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Raleigh Mennonite Church

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.

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The Power of Starting Over – Dec. 8, 2024

December 8, 2024

Melissa F-B preaches advent week 2

Luke 3: 7-18 The second week of advent Melissa preaches on John the Baptist from the Gospel of Luke, who is paving the way for the coming of Christ. His message is fiery, convicting, and demands dramatic change of those who would desire to answer God’s call. However, Melissa reminds us that John’s call is […]

The Power of Starting Over – Dec. 8, 2024

Tagged With: baptism, chaff, Gospel of Luke, John the Baptist, Melissa Florer-Bixler, repentance

What To Do With Worry – Dec. 1, 2024

December 2, 2024

Luke 21: 25-36 What do you do when the stress, cares, and bad headlines of this world weigh you down and threaten to choke out the life-giving good news of the Gospel? As Advent begins, Melissa Florer-Bixler looks to this week’s passage in the Gospel of Luke for inspiration. Jesus had just finished informing his […]

What To Do With Worry – Dec. 1, 2024

Tagged With: fig tree, Gospel of Luke, Melissa Florer-Bixler, Parable, worry

Imagining a different future – Nov. 24, 2024

November 24, 2024

Scripture: John 18:33-37 and Ruth 3 Ruth forged a future where there wasn’t one. Her mother-in-law Naomi only sees a life of constriction, defined and closed. She sees no options, no future. Ruth, on the other hand, is a future-oriented person. She consistently speaks in the future tense. While she might have told Naomi, “I […]

Imagining a different future – Nov. 24, 2024

Tagged With: Gospel of John, Melissa Florer-Bixler, Ruth

What we need is here – Nov. 17, 2024

November 18, 2024

Melissa preaching on Nov. 17, 2024, holding her hands out a bit, looking to her right, while standing in front of a purple and yellow star-shaped quilted wall hanging.

Scripture: Ruth 2 In the book of Ruth two of the thousands of nameless poor people of those times take center stage. The story is not about powerful men carrying out great works. Ruth and Naomi live in the time of political chaos. Sound a little familiar? This short story–just four chapters–traces God’s intricate work […]

What we need is here – Nov. 17, 2024

Tagged With: faithfulness, love, Melissa Florer-Bixler, Ruth, Wendell Berry

What do we do now? – Nov. 10, 2024

November 10, 2024

Melissa preaching in front of a ribbon banner.

Scripture: Ruth 1:15-18 What do we do when we are shocked, overwhelmed and devastated? When our hands feel empty and the troubles to come feel so massive? What do we do now? The petty dictators of this world, however severe their terrors, they do not change who God is and how God’s word in Jesus […]

What do we do now? – Nov. 10, 2024

Tagged With: anxiety, fear, frustration, Melissa Florer-Bixler, Ruth

God is with us! – Nov. 3, 2024

November 4, 2024

Susan holding out a hand while preaching in front of a purple star-shaped quilt on Nov. 3, 2024

Isaiah 43:1-7, Hebrews 11:32-12:3 In just two days we have a national election. It’s something that has many of us anxious and concerned. The two texts for today are both addressed to people in anxious circumstances. Even with all of the anxiety of the situation in the first passage, the summation of the Isaiah’s prophecy […]

God is with us! – Nov. 3, 2024

Tagged With: anxiety, election, Hebrews, Isaiah, Susan Scott

A Hope Big Enough For Everyone – Oct 20, 2024

October 21, 2024

Melissa F-B preaches at RMC

Isaiah 40: 1-8 This Sunday Melissa Florer-Bixler continued to move further into the words of the prophet Isaiah, when the Persian king Cyrus allowed God’s people to return to Israel, ushering in a time of comfort and hope. The prophet spoke of a highway being built from through hostile land between Babylon and Jerusalem, and […]

A Hope Big Enough For Everyone – Oct 20, 2024

Tagged With: aesthetics, Cyrus, hope, Isaiah, Melissa Florer-Bixler

We Are A People Who Remember – Oct.13, 2024

October 14, 2024

Melissa Florer Bixler preaches at RMC

Isaiah 46: 1-13 Melissa Florer-Bixler invites us to consider the question, “why do we come to church every Sunday?” as she preaches on Isaiah’s message about idols. Isaiah mocks the idols of Israel’s former conquerors, now laid low and unable to even help themselves from falling over. In last week’s sermon, Melissa stated that we […]

We Are A People Who Remember – Oct.13, 2024

Tagged With: hope, idols, Isaiah, Melissa Florer-Bixler

What We Choose to Love We Become Oct. 6, 2024

October 7, 2024

Melissa preaches at RMC

Isaiah 11: 1-9 Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on Isaiah’s vision of the lion laying down with the lamb and reminds us, rather appropriately on World Communion Sunday, to consider more deeply in that context how we address the multitude of intractable conflicts occurring throughout the world. Naturally, we cannot rely on willpower alone to overcome the […]

