St. Paul's Church - Willington, Ct

This week we considered why the healing of a centurion's servant is more significant than we probably realize. We also considered why Jesus responded to the centurion's faith by saying that "the subjects of the kingdom will be cast out in to the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

This Sunday we started a new series on Jesus's healing miracles, beginning with the account of Jesus healing a leper. We considered why Jesus's choice to touch the leper is such a "wow!" moment. (NOTE: due to a technical glitch on Sunday, the first two minutes of this sermon were re-rerecorded later).

On this Sunday, New Year's Day 2023, we had a reflection service. Pastor Ryan used 4 Scripture passages to pose 5 reflection questions to help us start 2023 off well.

At our Christmas Eve service, we considered how gifts can serve as a representation of the meaning of Christmas.

How the lights that surround us this time of year can remind us of wondrous truths revealed in the prologue to John's gospel.

Three ideas that can make your Christmas tree more meaningful.

We began our December series, "Seasonal Signs" today, where we're considering how the things we experience this time of year can point beyond themselves to the Gospel. This week's seasonal sign: Waiting.

This Sunday we continued our annual "Thanksgiving Sunday" tradition of hearing stories from people in our congregation about how God has worked in their lives. Thank you Ron, Aerie, and Vicki!

This week we concluded our Apostle's Creed series by examining the remaining lines: I believe in... "the holy catholic church and the communion of saints" and "the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." Why do we confess belief in the "catholic" church if we are non-denominational? What does it mean to say that we believe in "the communion of the saints"? Why do we confess belief in resurrection TWICE in the creed? We addressed these questions and more.

What does it mean for the Church to confess that "we believe in the forgiveness of sins?" To help us understand what it looks like to live out this confession, St. Paul's member Dean Collins shared a powerful story from his own life.

This week we looked at the line in the creed that is most likely to make us nervous: "He will come again to judge." How can we be ready for this day?

This week: "I believe in the Holy Spirit." Why is it important to confess believe in three divine persons? What did Jesus teach about the Holy Spirit? Why did Jesus compare the Spirit to "water"? We explored these questions and more.

This week we continued our journey through the Apostle's Creed with: "On the third day he rose again, he ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father." We considered questions like: On a scale from 1-10, how important is the resurrection to Christian faith? How do we come to believe that Jesus is the risen Lord? What does it mean that Jesus "ascended"?

This Sunday we looked at one of the lesser known (and understood) lines in the Creed: He descended to the dead. The previous line already said that "Jesus died," so why do we also say "he descended to the dead"? We considered the significance of Jesus *DESCENDING* to *THE* dead, and why this confession can help free us from fear.

This week we continued the Apostle's Creed's confessions about Jesus. We considered why the "foolishness" of calling a crucified man "Lord" is actually wisdom.

Today we continued our series on the Apostle's Creed with a line that proclaims a mystery at the heart of our faith: that Jesus was both fully God, and fully human. We considered how to respond to the main objections about the virgin birth, what it means for Jesus to be fully God and fully human, and why it matters.

This week we resumed our series on the Apostle's Creed with the first line about Jesus. The creed begins by confessing three things about him: he is (1) Christ, (2) God's only son, and (3) Lord. We considered how each one of these terms tells us something important about what Christians believe about Jesus.

This week we were joined by guest speaker Fritz Maurer from Regeneration Therapy. Fritz helped us to reflect on Jesus' "first and second greatest commandments." We considered the relationship between loving God, loving others, and loving ourselves.

This week we took a break from our Apostle’s Creed series and learned about the importance of having an inner circle of people that reflect the values that are important to Jesus, and that we want to see in ourselves.

We continued our series on the Apostle's Creed this week with the next line: I believe in God...creator of heaven and earth. What is meant by "heaven and earth"? What does it mean to call God "creator"? Most of us have an intuition that there is a Creator, but what if we've come to doubt that intuition? We considered some reasons to embrace what we tend to know in our bones: that the world is not an accident.