Someone Will See Further Because of You

Isaac Newton said that if he had seen further, it was by standing on the shoulders of giants. Most of us can name a few of our own giants: a grandparent, a teacher, a neighbor, someone whose faith or kindness shaped us long before we noticed.

This All Saints' Day sermon starts with the people who came before us, from the long list of the faithful in Hebrews 11 to the ones we each remember by name. Then it turns the other way. We stand on others' shoulders, and someone else is standing on ours. The service closed with candles lit in memory of loved ones.

Hebrews 11:39-12:2. All Saints' Day, November 1, 2026.

Nerve: What Do You Want, and Will You Act on It?

Knowing what you want is one thing. Saying it out loud, and acting on it, is another, especially when the voices around you, and sometimes the one inside you, would rather you kept quiet.

This sermon closes Listen to Your Life with Bartimaeus, the man by the road outside Jericho who would not stop shouting, and with the question Jesus asked him. Along the way: a second helping of casserole nobody took, a family's miserable drive to Abilene, and Parker Palmer's very honest answer about why he wanted to be a college president. The real you is a gift, one you give to others and to yourself.

Mark 10:46-52. Week 4 of Listen to Your Life.

When the Door Closes: what to do instead of waiting for it to open again

“When one door closes, another opens.” We say it to each other all the time, and it is half true. Doors do close, and a closed door is not the end. But it is easy to spend years staring at the one that shut.

This sermon starts with that old saying and offers a third version of it, then turns to a letter Jeremiah sent to people living in exile in Babylon, who were being told they would be home any day now. His word to them: build houses, plant gardens, raise families, seek the welfare of the city where you are. Grief over a closed door is real, and longing is not wrong. But the life in front of you is real too.

Jeremiah 29:4-9, with Isaiah 43:16-21. Week 3 of Listen to Your Life.

What Is Your Life Trying to Tell You? Samuel, a voice in the night, and four ways to listen

Your life speaks through your reactions, your instincts, your body, the things you keep returning to, and even your failures. Learning to hear it is one of the ways we listen for the God who made each of us in a particular way.

This sermon follows the boy Samuel, who heard his name called three times in the night and kept running to the wrong person, until the old priest Eli realized whose voice it was. Drawing on Parker Palmer, it names four ways to listen: be still, read your own responses, count the misses, and ask an Eli, someone who notices what you can’t see and hands it back without telling you who to be. When Samuel finally understood, he answered, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

1 Samuel 3:1-10. Week 2 of Listen to Your Life.

Whose Life Are You Living? Moses, a burning bush, and the life that isn’t yours

Always the strong one, the perfect one, the one keeping everyone safe. A life can drift away from us so quietly that nobody notices, including us. This sermon starts with the family in Encanto, then turns to Moses: a Hebrew raised in Pharaoh’s household, living a life that wasn’t quite his, until he stopped to look at a bush that would not burn. When he asked God, “Who am I?”, the answer was not a list of his qualifications. It was “I will be with you.”

And the call was never only about Moses. The real you is not a private luxury; the people around you need it too.

Exodus 3:1-14. Week 1 of Listen to Your Life.

Who Are the Donkeys in Your Life: hearing God from the voices we overlook

God tells Balaam to go, and one verse later God is angry that he went. The contradiction is real, and someone could have smoothed it over centuries ago. Nobody did. A sermon on a famous foreign seer, a donkey who sees what he can't, and a Bible that kept its own arguments.

Numbers 22:21-35.

You Are Not Your GPA: what your worth was never actually based on

You have a running tally in your head: what you got right, what you did not, and how it compares to everyone else's. Most of us assume the failures are the part that hurts. This is a sermon about the brother who never left, did everything right, and still ended up standing outside the party.

Luke 15:11-32. Last in the series You Are Here. Preached by Pastor Shawn Coons.

One Thing at a Time

Your attention gets pulled in a dozen directions before breakfast. A woman named Martha felt it too, too much to do, and her sister just sitting there instead of helping. Jesus does not hand her a better system. He tells her only one thing is actually needed.

Luke 10:38-42. Third in the series You Are Here. Preached by Pastor Shawn Coons.

Where Are My People?

You can be lonely in a room full of people. A woman in Mark's gospel spent twelve years learning how to be invisible, and when she finally reached for Jesus she was hoping to get what she needed without being noticed. He stopped everything to find her anyway.

Mark 5:24-34. Second in the series You Are Here. Preached by Pastor Shawn Coons.

Ready or Not: what to do when you're not ready and it's starting anyway

Waiting to feel ready may be a trap, because the feeling of readiness doesn’t always come. This one starts with Jeremiah telling God he is not qualified for what he is being asked to do, and with God's answer, which is not "yes you are," but "go anyway, I am coming with you."

Jeremiah 1:4-10. First in the series You Are Here. Preached by Pastor Shawn Coons.