(704) 599-9810 | Worship Sundays @ 10:55 a.m.
(704) 599-9810 | Worship Sundays @ 10:55 a.m.
Sometimes we need to get lost in order to be found.
God’s love seeks us out, not when we are perfect, but especially when we wander.
Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost – Worship Service – September 14, 2025
Bulletin-09-14-2025
Gospel Lesson: Luke 15:1–10 (CEB) | Modern Lesson: Laurel C. Schneider
This Sunday, Pastor Chris preached a deeply moving sermon titled “Sometimes We Need to Get Lost.” Preaching from Luke’s parables of the lost sheep and lost coin, he challenged the idea that being “lost” should carry shame or stigma. Instead, he reminded us that wandering and questioning are part of being human—and sometimes even part of God’s design. To be lost, he said, is often the very place where transformation begins.
Pastor Chris reflected that God is never lost—we are. And yet God’s love is so fierce that it charges after us, refusing to rest until we are found. In contrast to the Pharisees’ narrow understanding of holiness, Jesus reveals a God who breaks open every boundary, goes to extraordinary lengths to seek us out, and celebrates our return with joy.
Drawing on Barbara Brown Taylor’s *Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith*, Pastor Chris invited us to see “getting lost” as a spiritual practice—a path where questions are holy, wandering is welcome, and God meets us exactly where we are. Sometimes, he said, we only discover who we truly are when we’ve stepped outside the familiar and allowed ourselves to be reshaped by grace.
With pastoral tenderness and prophetic clarity, this sermon named the good news of God’s kin-dom: there is no shame in being lost, and no limit to God’s relentless searching. In Christ, every life has worth, every person is pursued, and every journey finds its home in God’s love.
“The most radical thing we can do as Christians is tell every LGBTQ+ person: you are loved, you are wanted, you are already enough.” — Jayne Ozanne
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