As a Christian community, called to peacemaking and reconciliation, we affirm that people of any race, ethnic identity, gender, who are gay or straight, of any ability, age, or economic status, are welcome to full participation in our congregation.
Scripture: Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:14-19 Pastor Chalice Overy, from Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, provided the message this morning. Prior to her preaching we heard a rendition of Lift Every Voice and Sing and Chalice begins by sharing with us some of the significance of that song for her. Prayer is a place where our will […]
Scripture: Luke 12:13-21 Liddy Grantland brought our message this morning. She serves as the service team leader for two L’Arche homes outside Washington D.C. Liddy shared with us stories of L’Arche community life, particularly during COVID, including some of the joys and the frustrations. God wants us to live in the world as our home, […]
Scripture: Colossians 2:6-19 and Luke 11:1-13 Elizabeth Korver-Glenn provided the message this Sunday, drawing on four themes from the Gospel of Luke passage. May our bodies, the bread and the breaths we ask for and receive, and the baptism in which we participate through breaking, recreating, crush the empires of this world, and usher in […]
We were privileged to have Greg Jarrell as our guest speaker this Sunday. Chrys introduces Greg, then Eric reads from Mark 9:14-29 before Greg gives the message. The silenced understand the silent spirit spoken about in the Mark passage. What it’s like to be told to go along just to get along. What it’s like […]
Rev. Teresa Kim Pecinovsky was our guest preacher this Sunday. In this recording, Susan introduces her and Hans reads the scripture passage from Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31 before Teresa brings the message. “Today’s text comes from a rich passage in Proverbs, where the writer chronicles the personification of wisdom. “She is indeed more splendid than […]
Rachel provided the message this Sunday drawn from the story of Elijah in 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14. It is a strange irony that Elijah, who lived in the shadow of the forces of death for the entirety of his ministry, narrowly avoiding dying of starvation, thirst, violence, depression, should meet the end of his own […]
Scripture: Matthew 5:38-42 While Melissa is on sabbatical we are privileged to have a number of guest speakers. Yuri Yamamoto recently graduated from Shaw University with her Master of Divinity and is commissioned and endorsed by the Federation of Christian Ministries as a Christian minister and chaplain. Yuri is very active in the community and […]
I Corinthians 12:12-26, Luke 24:44-53 On this last Sunday before Melissa and her family leave for a three-month sabbatical, it was also Ascension Sunday. It was also the Sunday following another deadly mass killing in a Texas school, and just a week after a mass shooting in a Taiwanese church in LA, and a day […]
Colossians 2:6-18 It was our annual covenant renewal Sunday, plus the opportunity to welcome new members, plus baby dedication for two of our newest beloveds, along with communion. A full Sunday! In covenanting with others at Raleigh Mennonite, we’re deciding together to trust that a certain story is true, that we can trust that story […]
Scripture: Matthew 25:31-45 We were honored to have Sarah Jobe and Cindy Locklear share in today’s service. Melissa introduced chaplain Sarah Jobe from the Interfaith Prison Ministry for Women who shared about the prison awareness quilt crocheted by women incarcerated at North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women as they survived COVID in prison. Cindy shared […]
Scripture: John 21:1-19 Jesus visits the disciples a third time after his resurrection, this time as some of them have been fishing. “Where is Melissa going with this sermon?” That’s what many were thinking as she started her sermon, telling us that our bodies are “an island of creatures.” The real body of Jesus joins […]
Melissa starts out with a story of Brer Rabbit for the children on this Holy Humor Sunday. She then recounts how those who had been enslaved in our country knew how to quietly and secretly assert their resistance, trickery, and humor. They would use ordinary means to confront power they could not fight openly. When […]
On this Easter Sunday we celebrate that creation is reborn, and we with it. The tomb opens and life is born from it. You can’t thwart it or destroy it. You can’t even unbelieve it, or overpower it. Because all that’s left to do here is to bear witness.
We’re brought up in a system that divides people from commodities. All that other stuff–oceans, animals, trees–all of it is neutral material used to benefit people to make us happier or richer, or to give us more space or more stuff. But we can’t separate ourselves from other creatures because over and over in the […]
In this continuing series during Lent, today’s story is about Mary pouring out expensive perfume, washing Jesus’ feet with it and drying his feet with her hair. Rather than agreeing with Judas’ chastisement for wasting money on such extravagance, Jesus says, “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my […]
The parable is The Prodigal Son but Melissa’s sermon focused on the older brother. The brother that stayed behind, served his father, tended the fields and flock and waited for his inheritance. He’s working in the field when his brother returns having squandered the inheritance he demanded while his father was still alive. Facing starvation […]
Continuing the series during Lent, Melissa preached from Luke 13:1-9. Despair is that intractable boulder that won’t move. Despair is the feeling of weariness after prying and pushing and pulling with all your might. From the passage, Jesus doesn’t provide pat answers when folks come to him in despair. “No, I tell you, but unless […]
On this second Sunday of Lent, Brian Recker provided our sermon based on the passage from Luke 9:28-36. The last two years have been tough. During that time we’ve had lots of expectations that have been thwarted. Whether they were expectations in our personal lives or in the world around us, the last few years […]
On this first Sunday of Lent, Melissa preached from Luke 4:1-13, the story of Jesus’ temptation. The last two years of the pandemic have held untold losses. We are entering Lent brimming with trauma and fear of these past two years. We each have been holding in so much. It’s hard to know what the […]
Melissa preached from Zechariah 8:1-8. The passage begins with Zechariah prophesying of God’s jealousy. We tend to use the words jealousy, envy and coveting all interchangeably, but in the Bible there are important subtleties. Envy comes from emptiness. Jealousy comes from being full. God doesn’t want other things. God wants you. God’s jealous love is […]
Following the message this Sunday, Chrys and Pam performed a moving instrumental rendition of The Wayfaring Stranger.
Hearing a sermon from the sensuous passages found in the Song of Songs is pretty uncommon. Susan Scott provided an eloquent, humorous and insightful message on just that. What do the words in the Song of Songs teach us about God? For one, that God is not a prude. God is not squeamish or embarrassed […]
Today’s reading from Isaiah 16:1-5 opens us to a moment of a refugee crisis; we are reading about this massive disruption that happens across the Near East. Isaiah says “Like fluttering birds, like scattered nestlings, so are the daughters of Moab at the fords of the Arnon.” Due in large part to climate change, so […]
1 Timothy 4:4-5 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. We love family heirlooms not because they are wood or steel or gold but because they are given in love and carry love within them. Your body […]
