Westlake United Methodist Church

Closing out the summer series on love, Pastor Margot Ann Perez-Greene turns to Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesus and asks whether "God loves you" has become so familiar it barely lands anymore. Drawing on voices from Thomas Long to C.S. Lewis to Rowan Williams, she traces the story of God's love not from "God loves everyone" outward, but backward, to a God who first fell in love with Abraham in particular, arguing that being loved specifically and by name means more than being loved generically. It's a sermon about a God who doesn't love from a distance, but pursues each person, however far off, all the way home. Sermon date: September 6, 2026

Family Ministries intern Morgan Garrett builds this sermon around a childhood neighbor, a pastor named Paul who Morgan knew only as a warm, playful presence, never once talking theology, until learning after his death that he'd led a Gulf Coast diocese through the recovery from Hurricane Katrina. From there, Morgan turns to 1 John's claim that no one has seen God, and asks how God's love becomes visible anyway: through the body, through incarnation, and through a children's book about a village with no windows, where God turns out to live in the space between people. It's a gentle case for the old phrase "preach the gospel at all times, use words when necessary," landing, unexpectedly, by way of Dolly Parton. Sermon date: August 30, 2026

Pastor LyAnna Johnson takes Psalm 139's meditation on being searched and known by God and pairs it with something almost nobody tells new parents outright: you cannot spoil a baby with love, and you cannot spoil a person with it either. Drawing on her own experience of unconditional family love, a Sesame Street book about a monster who turns out to be lovable, furry Grover, and a story about God opening a nail salon, she makes a simple, repeated point: nothing anyone has done, or hasn't done, changes how fully they're known and fully they're loved. It closes on one of the gentlest lines in the series so far: when God looks at you, God says beautiful and means it. Sermon date: August 23, 2026

For the Blessing of the Backpacks, Pastor LyAnna Johnson swaps her usual sermon for an extended, fully conversational kids' time built around the two greatest commandments. She walks through the Greek word agape, a love that costs something, and stretches the idea of "neighbor" from the solar system down to the person in the next seat, landing on a simple definition: whoever we can reach out and touch, as long as they say it's okay. It's a warm, practical send-off into the new school year, full of small, doable ideas (learning names, sharing a pencil, saving a seat) for loving the people who are about to become new neighbors and classmates. Sermon date: August 16, 2026

Pastor Margot Ann Perez-Greene closes out the summer lectionary with the ending of Matthew's Gospel, walking through three things that make it significant: the gathering of the disciples, the mountain setting, and the Great Commission itself. She lingers on one small but pivotal detail, that the disciples "worshiped and doubted" in the very same breath, to make the case that faith with doubt built in isn't a lesser kind of faith. Drawing on scholars from Mark Allen Powell to Tim Keller, she argues that the church has always been made up of worshiping doubters, and that Jesus sends us out anyway, promising not success, but his own presence. Sermon date: August 9, 2026

Pastor LyAnna Johnson takes on the story of Jacob wrestling an unnamed figure until daybreak, refusing the tidy, well-lit religious art version in favor of the real one: two bodies in the dirt, all night, ending in a limp and a name change. She reframes Israel, literally "wrestles with God," as a kind of blessing on the struggle itself, arguing that some of the hardest, most honest encounters with God don't look peaceful at all. Drawing on her own therapy work and the idea of the "wounded healer," borrowed from Nadia Bolz-Weber's line about preaching from scars, not wounds, she makes the case that healing has to come before helping others, and that only the person who lived through something gets to decide whether it becomes beautiful. Sermon date: August 2, 2026

Family Ministries Director Caasi Grove starts with a piece of acolyte symbolism that's easy to walk past every Sunday: carrying the flame in signals Christ's light entering the room, carrying it back out signals what the congregation is meant to do next. From there, she draws on a flood relief trip to Burney, Texas, where a group of students and adult leaders chose to stay and help even as a second storm rolled through, to make a direct case for what loving your neighbor actually costs. It's an unflinching call to bring light into hard, uncomfortable places rather than staying safely inside, and a reminder, borrowing from both Martin Luther King Jr. and John Wesley, that silence is its own kind of choice. Sermon date: July 26, 2026

