"Whether you come to us as a believer, a seeker, a doubter, or any combination of these, you are welcome here."

Please join us for worship this Sunday!

• Choir Practice: 8:45 a.m.
• Sunday Worship: 9:30 a.m.
• Food and Fellowship: 10:30 a.m.
• Sermon Talk-Back: 11:00 a.m.
• Childcare is available to all children, from infancy to preschool, during both Sunday Worship and the Sermon Talk-Back.
• Sunday School is available to children from preschool through middle school, although some of the older children enjoy staying for the worship service. 

Sermons

Experience the good words, the wisdom, and the heartfelt and passionate commitment to each person's faith journey that Pastor Dave shares with us every Sunday. Never one to retreat from a challenge, Dave took on some difficult and sometimes unexplored faith topics as a part of a summer-long sermon series inspired by the congregation's toughest and most complex questions. Should you choose to visit us some upcoming Sunday, you will be inspired, you will be encouraged, and most of all, you will be welcomed.

View recent sermons.

What can I expect on a Sunday morning?

You can expect to be surprised. We might not look very much like churches you've been in before. We meet in the Pine Lake Community Center. So there's no stained glass. There are no pews. No formal clothes being worn. There's nothing fancy or flashy at all. And we're a small community -- 30-35 people on an average Sunday. It's kind of like how it was when Jesus and the people who followed him gathered together. We come as we are. And trust that is more than good enough for God and for each other.

You can expect people to welcome you without smothering you. We are grateful God brings new people to spend a Sunday morning with us, and we want to let you know that. And we want to assure you we're not going to ask you to be on a committee, or teach Sunday School, or ask you to tell us your life story the first time you come. Our greatest hope is that during your time with us you feel like you matter, and you feel the love we have for each other. We hope you feel how much we care about the health of this planet and the cries of this earth for justice and hope. We hope you feel that we are all on a journey together, and we need new people to change us into more faithful followers of Jesus. We hope you leave worship knowing in a deeper place inside you that you are God's beloved daughter or son.

And we hope if this feels like a place where we receive the God you bring through the door with you, a place you receive the God we have to share, and a place where you have a hunch you can find the healing, the challenges, the friendships, and the faith you are looking for, that you'll keep coming back. Our worship service is divided into three parts. Each of them has The Word in it. The Word is a way to talk about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Worship is all about opening ourselves to what God wants to do in our lives and with our lives. And we do that in three different ways.

1. Approaching The Word

First we approach the Word. We talk informally before worship. We reconnect with each other. We welcome each other back if we haven't seen each other for a while. Kids hug adults and adults hug kids because the kids feel so loved and are so much a part of our life together. The pianist plays music that calls us together. A singing bowl is rung three times, in the name of the God who is Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. A child leads the worship leaders into the worship space, bringing in the light that will light the candles on our simple communion table. Children remind us not to take life too seriously. Children, Jesus said, teach us how to open ourselves to God's touch and how to free ourselves from the masks we wear that hide who we really are. We sing. We admit to God the ways that we wish we had lived differently this past week. We hear promises from God about the stream of God's forgiving love that never stop flowing. Freed from guilt and shame that can close us off from love, we create a space inside us where we can listen for the Word.

2. Listening for The Word

We believe God is still speaking to us through every part of our lives and through every part of the world's life. So we have a time when the children gather. We listen for how God speaks through them as they share with us the amazing ways God's love, joy, hope, playfulness, and dreams live in them. We listen for God's Word in the Bible. This is more than just listening to the words in the Bible. Because we believe those words need to be interpreted. We believe we need to learn what those words might have meant when they were written. And what those words mean today. Because that's not always the same. That's what happens during the sermon. Whoever is preaching does some teaching about the context of this passage. And then the preacher tries to bring that word to life for us today, by talking about how God might be speaking through it to us and to the world. How God is reaching out to us, and calling us to imagine how Jesus would live our lives if he were walking around in our shoes, and looking out at the world through our eyes.

3. Responding to The Word

After we listen, we then respond to the Word. We can't follow Jesus just by talking. Following Jesus means responding to what he calls us to. Following Jesus means acting differently that we did before. Following Jesus means being changed. So we sing. We pray together. Not just prayers from the pastor. But anyone in the church who wants to can ask the community to pray with them for themselves, for a loved one, for a place in the world where there is violence, injustice, and fear. And we ask each other to pray prayers of gratitude and joy for celebrations, for healing, for new possibilities, for ways God has been present in our lives. We greet each other by name, also, because we don't want anyone to feel like they're invisible or unnoticed. This part of the services is called Sharing the Peace of Christ. Because Jesus said he came to give us peace, and calls us to pass that peace on to others in any way we can. Then we talk about what's going on in the life of the church. We pass a basket and ask people to put whatever money that can in it. We need offerings of money to do what we do. And the people who gather need an opportunity to give some of what God's given them back to the community that gathers to worship God. We share in more music. Then we form a circle, and receive words of blessing that remind us we are loved, and words of challenge that send us out into the world as people with a Word of new love and new life to share. We continue to respond to the Word by talking with each other while we enjoy refreshments. And all who wish can then form a circle and talk with the preacher about whatever the worship service made them think about. It's a great way for people to share their feelings and ideas, their questions and passions. It's a great way for us to get to know each other better, so we can be a community that more deeply knows and cares for each other.