The Lake Forest Sermoncast

Taking us from Tilda Swinton to toddler naps, Rev. Rachel Penmore leads us in a beautiful practice of Sabbath this week. Reflecting on the Sabbath commandments in both Exodus and Deuteronomy, we remember together that rest is not something we earn. It is fundamental to what it means to live as God’s beloved children. Let us remember and give thanks for the wisdom of rest.

"My Lord and My God" — The Real Thomas | John 20:19-29He's been called "doubting Thomas" for two thousand years. But what if we've had him wrong?In this sermon from the second Sunday of Easter, we'll take a fresh look at one of the most misunderstood figures in the New Testament — and discover that Thomas wasn't a cautionary tale. He was a witness. A follower willing to walk toward death when everyone else backed away. A man who sat with honest, unresolved faith for a full week and kept showing up anyway. And the one who, in the end, delivers the most theologically complete statement in all of John's Gospel.If your faith has felt more like a long Friday than a bright Sunday morning lately — if you've been sitting with questions you can't resolve, waiting on something you haven't seen yet — this one's for you.God can handle your questions. God is not threatened by your doubt. And the story isn't over yet.

The women ran from the empty tomb “with fear and great joy.” Matthew doesn’t resolve that tension — and neither does this Easter sermon.In the conclusion of our Lenten series “Tell Me Something Good”, we arrive at the moment the whole season has been building toward: an earthquake at dawn, an empty tomb, and a commission to go before the fear subsides. Drawing on Matthew 28:1-10, this message asks what it really means to live as resurrection people — not by waiting until the trembling stops, but by running anyway, carrying grief and hope in the same two hands.Because the risen Jesus doesn’t say wait here. He says I’m already ahead of you. Meet me in Galilee.Thanks be to God.

On the first Palm Sunday, there were actually two processions entering Jerusalem — and only one of them was a celebration. While Pontius Pilate rode in from the west with armor gleaming and swords drawn, Jesus slipped in from the other side of town on a borrowed, skittish donkey that had never been ridden. In this sermon, we ask the uncomfortable question the crowd never thought to ask: What kind of Lord needs a borrowed donkey? And more urgently — when we shout "Hosanna, save us," what kind of salvation are we actually asking for? If we're honest, we want a messiah who wins the way empires win. Jesus refuses. This Holy Week, he invites us to put down our branches, stop casting him in our own image, and follow him somewhere much harder — and much more alive — than victory.

In this Lenten reflection, we step into John 8 — the story we've long called "the woman caught in adultery" — and discover it's actually a story about a woman saved from stoning. There's a difference, and it matters.Drawing on the work of theologian Sarah Bessey and writer Richard Rohr, this sermon explores two traps laid that morning in the temple courts, the radical calm of a man writing in the dirt, and the moment a crowd dissolved into individuals — one by one, beginning with the oldest.At the center of it all: a woman, alone, and a God who doesn't participate in honor-and-shame systems. This is a word about mercy, dignity, and what it looks like to be loved — not shamed — into becoming who we truly are.

In this week's teaching, we reflect on two brief but powerful texts from Book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Matthew that center God’s care for the most vulnerable among us.When the disciples try to manage the crowd by turning children away, Jesus responds with a surprising command: “Let the little children come to me.” What might children reveal about the Kingdom of God? And what might we need to unlearn—about status, scarcity, and importance—to receive the kingdom as Jesus describes it?Drawing on the witness of Fred Rogers and the prophetic insight of James Baldwin, this sermon explores how Jesus reorients our moral center away from power and toward vulnerability. In the Kingdom of God, the measure of a community is not how it serves the powerful—but how faithfully it cares for those most at risk.As we gather at the Communion table, we are reminded that the logic of scarcity does not define God’s kingdom. At Christ’s table there is enough grace, enough mercy, and enough room for all.

Did you know the modern internet stays online thanks to the way honeybees search for food? In this sermon for the third Sunday in Lent, we explore the "feeding of the 5,000" not as a distant magic trick, but as a "bio-algorithm" of community. When we are tired, grieving, and faced with impossible problems, our instinct is to retreat into scarcity. But Jesus offers a different command: “You give them something to eat.” Join us as we look at how small offerings—from a few loaves of bread to a rain-filled trash can in a hurricane—become "more than enough" when placed in the hands of Christ.

What does it mean to love well?On this Second Sunday in Lent, we turn to two powerful gospel texts — Gospel of Luke 7:36–50 and Gospel of Matthew25:35–40 — where Jesus asks two piercing questions: “Do you see this woman?” and “Did you see me?” In both stories, love begins with seeing.Through the story of the so-called “sinful woman” who anoints Jesus’ feet and the parable of the sheep and the goats, we’re invited to examine the ways discomfort, shame, pride, and self-righteousness can cloud our vision. What keeps us from recognizing the belovedness of others — and of ourselves?Because the Good News is always Love — a love that grows where humility makes room.Listen in, and consider:When discomfort rises — or when your inner critic grows loud — what would humility look like?