Pastor LyAnna Johnson takes on a parable that gets read as a story about sorting people into categories and pushes back on that reading directly: this isn't us versus them. Weaving in the one-year anniversary of last summer's hill country floods, a raccoon rescue that went viral, and some honest reflections on recent, painful headlines, she makes the case that no one is a finished project, that growth is often messy rather than pretty, and that the work of nurturing one another doesn't stop just because someone doesn't look, yet, like what they're becoming. Sermon date: July 19, 2026

On the 50th anniversary of worshiping in WUMC's sanctuary, Pastor Margot Ann Perez-Greene takes the familiar Parable of the Sower and asks the congregation not to interpret it, but to let it interpret them. Framed by the movie Seven Days in Utopia and grounded in the story of the church's 82 charter members and their Cedar Cross potluck gatherings, she reframes the four soils not as categories of people but as parts of every person's own life: places that are hardened, rocky, thorny, or fertile, all at once. It's less a sermon with answers than an invitation to sit with the questions the parable is actually asking. Sermon date: July 12, 2026

Pastor LyAnna Johnson unpacks the yoke, the same image behind the clergy stole she wears, on the anniversary weekend of last year's deadly hill country floods. She moves from Christ's incarnate presence in celebration, service, and grief alike into an unexpectedly tender teaching moment: how learning to float on her back as a kid became the way she learned to meditate, arms out, belly up, breathing. It's an invitation to stop carrying grief alone, and to trust that the only way out really is through. Sermon date: July 5, 2026

Back from annual conference in Corpus Christi, Pastor LyAnna Johnson flips a familiar Gospel passage on its head: instead of picturing ourselves as the disciples being sent out, what if we're the ones doing the welcoming? She traces that idea from the practical, life-or-death hospitality of the ancient world through last year's July 4th floods in the hill country, when the congregation raised $45,000 and showed up with flood buckets almost before anyone asked. The invitation she leaves the congregation with is small and specific: one hour, one day this week, to treat everyone encountered as someone God has sent. Sermon date: June 28, 2026

On Father's Day, lay preacher and longtime church member Jay Brim opens with the surprising origin of the holiday itself (a Spokane woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, raising her five younger brothers after their mother's death) before turning to Jesus's words from the cross. He traces how Jesus related to God as Father throughout his life, from the temple as a boy to the crucifixion, and lands on a simple, personal challenge: naming who you still owe forgiveness, and actually doing something about it. Sermon date: June 21, 2026

Preaching just days before Juneteenth, Pastor LyAnna Johnson holds up two translations of the same verse (justified by our faith versus made righteous through Christ's faithfulness) to get at a very Wesleyan point: it can be both. From there she moves through prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace into harder territory: the denomination's history with slavery, the church's own reckoning with wealth built on unpaid labor, and how recently women and queer clergy have been allowed to lead. She closes by rewriting Romans 5 in her own words, trading suffering for awkwardness as the thing that, with God's help, still produces hope. Sermon date: June 14, 2026

As the church settles into ordinary time after a long stretch of Advent, Lent, and Eastertide, Pastor Margot Ann Perez-Greene turns to a shortened version of Jesus's wilderness temptation, skipping past the specific tests to sit with what comes before and after them. Weaving in the story behind the 1949 gospel hit "It Is No Secret" and the witness of gospel singers Joey and Rory facing terminal illness, she makes the case that testing isn't a detour from faith but a given, and that the only way through it is the same way Jesus met it: saturated in scripture, not self-reliance. It's a sermon about what surfaces in us under pressure, and why knowing what's true in advance matters so much when it does. Sermon date: June 7, 2026

For Trinity Sunday, Pastor Margot Ann Perez-Greene opens with a children's reading from Rachel Held Evans's What Is God Like? and carries that same instinct for image over abstraction straight into the sermon. Skipping the dense "theological treatise" version of Trinity Sunday, she walks through centuries of art, from a 1210 medieval shield to a Celtic image of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose, to land on one central point: a triune God is inherently relational, and so are we, even when that means doing the hard, unglamorous work of staying in relationship with each other. Sermon date: May 31, 2026

