WORSHIP SERIES and SERMONS
Join us each Sunday at 10:30 a.m. for worship!
Past sermons and previous worship series can be found below.
The Cup of Freedom
April 27 - June 8, 2025
When death seems final and rising feels impossible, we turn to the power of love and life. We lift the cup of freedom offered by Jesus, call on the name of the One who is truly Sovereign, and claim the freedom to move forward — to sing, to follow, to rise again, to love, to heal, and to be opened. In the end, we are filled with the Spirit’s freedom, overflowing with new life and hope.
Purveyors of Awe
March 9 - April 20, 2025
Awe is a profound emotional response that significantly impacts our wellbeing and perception of the world. Awe often arises from experiences that transcend our usual understanding, such as viewing vast landscapes, listening to powerful music, encountering extraordinary acts of kindsness, or feeling heightened devotion and a Divine Presence connecting us all. To be a “Purveyor of Awe” is to be intentional about curating a life of spiritual depth. This Lent we will look at the world with “Awe!”
Discipleship by the Sea
January 5 - February 23, 2025
Join us as we set sail on a brand-new worship series all about boats, water, and the exciting journey of discipleship! Get ready to embark on an adventure where we’ll explore what it means to follow Jesus, just like the first disciples who set out on the waters with Him. Whether you're a seasoned sailor or just starting to dip your toes in, this series will take us on a thrilling voyage of faith, trust, and discovery. Let’s dive in together!
On the Way to Bethlehem
Advent/Christmas 2024
This Advent season, pay attention not just to the destination of Christmas but also to the places where events occurred that led to a starry night on which a child was born who would change the world. We hope you will join our church family for this wonderful Advent journey!
Join us on Christmas Eve at 6:30 PM.
Do Unto Others
October 13 - November 10, 2024
Our world seems to be consumed with division—often typified in the colors red and blue. Rather than stay in our monochromatic silos, the Golden Rule in scripture challenges us to engage in conversation and seek to create whatever common good we can with our relatives, friends, and neighbors who we might consider to be on the “other side” politically and ideologically.
Let us discover the beauty that can be created when we work together to make the world a better place. The “purple space” is where we cultivate kindness, compassion, humility, respect, and love for one another and for the good of all the world, no matter what.
Prophecies and Pottery:
Journey with Jeremiah
August 4 - September 11, 2024
Our faith story invites us to deal openly and honestly with things that are part of our human story: heartache, displacement, violence, helplessness, and homesickness. Join us as we journey with Jeremiah during a time of exile and enounter the familiar image of God as the Potter who can reshape and remake us, making us vessels of living water ready for tomorrow.
QUEST: The Awakened Traveler
July 7 - 28, 2024
Whether you travel far away or see your local surroundings as if for the first time, pilgrimage has long been a spiritual practice, and “journey” a deeply-felt metaphor for our spiritual lives. “Quest” comes from the Latin root meaning “ask, seek.” Join us for this four week worship series that will encourage us to open ourselves more fully to the curiosity and wonder, reflection and transformation that travelers — not merely tourists — experience when they choose to immerse themselves in soul-widening adventures.
Imagine the People of God
June 9 - 30, 2024
What does a community look like that is living out its call to be the “people of God?” In this four week series, we are asked by our inspirational theme song to “Imagine the People of God” that care, share, believe, receive, seek, dream, and change. Readings from the Epistle letters to early Christian communities will help us enter into this conversation that is as old as Christianity itself. Join us as we come together to imagine and create better relationships, better family, better church, better world!
Resurrection Stories
April 7 - May 19, 2024
The Easter Season is a time of celebrating all the ways in which resurrection is possible in our lives. We can be in need of rising out of the depth of imprisonment, addiction, poverty, illness, and oppression — not just physically and literally, but also spiritually.
What keeps us locked up inside? What holds us back from the joy of life? What binds us, keeping us from the fullness of who God created us to be?
Join us for powerful testimonies of courage, kindness, strength, and overcoming — Resurrection Stories — from those who have found “resurrection” in their lives. It might just inspire you to unlock your own rising up!
what r u up 2?
