Cascade Church Portland

Sarah Swartzendruber talks about road trips, smoking noses and the challenge of patience without a preferred outcome in sight. 

Kurt Kroon shares about peace as a bringing together of all things, not cutting off the noisy parts of us, others and our world. Shalom.

Kurt Kroon explores the difference between joy & happiness and what can take you through the hardest moments in life. 

Kurt Kroon shares about how love in the ways that Paul builds up his definition of love throughout his writings and how it starts with understanding God as the definition of love. 

Kurt Kroon shares about sassy Paul, reading other people's mail and the ways the Fruits of the Spirit invites a better way of practicing Christianity than "right" belief. 

Kurt Kroon talks about candy conventions, unrecognizable walks with Jesus and how we can be people beyond ideological labels and instead be people producing good fruit. 

Scott Erickson shares about the 23rd Psalm, life in the shadow of death and meals with "enemies". 

Kurt Kroon shares about dementors (not death eaters), trees without fruit and the ways we've obsessed about ideological identity over practical participation in spirituality. 

Harriet Congdon shares about outgrowing shells for a life in the ocean, relational conflicts around religion, and finding new ways to belong. 

Kurt Kroon talks about Mary & Martha and the ways that we can demonstrate hospitality and let the roles we accepted by choice or force pass away for more expansive roles. 

Kurt Kroon shares about Marlboro Man Richard Hammer, Cheryl Strayed and the ways that we can let the independent dream die for a new dream of interdependence. 

Kurt Kroon talks about the relationship of love and grief and how one informs the other. Take a listen to ask new questions of the things you're rightly grieving these days. 

Kurt Kroon shares about romenesco broccoli, the woman at the well to the feeding of the 15,000 (take a listen if this sounds wrong!), and how asking new questions of the scriptures can help us break out of a bad relationship with them. 

Sarah Swartzendruber shares about the power transformation that the scriptures can initiate if we're willing to process where we've come from and the ways we've been given permissions externally and internally to change. 

Kurt Kroon shares about the way that Lord of the Rings, the high five emoji (prayer hands) and the Jesus/Superman/Luke Skywalker stories and the way the scriptures influence the world around us. 

Harriet Congdon explores how storytelling impacts us utilizing a clip from Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man and a new song led by Sam Hedrick. 

Scott Erickson leads us through a conversation about ayahausca trips, a magical monastery, and the ways the scriptures have been used as a tool to destroy or restore. Scott also failed at his task of never being asked to preach again. 

Kurt Kroon starts off our new message series exploring the scriptures and if they are still worth engaging today. Come for the statistical analysis of Bible sales in 2024 and 2025 and stay for another look at the Ethiopian Eunuch. 

Kurt Kroon shares about the nomadic home of the shepherds and ways we can keep that home with us, even when we're in the wilderness.

Kurt Kroon explores the nature of home, how Jesus shows up to call this world his home and how we leave home to adventure and return to tell the stories of our successes and failures. 

Kurt kroon concludes the series on Esther by looking at the tradition of Purim and how we remember what we repeat.

Kurt Kroon covers the culminating action of the story of Esther and we communally wonder about the role of violence in the ancient world and our world today. 

Kurt Kroon continues our exploration of the book of Esther with a focus on Haman and the ways that power corrupts him. 

Scott Erickson is interviewed by Kurt Kroon about his new book "In the Low". They talk about depression, the avoidance that can exist within some Christian circles and helpful tools when we need to not feel all alone. 

Brian Recker visits and talks about how Hell has been utilized culturally today and the disconnects from the source material in the scriptures. This is part of his newly released book "Hell Bent", which you can purchase here.

Kurt Kroon talks through the rising tension in the story of Esther culminating in the big "for such a time as this" line. We take a look at what that looked like for Mordecai to deliver, Esther to receive and what that could mean for us today. 

