Isaiah 58:6-12                                                                                         “Repairer of the Breach” This is one of those weeks when I was thinking I needed to have three sermons ready to go – one for if either presidential candidate won, and a third if we still did not have a clear winner.  Obviously I was not going to write a sermon completely removed […]

Matthew 22:15-22                                   “The Kingdom of Heaven is Like a Shared Armrest” In my previous ministry before starting here at 1st Congregational, I spent much of my time traveling around the country working for the health and human service organizations affiliated with the United Church of Christ.  I spent a lot of time on airplanes, […]

Matthew 21:33-46                                                                          “Our Vineyard” In April of this year, National Geographic published a “flip” issue of their magazine — basically, two issues in one — to explore two starkly different futures for our planet.  One half of the magazine presented the worst case scenario: what Planet Earth will look like in fifty years if we do nothing substantive about […]

Matthew 21:23-32                                                                                                “Good Trouble” Jesus was unafraid to speak truth to power.  And in the city of Jerusalem, he seemed to be determined to create, what Rep. John Lewis might call, ‘Good Trouble.’  We are entering into a series of Gospel lessons that take place after Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem – essentially, these […]

Matthew 20:1-16                                                                       “God’s Economics” Jesus has an irritating habit of taking the systems of the world and smashing them to bits.  In the parable we just heard, indeed in nearly every parable that Jesus teaches, we are left trying to reconcile how we understand the world with the world that Jesus is pointing us […]

Working together, we have forever changed the lives of over one thousand people by purchasing and forgiving medical debt across MN and WI! Share the below video and spread the good news. And below, look at the raw numbers and marvel at what we have accomplished!

Psalm 26                                                                                                                     “Six Months” Today we are marking another anniversary in this strange year.  This week marks six months since we last gathered together as a worshipping community.  Six months of trying to figure out online worship, me struggling with earbuds and the sanctuary Wi-Fi.  Six months of Zoom calls, which have gone well […]