February 18 - March 31, 2024
Lent is often known as a time of giving something up in order to make room in our lives for spiritual pursuits. Rather than just “giving up” in Lent, the scriptures ask us to consider all that Jesus is “up to” and all that he asks us to be “up to” in his name.
Bread, Bath & Beyond
January 7 - February 11, 2024
The new year always brings opportunity to move beyond our limitations . . . to find new beginnings and be better than we were before. We use this cultural word-play in our series title to remember that the basic transforming experiences of our faith — communion and baptism — are the strarting points for life “beyond” our limitations. Let’s make this year one of amazing transformation — for our lives, for our community, for our world!
“The Gift of Being Present”
November 26 - December 24, 2023 (Advent/Christmas worship series)
Advent can be filled with worry about finding the perfect Christmas gifts. Deep down we want people in our lives to know they are special and that we love them. But sometimes we overlook the greatest gift of all… our very presence.
Our spiritual ancestors were also worried — often about survival in the midst of political occupation. And the response of the scriptures is “the Holy Living One is with you.” Like a shepherd who never leaves the flock, we are held close.
This season, we are invited to be the gift of presence for our loved ones, for our communities, for those who need it most.
“Outside My Own Little World”
October 8 - November 19, 2023
It seems the world these days teeters between those who seek to protect "their own" and those who dare to declare that all are worthy of compassion and care. Can we get out of our comfort zones, our "own little world" and remember that we are the Body together — the hands and feet of Christ in a frightened and hurting world?
“Come to the Table”
In this series, we hear the call to dine with Jesus — an invitation that means much more than a simple eating experience. It never was with Jesus. The table was the place where he fed people and also challenged them to acts of hospitality that reflect God’s way. When we say “yes” to the place at Christ’s table, we accept a way of life that embraces God’s definition of love, peace, grace, and joy.
“A Way Out of No Way”
July 23 - August 27, 2023
We enter the biblical narrative of God’s action in human history “already in progress” and right out of the gate we are plopped down in the middle of a major crisis: Noah and the flood. During this series, we will witness Old Testament Bible stories of God urging the people forward in times when it seemed there was no way out.
“Beguiled by Beauty” Worship Series
June 4 - July 16, 2023
All things are beautiful—not by a standard of “pretty” as seen by our eyes, but by an essence of sacred worth that is sensed by the spirit. This is the root and heart of compassion and justice.
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“Emerge: A Metamorphosis Moment” Worship Series
April 9 - May 28, 2023
The butterfly has long been a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus, as well as our own resurrection as we emerge from the power of fear and death. In this series, we will consider the process of metamorphosis as a guide to examine our own transformations from cocoons and tombs to the unfurled beauty of all God calls us to be.
“Lookin’ for Love in All the Wrong Places” Worship Series
February 26 - April 9 (Easter), 2023
The Christian scriptures offer many images of where love, grace, forgiveness, righteousness, and healing can REALLY be found. And it is not in the “usual” places. Isn’t it true fo us today as it was of the spiritural authors? Don’t we often look for wholeness and happiness in places that offer only temporary “good feelings” and satisfaction?
Lent is a wonderfully reflective time to reassess where we are searching for meaning and purpose. Join us as we move through the stories of Jesus to find out who offers the “real deal.”
“SAD: Spiritual Affective Disorder” Worship Series
January 8, 2023 - February 19, 2023
Seasonal Afffective Disorder happens when a lack of sunlight affects our moods and ability to cope effectively. Spiritual Affective Disorder can also be a condition when we’ve had prolonged stress and life is disturbingly uncertain. What is our faithful resonse to our strained mental health? What if everyday life activities could become spiritual practicies - deepening our experience of a meaningful life and helping us shine a light on the “blahs”?
“Reflecting the Sacred”
Worship Series
November 27, 2022 - January 1, 2023
The Christmas season is a time when the juxtaposition of the sacred and secular feels sometimes blatantly opposed and sometimes quite blurred. The word “sacred” points to something dedicated as “holy” and “set apart.”
