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.
Scripture: John 2:1-11 We held a joint service with Church of the Good Shepherd Episcopal this Sunday, the congregation we rent space from. The service was held in their sanctuary and Pastor Melissa brought the message. In recognition of its 500th anniversary this week, Melissa shared some of the history of Anabaptism, and even included […]
Scripture: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Jesus’s baptism is what shows that he was not just the Son of God, but also human. His baptism is what shows his solidarity with humans. On this Sunday, Melissa encouraged us to take time to remember our own baptisms, or to consider becoming baptized if we weren’t already. Baptism in […]
Luke 6: 17-36 Our intern Emily Alexander preaches from the Gospel of Luke on the final week of Advent, as we ready ourselves to celebrate the good news of Christ’s kingdom arriving. In this passage, Jesus is trying to get his followers accustomed to a radically new kind of kingdom philosophy. He inverts the natural […]
Luke 1:46b-55 Melissa preaches in the third week of Advent on Mary’s leap of faith to obey God, immaculately conceive and eventually give birth to our savior. As an unmarried, pregnant, Jewish woman, Mary had to put her reputation, future, and life at risk given the societal and medical conditions of Israel in antiquity. Likewise, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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Phone: 919-831-2969
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