In stillness and strength.

An evocative portrayal of reflection and resilience, honoring the sacred connection between spirit, earth, and ancestry of radical welcome and inclusion.

Fourth Sunday After Pentecost – Worship Service – July 06, 2025

Bulletin-07-06-2025
Hebrew Lesson: 2 Kings 5:1–14

In this deeply reflective and progressive message, Pastor Chris explored how the grace of God often appears not in the dramatic or obvious, but in the small, strange, and easily overlooked. Preaching from 2 Kings 5:1–14, he recounted the story of Naaman—a powerful military leader whose healing came only when he set aside his pride and surrendered to an unexpected path.

Pastor Chris wove together the wisdom of Howard Thurman, Barbara Brown Taylor, and contemporary liberation theology to ask: How often do we resist transformation because it doesn’t arrive on our terms? We were invited to examine the ways ego, fear, and certainty can obstruct God’s movement in our lives—and to open ourselves to the surprising places where healing begins.

This sermon reminded us that God’s kin-dom often unfolds not through spectacle, but through quiet acts of courage, vulnerability, and grace. True liberation, Pastor Chris said, begins when we stop standing in the way of our own becoming.

📖🙏 Order of Worship Highlights:

• Prelude: “Assurance” – Patrick Washburn, piano
• Call to the Heart and Prayer for Transformation led by Jeffery Edwards-Knight
• Modern Lesson: Howard Thurman
• Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 5:1–14
• Communion: All were welcomed to Christ’s table during the Mystic Supper
• Music:
  • “Here, O My Lord, I See You Face to Face”
  • “Prayer Is the Soul’s Sincere Desire”
  • “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”
  • “God of Rainbow, Fiery Pillar” (Benediction Response)
• Postlude: “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”

The kin-dom of God unfolds not in the spectacular, but in the small, the quiet, and the overlooked.
— Ada María Isasi-Díaz