuteronomy 7:6-9 - In the second chapter of the grand story of God's people, God rescues the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from the slavery of Egypt. God brings them through the Red Sea, meets them on a mountain in the wilderness to give them the Law, and leads them on to the Promised Land.

This is a great story about God's unfailing love and how God's calling gives a holy identity to the chosen People of God. But there are lingering questions--what about all the dead Egyptians and Canaanites left behind in the wake of God's Exodus story? What about the campaign of ethnic cleansing that marks the entrance to the Promised Land? What about the celebrations of violence in our own times--are these truly the work of God? Or does God have a better identity in mind for God's People?

May 1 - Saved from chaos...Saved for order

Posted May 10, 2011
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Genesis 1:1-5, 17:1-7, 50:19-20 - "In the beginning..." God spoke into a world of darkness and chaos and called forth light and order. This is the story of Genesis: the creation story, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the flood, the tower of Babel, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Esau, Leah and Rachel, Joseph and his eleven brothers (not to mention his Technicolor Dreamcoat)... Though many of the names are famous, their stories are more faith-less than faithful, more giving in than resisting temptation, more brokenness than wholeness. Dysfunction threatens to rule the day, then as now.

But in the midst of all the chaos of creation and humanity, God still speaks. God is still faithful, even when we are not. And through it all, even what we intend for evil God intends for good.

Jan 23 - Jesus the Revolutionary

Posted January 25, 2011
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You say you want a revolution?... Jesus was the ultimate revolutionary. He challenged the status quo, gave a new vision for the world, and put his own life on the line to make that vision a reality. Yet Jesus' revolution wasn't ultimately about an ideology, even a non-violent one. It was about a new way of life, one that still calls even the least controversial among us to engage in a revolution of love.

Jan 16 - Jesus the Rabbi

Posted January 20, 2011
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Matthew 9:16-30 - Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. We tend to take that for granted as we focus on Jesus' message (as well we should!). Yet, Jesus' audience, method, and content also matter, and this message focuses on those. Jesus, like all rabbis' taught all who came to him, and many who just happened to be within earshot. He also called his own followers, not those with special knowledge, just those willing to follow. Jesus taught by pointing back to the Hebrew Scriptures, getting to the heart of their message. And what Jesus taught turned the world upside down, and offers to do the same to our world, if we're willing to listen and follow and be in a relationship with our Rabbi.

Jan 9 - Jesus as Healer

Posted January 20, 2011
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Matthew 9:1-13 - This is the start of a new series, where we are following up the call of the book of Hebrews to "fix our eyes on Jesus." The first message focuses on Jesus as Healer. Jesus' healing ministry was at the center of his task--more than just physical healing, though, he came as a "doctor" for all who are sick: of sin, of spiritual illness, and of emotional and relational brokenness, too. Following Jesus means that the church will become a "hospital" where all of us have something in need of healing and all of us can offer gifts of healing to others.

Jan 2 - Advent 6 - Arise and Shine

Posted January 20, 2011
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Isaiah 60:1-6 - It's a simple message: God has shined a light on God's People, so that they may reflect that light into the darkness of the world. We were created to shine. But what does that actually look like? Why do we so often keep God's light to ourselves? How do we inspire people to be better than we think we can be? Jesus, with a little help from Nelson Mandela, has an answer and some inspiration of his own.

Dec 26 - Advent 5 - Christmas Genocide?

Posted January 20, 2011
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Matthew 2:1-18 - It's the day after Christmas, and nobody wants to hear about a bunch of babies being murdered by a power-crazed ruler. This story is supposed to be about a star, wise men, and some fuzzy camels. But there it is, in the middle of the Christmas story, King Herod killing baby boys. What can we possibly learn from this story? And how can we still claim God's message of "peace on earth, goodwill to all" when the reality of many people of the world, especially children, is far from peaceful and good?

Dec 12 - Advent 3 - ...and joy will overtake them

Posted December 15, 2010
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It's the third week of advent, and we're still waiting--and what we're waiting for honestly sounds rather impossible. Is the promise of God really going to be worth the wait? As described in Isaiah 35, all that is good and right and true about this world will be present in God's coming kingdom. Isaiah's poetic imagery is a celebration of joy, as even that which is broken and destitute in this world will be transformed. God's promise is that this joy is a gift to us, and that our present griefs and losses will ultimately be overtaken by God's celebration.

Dec 5 - Advent 2 - Believing the Impossible

Posted December 15, 2010
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Advent is a time of waiting. Isaiah 11 gives us a vision of what it is we're waiting for--the kingdom of peace, where true justice is mediated by God's chosen one, where even the animal kingdom is united as the wolf lives side by side with the lamb and the lion eats grass like the ox. Sounds impossible, right? So does the idea of God coming to earth in the form of a little baby. But Christmas just might be the time when the impossible becomes believable and maybe even enters our reality.

Nov 28 - Advent 1 - What Are You Waiting For?

Posted December 07, 2010
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Advent is the season of waiting. Waiting for Christmas Day, yes, but also more than that. Advent is a paradox: Christ the Messiah has come, we celebrate the Emmanuel, "God With Us"--but all is not yet right with the world. We're still waiting for God's vision of a world of peace, of unity, of true community to be fully realized. The how-and-when of that vision is still beyond our reach; what exactly are we waiting for and how long will we have to wait?