This week, we heard a beautiful sermon from our guest preacher, Susan Reisinger on Psalm 32. We focus on imagery from verse 7, reflecting on God as our 'hiding place' and the blessings that come from confession and forgiveness. It's such a gift to be reminded that, at the base of a penitent Lenten season lies very Good News. 

On this Transfiguration Sunday, we stand at a turning point in the church year—and in Jesus’ ministry.High on the mountain, Peter, James, and John catch a glimpse of Jesus in glory: radiant, affirmed, and named as God’s beloved Son. But the story doesn’t end there. The mountaintop moment isn’t meant to be preserved or protected—it’s meant to prepare Jesus (and us) for the journey down the mountain and toward Jerusalem.As we turn toward Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, this sermon reflects on transfiguration, belovedness, and transformation. Drawing on scripture, poetry, and lived experience, we explore why God’s word of delight over Jesus comes before the suffering—and what it means to enter the wilderness not trying to earn God’s love, but already secure in it.Lent, after all, is not a season of self-punishment, but a season of truth-telling and trust. We do not go as people striving to become worthy. We go as people who already are—beloved, claimed, and accompanied by God, even in the valley.

This week we return to the Sermon on the Mount with a fresh look at some of Jesus’ most famous—and most misunderstood—metaphors. In this message, we explore Matthew 5:13-20, where Jesus tells a group of ordinary, weary people that they already are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.Through a distinctly Appalachian lens (complete with a much-needed "y'all" translation), we dive into what it means to be a "counter-testimony" to the powers of the world. Jesus wasn't calling for moral heroics or flashy displays of piety; he was describing a community that preserves what is good from decay and exposes truth in the darkness simply by being present.In this episode, we discuss:• The Power of "Y'all": Why the plural context of Jesus' teaching matters for our life together.• Salt as Preservation: How faith works from the inside out to slow the "rot" of injustice and cruelty.• Light vs. Empire: The subversive nature of Jesus claiming the title of "Light" for the marginalized rather than the powerful.• Identity over Effort: Why being salt and light is a descriptive reality of who you are in Christ, not a prescriptive list of chores.Join us as we learn what it looks like to stay salty, stay tender, and stay faithful in a world that needs a little more flavor and a lot more light.

What does it really mean to live the good life—and would you even recognize it while you’re living it?In this sermon on the Beatitudes, we step into one of the oldest human questions and discover just how radically Jesus answers it. Drawing on philosophy, Scripture, and real-life stories, this message explores how Jesus’ vision of the good life turns conventional wisdom upside down. Instead of celebrating the strong, successful, and self-sufficient, Jesus blesses the poor in spirit, the grieving, and the meek—those who already know the world is not as it should be.Set against the backdrop of biblical “courtroom testimony,” this sermon names both the neat stories we tell about virtue and success and the painful realities that refuse to fit those stories. It speaks honestly to exhaustion, grief, injustice, and quiet faithfulness—and offers the Beatitudes as a counter-story of hope in a tilted world.If you’re tired, overwhelmed, grieving, or wondering whether faith has anything real to say anymore, this message is for you. It’s an invitation to see God’s kingdom already pressing into broken places, and to live the slow, stubborn, courageous life Jesus calls blessed.Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. The kingdom of heaven is drawing near.

In this week's sermon, we turn to John 1:29–42 and Jesus’ very first words in the Gospel of John: “What are you looking for?” As Andrew and Peter begin to follow Jesus, they don’t arrive with clear answers or confident belief—only curiosity and a willingness to stay. This sermon explores how our expectations shape what we see, why Jesus offers belonging before belief, and how faith often begins not with certainty but with abiding. Drawing on humor, honest questions, and the witness of John the Baptist, we’re invited to rediscover the church’s calling: not to be the destination, but the signpost that points beyond itself to Christ. For anyone feeling uncertain, overwhelmed, or searching for what comes next, this message offers gentle good news: Jesus keeps saying, “Come and see.”

What if baptism isn’t about being set apart from the mess of the world—but sent more deeply into it?In this sermon on Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3:13–17, we stand again at the muddy banks of the Jordan, where Jesus steps quietly into line with everyone else. Before the miracles, before the teaching, before the cross, Jesus is named Beloved—soaking wet, anonymous, and vulnerable.Drawing on personal story, Rowan Williams’ theology of baptism, and the church’s practice of ordination and shared vocation, this sermon explores baptism as a holy paradox: God’s unshakable claim of love and God’s call into deep solidarity with a hurting world. Here, belovedness is not earned, calling is never solitary, and leadership is not about distance or privilege, but about standing faithfully in the mud with others.Whether you are remembering your baptism, discerning a call, or simply longing to hear a word of grace that does not depend on achievement, this sermon invites you to listen again for the voice that names what is already true:You are beloved—and you are not sent alone.