What We Choose to Love We Become Oct. 6, 2024

Tagged With: conflict, Isaiah, Melissa Florer-Bixler, peace, Wild Robot

A Politics of Hope – Sept. 22, 2024

September 22, 2024

Melissa Florer-Bixler A Politics of Hope

Isaiah 9: 1-7 Merry Christmas everyone! We know it’s only September, but Raleigh Mennonite Church took a moment this Sunday to sing Christmas carols and reflect on the birth of Christ during a season far less busy and distracting than the end of December. Melissa Florer-Bixler’s sermon reminds us to take time and examine the […]

A Politics of Hope – Sept. 22, 2024

Tagged With: Christmas, hope, Isaiah, Melissa Florer-Bixler, Nicaragua, Politics

An Impossible Pocket of Peace & Hope – Sept. 15, 2024

September 15, 2024

Melissa preaching at RMC on Sept. 15, with her hands tapping her chest, in front of a colorful purple and yellow star-shaped quilt.

Scriptures: Isaiah 2:1-11, Matthew 5:1-12 Melissa continues her sermon series, Hope in a Time of Fear, focusing on the book of Isaiah. As we’re drawing closer to the election, what does hope look like for followers of Jesus? The people who heard Jesus’ sermon on the mount may have been thinking about Isaiah’s words when […]

An Impossible Pocket of Peace & Hope – Sept. 15, 2024

Tagged With: Beatitudes, Gospel of Matthew, hope, Hope in a Time of Fear, Isaiah, Melissa Florer-Bixler, peace, Sermon on the Mount

Hope: The mandate for our community – Sept. 1, 2024

September 1, 2024

Melissa, in a white shirt, preaching in front of a quilt wall hanging.

Scripture: Isaiah 1:1-3, 11-20 Our world is not well. Our politics are not well. Our land and our oceans and our air is not well. We may be anxious. About the future, about elections, about what comes next for you and your family. So this series based on Isaiah will spend time with people who […]

Hope: The mandate for our community – Sept. 1, 2024

Tagged With: hope, Hope in a Time of Fear, Isaiah, Melissa Florer-Bixler

Jesus is the Bread of Life – Aug. 25, 2024

August 25, 2024

Jude, Melissa and Wick behind a podium with Melissa reading a prayer.

In this last of Melissa’s three-part series on Jesus’ teaching on bread, the scripture was from John 6:56-59. As we eat this bread, this Jesus, we see God’s life growing and healing us. We become a people; a people that believe that we love our neighbors as ourselves. We become a people who refuse to […]

Jesus is the Bread of Life – Aug. 25, 2024

Tagged With: baptism, bread of life, Gospel of John, Melissa Florer-Bixler

Chewing up Jesus – Aug. 18, 2024

August 18, 2024

Melissa preaching in front of a banner of ribbons on Aug. 18, 2024

Melissa continues her three-part series on Jesus’ discourse about bread. The bread of life, as Jesus talks about it in John 6:51-58, isn’t a pill you swallow or compass giving directions. It’s a feast that you get into. It’s messy and visceral and fleshy. Jesus wants to get into our lives and become a part of […]

Chewing up Jesus – Aug. 18, 2024

Tagged With: abundance, bread, bread of life, Gospel of John, hunger, meal, Melissa Florer-Bixler

God’s Persistent Care for Creatures – Aug 11, 2024

August 11, 2024

Melissa, holding her hands out, preaching on Aug. 11, 2024 in front of a banner of colorful ribbons.

Scripture: Exodus 16:4-8, 13-21 and John 6:35, 41-51 We, along with all the creatures of the world, are invited to be the fullness of our created being. The passages from Exodus and John tell a story of trust, a dependence on God. Jesus also reminds people about all of the non-human creatures who depend on […]

God’s Persistent Care for Creatures – Aug 11, 2024

Tagged With: bread, Creation care, Exodus, Gospel of John, manna, Melissa Florer-Bixler

Where Is God In Our Stories? – July 28, 2024

July 28, 2024

Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on David and Bathsheba

2 Samuel 11: 1-5 Melissa Florer-Bixler’s invites us to consider King David’s abuse of power over Bathsheba, which mirrors abuses of positions of authority we now see in churches, businesses, and other institutions, especially since the beginning of the #MeToo era. The triumphant king in last week’s sermon that danced with joy before God and […]

Where Is God In Our Stories? – July 28, 2024

Tagged With: 2 Samuel, abuse of power, Bathsheba, King David, Melissa Florer-Bixler