This year, you are invited to a spiritual journey at RGUC of seeing ALL things pregnant with the Holy. What could our experience of the Advent and Christmas season be like if we lived it imagining that everything is reflecting the sacred?
“Moving Out of Scare City”
Worship Series
October 9 - November 13, 2022
The sense that there is not enough drives greed, fear, and exclusionary behavior. We begin to live in “Scare City” where it seems that death, starvation, feelings of being overwhelmed and swallowed up can lurk around every corner.
The Good News is that this is an illusion. A spiritual journey into the truth of abundance of all that we need offers us an alternative vision of where to live our lives. During this series, we will be “Moving Out of Scare City” and traveling to the vast, open habitats of God’s grace.
“Re-Shaped” Worship Series
September 11 - October 2, 2022 (10:30 a.m. worship)
You were created for a purpose, formed into something spectacular – not just created, but re-created again and again.
Ready to be stretched? It’s time to be re-shaped!
Click on the graphic to the left or the button below to watch the trailer for this series.
“The Prayer of Jesus”
Worship Series
August 7 - September 4 (10:30 a.m. worship)
Join us as we spend 5 weeks focusing on the Lord’s Prayer. Worship each week hones in on a part of the prayer and draws us into examination and implementation of it in a relational way.
Click on the graphic to the right or the button below to watch excerpts from this series.
“What is the Value of Prayer?” Worship Series
July 24 and 31, 2022
Have you ever asked yourself these questions?
What should I say in my prayers?
When should I pray?
Where should I pray?
What is the value of prayer?
Watch the excerpts from this series to help you find answers!
“Drawn In” Worship Series
June 12 - July 17, 2022
We spend too much time being “driven” rather than “drawn in.” We focus on what we should do rather than what we feel excited and compelled to do in our lives in this world.
During this series, we will connect with our inherent creativity and nurture this foundational aspect of being human that gives us renewed energy for passionate work, delightful play, and creative problem solving to make this world a better place for all.
Watch excerpts from the series on YouTube. Just click the link!
“The Cup of Freedom” Worship Series
April 24th through June 5th (Pentecost)
Throughout this season, we will claim the power to sing, follow, rise again, love, heal, and be opened. We are filled with the freedom of the Spirit of God!
“Good Enough” Worship Series
Lent - Easter 2022
We live in a culture bent on definitions of a good life as continuous upward mobility. We may comb the shelves of the self-help section in search of just the right formula to gain success. But life happens, right? Most times we are not moving upward but trying to repair the rung from which we’ve just slipped. So what if we stopped climbing and started fertilizing, water, and blooming right where we find ourselves? Welcome to a Lent of affirming a faith in which we are blessed, regardless of our imperfections, and where we can lean into embracing our “good enough” lives.
“Known and Called” Worship Series
Epiphany Plus (January - February 2022)
After the celebration of the birth of Jesus, we move into a season of hearing the stories of people discovering and recognizing the identity of Jesus. In the time from Epiphany to the beginning of Lent, we, too, will discover the depth of who Jesus is and, by extension, who we are called to be as his followers.
“The Inn: Housing the Holy”
Advent and Christmas 2021
The pandemic, along with so many other disasters this year, has laid bare and widened economic disparity locally and globally. As we enter the Advent season, how can our church become a house where the Holy will be born anew–offering respite, sustenance and care, opening the doors ever wider to those seeking shelter from the onslaught of life? No one church can do it all, but each can do something. As we study the biblical prophets that call us to care for our neighbors and “make room in the inn,” the lonely and frightened spaces within us are filled with the light of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.
“Rooted in Love”
Late fall 2021
How can we describe a Christian life? King David, in Psalm 1, wrote: “He will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season; . . .
This paints a picture of the Christian life as having deep roots - firmly planted and growing stronger and deeper day after day. No matter the season, the Christian life is committed to God’s work - always bearing fruit. When our lives are “planted by streams of water,” our faith is everlasting.
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