In this Epiphany sermon, we journey with the Magi of Matthew 2:1–12 and rediscover a long-held but often forgotten truth: God reveals God’s self not only through scripture, but through creation itself. Before prophets, before texts, before sermons, the cosmos bore witness to God’s light—and the Magi were listening.Drawing on scripture, theology, and the Epiphany tradition of Star Words, this sermon explores how outsiders were the first to recognize Christ, how fear and power resist good news, and how God’s revelation often arrives from unexpected places. We reflect on what it means to follow the light we’re given, to make space between fear and response, and to return home “by another way”—changed, hopeful, and committed to justice, peace, and good news for all.This message invites listeners to remain open to God’s truth wherever it may be found, to trust the Spirit’s leading, and to walk a path shaped not by fear, but by love.

On the first Sunday of Christmastide, we turn away from sentimental manger scenes and toward one of the Bible’s most troubling Christmas stories. Drawing from Matthew 2 and Isaiah 9, this sermon explores how God speaks through dreams—not as an escape from reality, but as a way through it. In a world shaped by fear, political violence, and forced migration, we listen for God’s quieter dream: a dream of courage, hospitality, and “robust love.” From Joseph’s midnight flight to modern questions about power, refugees, and security, this sermon asks whose dreams we are living by—and invites us to trust that God still makes a way where none seems possible.

On Christmas Eve, we return to a story we think we know—and listen again for what it reveals about who God is. Drawing from Titus 2 and Luke 2, this sermon reflects on the risky, vulnerable way God enters the world: not in power or spectacle, but in a crowded town, under empire, wrapped in cloth and laid in a manger.This message invites us to notice how God shows up not in moments of readiness or control, but in exhaustion, disruption, and ordinary life—in the journeys we didn’t plan to take. Exploring themes of love, vulnerability, and holy risk, the sermon connects the birth of Christ to the table of communion, where God once again places God’s very self into our hands.A word of good news for the weary, the cautious, and anyone longing to believe that love is stronger than fear—and stronger than death.

On this Third Sunday of Advent—Gaudete Sunday—we explore a deeper, sturdier vision of joy through Isaiah’s promise of a desert in bloom and John the Baptist’s searching question from prison: “Are you the one who is to come?” Drawing on the image of a “superbloom,” this sermon reflects on joy not as fleeting happiness, but as a resilient gift cultivated through faith, patience, and community—one that can take root even in seasons of doubt, dryness, and waiting.

In this second week of our Advent series, Out of the Blue, we explore one of Scripture’s most startling invitations: the call to repentance. But not the shame-filled version many of us inherited. Instead, we look at repentance as a holy reorientation—a turning toward the God who surprises us with renewal in the very places we thought were beyond hope.We'll hear John the Baptist’s bold call to “prepare the way” and explore repentance not as shame, but as a holy reorientation—turning toward the God who brings new life out of what looks cut down or worn out. Drawing from Matthew 3, the legacy of Elijah, and the imagery of shoots rising from the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11), this message invites us to recognize how God still arrives in surprising ways.If you’re longing for fresh hope, brave truth-telling, and a vision of God who both prunes and cultivates, this episode is for you. Join us as we listen for the Spirit’s call to turn, to trust, and to grow.

In this first week of Advent, we enter the holy tension between the world as it is and the world as God promises it will be. Drawing from Matthew 24:36–44 and Isaiah 2:1–5, this sermon invites us to explore what it means to stay spiritually awake in a distracted age—awake to God’s presence, awake to our neighbor’s need, and awake to the coming peaceable Kingdom.Reflecting on a scene from A Boy Called Christmas, the advent essays of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the honest realities of our messy, overfull lives, we’re reminded that Advent isn’t passive waiting. It’s an invitation to reorient our hearts, rekindle our hope, and learn again how to see God’s nearness—even in fog, cold, and confusion.If you’re entering the season a bit sideways—tired, hurried, or unsure—this message offers encouragement for the journey: small practices that keep us watchful, the promise that God meets us in unexpected places, and the assurance that the Kingdom is closer than we think.Come walk in the light of the Lord, and discover that you may be nearer to home than you realize.