Kurt Kroon teaches about the "ewww gross" beauty pageant of King Ahasuerus, Portland protesters in inflatable costumes and confuses Benny Hill and Benny Hinn

Kurt Kroon starts off a brand new series on the book of Esther and what creative protest can look like. The invitation is to rebel well and stand with the marginalized and oppressed as a pathway to our collective healing. 

Scott Erickson leads us through a conversation about Zacchaeus, NPC's, Death and UAP's. This all helps us move our framework of faith from seeing the world as a simple fantasy to a complex reality. 

Kurt Kroon shares about the ways that religion can be a crutch and how it can be a healing. A Karl Marx quote and a Jesus healing story frame this exploration. 

Kurt Kroon continues the What is Faith For? by discussing our relationship to the Christian scriptures and the ways we've tried to pull out a few verses to follow instead of letting the whole of the scriptures shape us into people of wisdom.

Kurt Kroon kicks off a new series looking at the containers that are holding our reimagined theologies and how they need the same reimagining. This week looks at how we can use faith as a mechanism of control in the world and how that will ultimately let us down. 

Sarah Swartzendruber finishes up our message series on the core values of Cascade with a discussion around intentionality, which we define as engaging in relationships a step beyond what is known or comfortable.

A party celebrating 10 years of Cascade Church existing. Kicked off by a prayer and check-in from Scott Erickson and a co-taught message from co-pastors Sarah Swartzendruber and Kurt Kroon. Come for the memories, stay for the places yet to go!

Kurt Kroon continues the series on Cascade's core values by looking at Advocacy, which is defined as fighting injustices by partnering with those treated insignificantly by individuals, systems or indifference.

Kurt Kroon shares about the Cascade Core Value of diversity by looking at our definition and reflecting on Paul's metaphor of the body of Christ as an instructive model for how diversity can function. 

Kurt Kroon talks through our 5 core values starting with prayer. This unusual look through the lens of the Genesis story of Jacob (mistakenly identified as 27 instead of 28) exposes the ways in which prayer can help us commune with the unknown parts of ourselves and God. 

Kurt Kroon shares about a dominant theme in the life of Jesus. This thread from Genesis to Revelation ties together a picture of God's invitation to co-creation and mutual participation that is the Kingdom of God. 

July is Disability Pride month, where we look to celebrate and recognize the contributions of folks with disabilities to our world while also acknowledging the ways our society disables folks with poor access and design. This interview with Rob Schellert reflects on the unique ways the Christian Church intersects with the disabled community. 

Harriet Congdon finishes up our series on Resilience with a keen insight from the story of Abraham, Hagar & Sarah while tying together all the previous messages on resilience. 

Ian Durias shares this week as we continue our series on Resilience by talking about the ways we love ourselves and how we categorize our shortcomings as screw-ups, weaknesses or growth opportunities.  

Chelsea Gerlach shares about a resilience that uses curiosity to better inform itself in addition to finding enjoyment in the midst of difficult journeys. 

Sarah Swartzendruber shares about resilience as a learning space that is difficult to stay in and nobody would choose that has a way of working something out in us. Listen as we talk about how to stay in that learning space even when we don't want to as we look at the disciples' journey of resilience. 

Kurt Kroon looks at Daniel 3 and how resistance can look in the face of fear-based and oppressive kingdoms. 

Kurt Kroon takes a look at the dividing path moments in our lives that invite us into a practice of resilience. 

Scott Erickson, Sarah Swartzendruber, Ian Durias and Kurt Kroon chat about the summer '25 message series on Resilience and how the Teaching Team works and collaborates on series just like this one!

Dr. Greg Peterson talks about mental health and some ways that our brains get in the way of our mental health and ways that we can find greater mental well being in the world. 

This Sunday Ian Durias interviews therapist Malia Vasquez about how mental health and AAPI identities impact healing journeys. 

Ian Durias interviews Daphne Auza and Jillian Mariano regarding their work with Malaya and organizing on behalf of Filipino workers around the globe. 

Cara Meredith, author of "Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation", shares with us about what belonging looks and feels like with a fresh look at the Philip & The Ethiopian Eunuch story from the scriptures.