The Ultimate Christmas Tree (December 24, 2025)

This week’s sermon:

Christmas has a way of feeling like a destination—the carols, the decorations, the nativity—as though the manger is where everything finally arrives. John 1 won’t let it stay there: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and the question John presses is what exactly that birth was launching toward and what it means for us now.

God Didn't Wear a Costume (December 21, 2025)

Sunday night’s message:

We all reach for something we can actually recognize and hold on to—some concrete person or presence we can truly know, not just a philosophy about. That hunger is exactly what John 1 puts its finger on: the Word who was with God in the beginning became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.

Jesus, Decorate Me (December 14, 2025)

Sunday night’s message:

We tend to skip the genealogy at the start of Matthew—all those names, so many of them people we know nothing about. In doing so we miss something that matters deeply to ordinary people like us who wonder whether God actually works through lives like theirs.

The Grace Blizzard Has Come (December 7, 2025)

This week’s sermon:

When a winter forecast keeps bouncing around, most of us know better than to cancel everything over what might never arrive. Luke opens his Gospel with the opposite claim: this is no chance of grace next week, but the report of what has already been fulfilled among us—Jesus actually coming in history.

Not an Offensive Rebrand, But A Revealing (August 25, 2025)

This week’s Steadfast:

The Pharisees had a preconceived notion about God that was unyielding and prevented them from understanding the fuller unveiling before them. We too can struggle as God calls us to greater conformity to His Will.

The Joys of Christmas

Celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas

Does joy end when the clock strikes midnight, closing out Christmas Day? Tim Butler’s new twelve days of Christmas devotional booklet the Joys of Christmas, which is our Christmas gift to you, invites us to embark on a journey to “store up” Christmas joy well beyond December 25. Following the Medieval meditative list known as the Joys of Mary, often encountered through the carol of the same name, we will explore a total of thirteen “joys” that all of us can experience from the life of Jesus. The following is an excerpt and you can download the rest for free in PDF form. A Kindle or print copy is also available inexpensively on Amazon.

Don't Write That Resignation Letter (December 24, 2024)

Sunday night’s message:

We’ve all wanted to write that resignation letter—to let the world know the hurt isn’t our fault. Joseph faces that exact urge in Matthew 1, betrayed and confused after he finds out Mary, the woman he is betrothed to, is pregnant — forced to choose between saying his peace and keeping it.

When God Derails Your Plans (December 22, 2024)

This week’s sermon:

Plans go awry all the time, and in the moment it feels terrible whether the fault is human weakness or God himself saying no to what we wanted. That’s exactly where Mary finds herself in Luke 1 when Gabriel’s greeting turns her ordinary day—and her entire future—upside down.

Jesus Came to Break the Glass (December 13, 2024)

Sunday night’s message:

Maybe you’ve had a Christmas where the lights and the music were all there, but it felt like you were watching from the other side of a piece of glass—present for the season, yet not really in it. Isaiah 53 describes a Savior understands how we feel on that other side of the glass and came to break it.

Check the Postmark (December 24, 2023)

This week’s sermon:

You open what looks like a personal Christmas card and it’s just a pitch for insurance. There’s always the something being snuck by us, isn’t there? Jesus faced that same suspicion — how can we know He is really who He says He is?