On this Reign of Christ Sunday—marking 100 years since the church first proclaimed this feast day—we remember a truth as radical now as it was in 1925: Christ’s reign stands in opposition to every earthly power that demands our allegiance through fear, coercion, or dominance.This sermon explores the origins of Christ the King Sunday as a deliberate act of resistance against rising authoritarianism, nationalism, and political idolatry in the early 20th century. Through the lens of Luke’s crucifixion narrative (Luke 23:32-43), we revisit the kind of king Jesus actually is—not a warrior or a Caesar, but one who reigns through mercy, humility, and self-giving love.In a world still tempted by strongmen and seduced by ideologies wrapped in religious language, this message calls us back to the scandalous center of Christian faith: a crucified king who prays forgiveness for his executioners and places the marginalized at the heart of his kingdom.With clarity and honesty, we’re invited to examine our own loyalties, confront the labels we place on one another, and rediscover mercy as the defining mark of Christ’s rule. As we stand at the threshold between the church year and Advent, this sermon reminds us that God’s power arrives not on a throne, but in a manger—and that following Christ means choosing the way of peace even when it seems foolish or risky.Come listen, reflect, and reorient your hope toward the One who reconciles all things and calls us to seek first his kingdom.

What does it take for all things to be made new—and who needs that newness the most? This sermon invites us into Isaiah’s sweeping vision of a new heaven and new earth (Isaiah 65:17–25), given to a people returning from exile and longing for home. In a world marked by inequality, displacement, and the weight of systems that work for some but not for others, Isaiah’s words open our imagination to God’s desire for creation: joy instead of weeping, security instead of exploitation, flourishing instead of fear.Through the story of Kenneth and Phyllis Laurent and Frank Lloyd Wright’s remarkable accessible home design, we explore what becomes possible when we center those whose needs are greatest. The Kingdom of God, Isaiah reminds us, grows precisely where we refuse to ignore suffering—and instead allow compassion, lament, and truth-telling to shape our lives.Drawing on Walter Brueggemann’s prophetic framework—to tell the truth, to grieve honestly, and to hope defiantly—this message calls the church to live now toward the world God is bringing to birth. It challenges us to consider what we may need to leave behind, what relationships we must deepen, and how listening to the stories of those most impacted by injustice can expand our imagination for shalom.If you’re longing for clarity, courage, or a renewed sense of purpose, this sermon offers grounding and hope: an invitation to join God’s work of new creation with compassion, creativity, and openhearted faith.Come listen, reflect, and lean together into the beautiful world God is making.

In this weeks message, we step into the temple with Jesus — right into the heart of things — where a clever question meant to trap him turns into a profound conversation about life, death, and what really matters.In Luke 20:27–38, the Sadducees try to make resurrection sound absurd, but Jesus turns their logic upside down — reminding us that resurrection isn’t just about life after death, but about life transformed here and now.Join us as we reflect on what it means to be children of the resurrection — people who live with courage, generosity, and hope, even in a world defined by fear and scarcity. What might it look like to live as if God really is “not the God of the dead, but of the living”?

In this week’s message from Luke 19:1–10, we revisit the story of Zacchaeus — a man seen by the crowd as beyond redemption, yet sought out by Jesus for relationship and restoration. What begins as a simple encounter in a sycamore tree becomes a profound moment of transformation, as Zacchaeus learns that salvation looks less like escape and more like repair.Through this story, we explore what it means to participate in God’s healing work — to face what’s been broken in our lives, our communities, and our world, and to take small, faithful steps toward making things right again.Because sometimes, salvation doesn’t start with something new.Sometimes, salvation begins with repair.

In this week’s message, we step into one of Scripture’s most mysterious and powerful moments — the night Jacob wrestled with God at the river’s edge. From the book of Genesis, we’ll explore what it means to wrestle with the divine, to hold on through the struggle, and to come away changed — limping, yes, but blessed.Along the way, we’ll talk about tricksters and transformation, Bugs Bunny and blessings, and the kind of faith that isn’t about having all the answers, but about refusing to let go of God — even when we don’t understand.So take a deep breath, and join us as we listen for God’s Word from Genesis 32 — and discover together the grace that meets us in the wrestling.

This week’s message comes from Reformation Sunday, a time when the church pauses to remember that God’s Spirit is always reforming us — reshaping our lives and our community in grace.Our scripture reading comes from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 18, verses 9 through 14 — a parable about two people who go to the temple to pray: a Pharisee and a tax collector. It’s a story that gets to the heart of what true humility looks like… and what happens when faith turns into comparison.In this sermon, Pastor Chad Wright-Pittman reflects on what Jesus’ words might mean for the church today — and how the quiet poison of contempt can corrode both our spiritual life and our relationships. Drawing on the insights of psychologist John Gottman, this reflection reminds us that contempt is not just the opposite of kindness; it’s the erasure of another person’s worth. And yet, the gospel tells us something astonishing: that in God’s eyes, no one is nothing.So wherever you’re listening from today, take a deep breath, settle in, and open your heart to what the Spirit might be saying to the church.