On Pentecost Sunday, the church's birthday, Pastor Margot Ann Perez-Greene takes on two questions: who the Holy Spirit actually is, and what the Spirit calls us to do. Drawing on voices from Thomas Aquinas to Tim Keller to her own years as a courtroom advocate for children, she makes the case that the Spirit isn't an impersonal force but a person, one who defends us here on earth the same way Jesus intercedes for us in heaven. It's a sermon about being fully known, fully defended, and never let go of. Sermon date: May 24, 2026

Guest preacher Rev. Tina Carter looks at Paul's brief, personal words about Timothy in Philippians 2 and finds a much bigger idea underneath them: chosen family. Drawing on figures from Ruth and Naomi to Jacob to a present-day foster father who cares for terminally ill children, she traces how scripture is full of people who found family outside of blood ties, and makes the case that a baptism vow is really a promise to be that kind of family too. It's a warm, funny, occasionally pointed sermon (grandparents with red pens, beware) about what it means to love people well enough that they want to join in.

On Mother's Day, Pastor LyAnna Johnson pairs Jesus's farewell words to his disciples in John 14 with the surprising true origin of Mother's Day, a story that runs through abolitionist Julia Ward Howe and Civil War era organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis, not greeting cards. Both threads land on the same point: love isn't a feeling we keep in dreams, but something practiced in the hard, often unglamorous work of caring for one another. It's a reminder that the command to love God and love each other is simple to say and genuinely difficult to live, and that doing it anyway is the heritage we're meant to carry forward.

Continuing the Along the Way series, Pastor LyAnna Johnson digs into 1 Peter's call to be "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation," and makes the case that holy really just means set apart, a little bit weird. She traces that idea back to John Wesley's own eccentric discipline and the Methodist practice of works of piety and works of mercy, while drawing a clear line between being called to a higher standard and being tempted toward a higher status. It's an honest, funny look at what it costs, and what it's worth, to follow Christ differently than the world expects, and why none of us have to do it alone. Sermon date: May 3, 2026

In this Eastertide message, Pastor Margot Ann Perez-Greene turns to the earliest days of the church in Acts 2:42-47, where a crowd of strangers from every nation somehow became inseparable. She traces what actually held such a wildly different group together (not shared background, but a common faith in Christ) through three simple threads: learning, loving, and liturgy. It's a look at what it means to belong to each other, not because we have to, but because something deeper has gotten hold of us. Sermon date: April 26, 2026

On the road to Emmaus, two grieving disciples walk beside the resurrected Jesus and don't recognize him. Opening the Along the Way series on the third Sunday of Easter, Pastor LyAnna Johnson looks at why redemption so often arrives differently than we expect, and how honesty about despair, along with small, ordinary acts of care, can help us notice God still walking with us.

In this Easter season reflection from John 20:19–31, the risen Jesus appears to his disciples—not by erasing suffering, but by revealing it. Even in resurrection, the wounds remain. This sermon explores how Christ is recognized through his scars, and what that means for us. Rather than hiding pain, the gospel invites us to see how love, loss, and sacrifice are taken up and transformed. From Thomas’ doubt to the call to live as people marked by love, this message considers how resurrection reshapes our past, present, and future. The risen Christ still speaks peace—and still sends us into the world bearing that same costly, redemptive love.

On Easter morning, the story begins in the dark. With grief, confusion, and a tomb that does not hold what was expected. In this message, we follow Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Christ and consider a God who works not through power as we imagine it, but through a persistent, surprising love. When the world feels overwhelming and hope feels thin, the resurrection points us toward a different way. The slow, steady work of love that does not mirror empire, but quietly outlasts it. This is the love that calls our name, meets us where we are, and sends us out to live it with our lives. Because in the end, it is this: nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

On Palm Sunday, what looks like a simple parade takes on deeper meaning. Set against the backdrop of Roman military power entering Jerusalem, Jesus’ arrival on a donkey becomes a quiet but pointed counter-procession—an embodied contrast between domination and humility, fear and love. This message explores the political and theological tension within Matthew 21 and invites us to see Palm Sunday not as a detached celebration, but as a call to courage. What does it mean to follow Jesus’ way in a world shaped by competing powers—and what might we be crying out to be saved from today?