Between Our Faith and the Valley of Shadows – July 21, 2024

July 24, 2024

Psalm 23, Jeremiah 23: 1-6 What does it mean to wrestle with our faith when the word calls us not be afraid or reassures us of God’s imminent just resolution to injustice? In their first sermon at RMC, intern Katie Magnum explores the connections between Psalm 23 and Jeremiah 23, which are vastly different in […]

Between Our Faith and the Valley of Shadows – July 21, 2024

Tagged With: faith, Jeremiah, Katie Mangum, Psalm 23, wrestling

It’s Not More Truthful To Be Serious – July 14, 2024

July 14, 2024

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 What does David dancing with abandon, Jesus’ life and suffering, a famous New York City gay nightclub, the subversion of toxic masculinity in modern Christianity, and the role that joy plays in the spiritual life of the church and the knowledge of God’s character all have in common? Melissa Florer-Bixler ties […]

It’s Not More Truthful To Be Serious – July 14, 2024

Tagged With: 2 Samuel, dancing, David, Jesus, LGBTQ+, masculinity, Melissa Florer-Bixler

The faith to be made well – June 30, 2024

June 30, 2024

Susan listening to Hans speak at RMC on June 30, 2024. They're in front of a banner with ribbons.

Susan and Hans provided a sermon dialogue based on the passage from Mark 5:21-43 of the woman with the hemorrhage and Jairus, a chief rabbi in the synagogue, whose daughter was deathly ill. They portrayed these two characters who met Jesus, allowing us to picture ourselves in the story. Through this imaginative retelling, we can […]

The faith to be made well – June 30, 2024

Tagged With: faith, Gospel of Mark, Hans Linnartz, healing, Susan Scott

No easy answers – June 23, 2024

June 23, 2024

Susan holding up her hands with "air quotes" while preaching on June 23, 2024

Susan Scott brought the message this morning from the book of Job. The story of Job is a literary construct. It’s about faithfulness in adversity and raises a lot of questions, with no easy answers. Suffering often prompts a crisis of faith. It’s okay to be angry at God; God can take it. Ultimately, God’s […]

No easy answers – June 23, 2024

Tagged With: job, Susan Scott

The Mystery of God’s Kingdom – June 16, 2024

June 16, 2024

Melissa preaching in front of a banner of ribbons on June 16, 2024

Scripture: Mark 4:26-34 In this Sunday’s message, Melissa wove together the parables of the sower scattering seed and of the mustard seed growing with the tremendously destructive dispensationalist theology made popular by Hal Lindsey. Dispensationalism is a reading of scripture that is the basis of Christian Zionism, a violent anti-Semitic, literalist misuse of scripture. It […]

The Mystery of God’s Kingdom – June 16, 2024

Tagged With: Christian Zionism, dispensationalism, Gospel of Mark, love, Melissa Florer-Bixler, mustard seed, seeds

I’m not sure about that… Sex and Grace – June 9, 2024

June 9, 2024

Matthew 19:1-12 and John 1:14-16 Melissa wraps up the series about questions the congregation has asked this Sunday, focusing on the question of sex, and intertwines it with the need for grace. Just before his conversion to Christianity the saint and theologian of the church, Augustine of Hippo, is in a garden and he prays […]

I’m not sure about that… Sex and Grace – June 9, 2024

Tagged With: Gospel of John, Gospel of Matthew, grace, I'm not sure about that..., Melissa Florer-Bixler, sex

What Does it Mean to Live Out Peace? – May 26, 2024

May 29, 2024

Isaac Villegas preaches at RMC

Jeremiah 29: 1-9 Isaac Villegas guest preaches in our ongoing sermon series “I’m not so sure about that” on the topic of pacifism. Isaac explores the concept of peace through the lens of prisons. Using the above passage in Jeremiah, Isaac compares the exile of jews in Babylon to the exile that takes place within […]

What Does it Mean to Live Out Peace? – May 26, 2024

Tagged With: I'm not sure about that..., Isaac Villegas, Jeremiah, pacifism, prison, women's prison

Beyond Knowing the Words – May 19, 2024

May 21, 2024

Acts 2: 1-21This Pentecost Sunday Melissa Florer-Bixler preached on the connection between the enormous changes that have recently taken place in our church life and membership, and the changes that took place with the fledgling Church on the day of Pentecost. The crowd didn’t just hear a translation of God’s message, they heard it in […]

Beyond Knowing the Words – May 19, 2024

Tagged With: Acts, Melissa Florer-Bixler, Pentecost, RMC

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Raleigh, NC 27603

Phone: 919-831-2969

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