In this Lenten message from John 11, we enter the story of Lazarus and the raw reality of grief. Rather than rushing past loss, the sermon reflects on how grief can cloud our vision—and how Jesus meets us within it. Holding together the imagery of dry bones in Ezekiel and the tomb in Bethany, this episode considers a different understanding of resurrection: not as escape from suffering, but as the presence of life and breath in the midst of it. The central question remains—when faced with loss, do we believe that Christ is already at work, even here?

In this sermon from the Gospel of John, the healing of the man born blind shifts the focus from blame to revelation—what God is showing us through the moment. Drawing on insights from My Body Is Not a Prayer Request by Amy Kenny, the message reframes healing as wholeness rather than cure, and examines how fear and discomfort shape our responses to others’ pain. Where might fear be limiting your ability to see clearly—and how is God still at work there?

In this sermon from John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well in the heat of the day—a place where isolation, shame, and daily survival intersect. Rather than condemning or ignoring her, Jesus offers something unexpected: living water that restores dignity and opens the possibility of a different life. Reflecting on the biblical story alongside other “well” moments in history—places where people briefly reclaimed their humanity in the midst of hardship—this message explores how trauma, loss, and the pressures of the world can shape our sense of identity. Yet the encounter at the well reminds us that Christ already knows our stories and still offers renewal. Worship becomes a kind of well for the community of faith: a place where the dominant narratives of fear, division, and worthlessness are challenged by a different story—the promise that in Christ we are known, loved, and invited into new life.

What if the very things we were taught about God are the things keeping us from seeing clearly? In this week’s Blinded series, we encounter Nicodemus — a deeply educated religious leader, formed by tradition and confident in what he knows. Yet when he comes to Jesus under the cover of night, he is invited into a new way of seeing: to be “born from above,” to loosen his grip on certainty, and to recognize that the Spirit moves more freely than he imagined. Together, we consider the assumptions we have inherited — about God, Scripture, and even ourselves — and how the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience) can help us discern what is true. What might need to be unlearned so that we can see again?

At the beginning of Lent, we turn to Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness. Immediately after his baptism—after the voice from heaven names him “beloved”—Jesus is led into a season of testing. This sermon explores how the temptation narrative is less about spectacle and more about identity: Who is Jesus, and what kind of Messiah will he be? Drawing on Deuteronomy, the Exodus story, and Philippians 2, we consider how Jesus resists coercive power, refuses to exploit divine authority, and chooses the path of humility and love. His responses in the wilderness reveal a Messiah grounded in tradition, shaped by Scripture, and committed to abundant life for others. As we begin our Lenten series Blinded, we reflect on what keeps us from seeing clearly—decision fatigue, cultural pressures, the lure of power, and the noise that drowns out the quieter way of Christ. Like hikers watching for blazes on the trail, we are invited to remember who we are and to act accordingly: beloved people called to walk the path of mercy, humility, and love.

On Ash Wednesday, we begin Lent with a sober reminder: we are dust, and to dust we shall return. In light of that truth, Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 take on sharper meaning. This sermon explores Lent not as a season of public performance or ritualized guilt, but as a quiet return to what matters. Giving, praying, and fasting are not spiritual displays; they are practices meant to reshape the heart. The question is not what we can prove to others, but what God is doing in secret within us. Rather than simply giving up chocolate or Diet Coke, Lent becomes an invitation to honest self-examination. What has come between us and God? Where do pride, resentment, distraction, or avoidance need to be named? What practice might draw us closer to wholeness? “Dust to Dust” reminds us that our mortality clarifies our priorities. In these forty days, we are invited to release what diminishes life and take up what leads us toward deeper faith, reconciliation, and renewed devotion—so that when Easter arrives, we are not the same.

In the final week of our stewardship series, we turn to what may be our most limited and most revealing resource: time. Drawing from Acts 2:42–47, this sermon explores the early church’s intentional rhythms—worship, shared meals, prayer, generosity—and what they teach us about how we order our days. Time is not just something to manage; it is something to steward with purpose. We consider four invitations: growing deeper with God, investing in real community, serving through acts of mercy, and practicing Sabbath in a culture that resists rest. If we are mortal and cannot do everything, then our choices about time become spiritual decisions. What might change if we lived not as “human doings,” but as human beings—trusting that even of time, there is enough?

In this week’s message from our stewardship series, Abundant Life: Trusting God and One Another, we turn our attention to treasure—the financial resources we share to support life together in Christ. Drawing from Acts 2 and 2 Corinthians 9, this sermon explores how the earliest Christian communities practiced generosity not out of pressure or guilt, but out of deep commitment to one another. Giving was woven into daily life, sustaining community, meeting real needs, and making space for the work of God to flourish. This message invites us to see financial stewardship not as an obligation, but as a joyful and thoughtful response to God’s abundance. As we reflect on what we want to do together in the year ahead, we are reminded that generosity—offered freely and with intention—helps the church move from merely surviving to truly thriving.

This week we begin our stewardship series, Abundant Life: Trusting God and One Another, by reflecting on talent, the gifts, skills, perspectives, and experiences God has woven into the life of the church. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 12, this sermon explores the biblical vision of the body of Christ: many members, one body, each indispensable to the whole. From spreadsheets to music, teaching to hospitality, advocacy to prayer, we are reminded that no gift is insignificant and no person is unnecessary. In a moment marked by division, violence, and compassion fatigue, this message calls the church to respond not with fear or paralysis, but with love, grounded in community, shaped by Christ, and expressed through the particular talents God has entrusted to each of us. As Paul reminds us, love is not optional; it is the way we make our gifts matter for the common good.

On the 4th Sunday of Advent, Pastor LyAnna explores Joseph's story—the often-overlooked figure in the nativity who faced fear, scandal, and an impossible choice. When Mary showed up pregnant, Joseph's world turned upside down. But instead of going it alone, he chose to "go with"—to journey alongside Mary despite his fears. This sermon asks: Why do we so often choose isolation over reaching out when life gets hard? Pastor LyAnna reminds us that asking for help isn't weakness—it's brave. And being there for others isn't about saving them; it's about not looking away. Through practical tools (like the "sunflower emoji" hack for marking your trusted people in your phone) and a hands-on exercise in the service, this message invites us to practice what it means to truly bear witness to one another's stories and to remember: we're made for mutual interdependence, not isolation.

This week’s Westlake UMC sermon podcast shares Pastor LyAnna Johnson’s message titled When We Are Running Out of Hope, God Is at Work, reflecting on Matthew 11:1–11.

This week’s Westlake UMC sermon podcast shares Pastor LyAnna Johnson’s message from November 30, titled In the Time of Herod We Long for God to Break In, reflecting on Luke 1:5–13 and Lamentations 3:55–57.

This week’s Westlake UMC sermon podcast shares Pastor LyAnna Johnson’s Christ the King Sunday message from November 23, titled A Befitting Crown, reflecting on Matthew 27:27–31.

This week’s Westlake UMC sermon podcast shares Pastor LyAnna Johnson’s message from November 16, titled For Everything There Is a Season, reflecting on Ecclesiastes 3:1–8.

From the sermon series "Preach"

From the sermon series "Preach"

From the sermon series "Preach"

From The series "New Year, Now What?"

From The series "New Year, Now What?"

Jan 16th, 2022 - "The Search For Justice" From the series, "New Year, Now What?"

Jan 9th, 2022 - The Search For Justice From the series, "New Year, Now What?"

Oct 24th, 2021 Traditional Service by Westlake United Methodist Church

Oct 24th, 2021 Contemporary Service by Westlake United Methodist Church

Oct 31, 2021, Contemporary Service by Westlake United Methodist Church

NOV 7th, 2021 All Saints by Westlake United Methodist Church

NOV 7th, 2021 Children First by Westlake United Methodist Church