Apr 23

Resurrection Leads Us Into the Prisons of This World

Easter is not just a season of lilies and alleluias. It is a vocation—a way of living that follows the Risen Christ into the places where people are still bound. Acts 16 reminds us that resurrection hope does not float above the world’s pain; it walks straight into it.

Paul and Silas do not set out looking for trouble. They simply follow the Spirit. And the Spirit leads them to a young enslaved girl whose life has been reduced to profit for others. Her liberation costs them their freedom. Their faithfulness lands them in a prison cell, feet in chains, backs still bleeding. Yet even there, they sing. Their praise shakes the foundations.

Resurrection does that. It unsettles what is unjust. It exposes the chains we have learned to ignore. It calls us to stand with those who are exploited, silenced, or afraid—even when it is costly, even when it leads us into the world’s locked rooms.

And then something holy happens. The jailer—the very one tasked with keeping them confined—discovers his own freedom. The prisoners stay. Compassion rises. Wounds are washed. A household awakens to joy.

This is the vocation of resurrection:
to enter the prisons of suffering with courage,
to sing hope in the dark,
to stand with the bound until all are free,
and to trust that God is still shaking foundations.

Christ is risen—and so we rise, too, into the work of liberation.

Let us listen to the voice of the Resurrected Christ!

Pastor Greg

Apr 07

Two Conversions for an Open and Affirming Church

Acts 9 tells the dramatic story of Saul’s conversion, but tucked inside it is a second, quieter transformation—one just as essential for an Open and Affirming church.

Saul’s conversion is obvious. He is stopped in his tracks, confronted by the Christ he has been persecuting, and led into a new way of seeing. His blindness becomes a doorway into humility, vulnerability, and change. Saul reminds us that God can upend even our most certain convictions and lead us toward a wider, more generous truth.

But Ananias undergoes a conversion too. When God sends him to welcome Saul, he resists—naming the harm Saul has done. Still, he goes. He lays hands on the man he fears and calls him “Brother.” Ananias models the courage every ONA church needs: the willingness to trust that God is already at work in those we misunderstand, fear, or have been taught to exclude.

An Open and Affirming church lives at the intersection of these two conversions—Saul’s openness to being changed, and Ananias’s openness to welcoming the one who is changing. Together they form the heart of our calling: to be transformed, and to be transforming, in love.

Pastor Greg

Mar 31

Go as People of the Morning

Easter Newsletter Reflection

Easter always begins in the dark. John tells us that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb “while it was still early, while it was still dark.” She carried grief, confusion, and the heavy weight of everything that felt unfinished. Most of us know that kind of darkness—moments when hope feels thin and the future uncertain.

But Easter is God’s quiet insistence that darkness is never the final word.

In the half-light of morning, Mary hears her name spoken by the risen Christ. And suddenly the world tilts. Tears become recognition. Grief becomes purpose. The garden becomes a place of commissioning. “Go to my brothers,” Jesus says. Go. Carry the news. Carry the hope. Carry the dawn.

To be Easter people is to live as people of the morning—those who step into the world with the light of resurrection still fresh on our faces. Morning people don’t deny the night; they simply refuse to believe it is permanent. They look for signs of life where others see only endings. They practice mercy in a world accustomed to judgment. They speak peace into places shaped by fear. They choose courage when cynicism feels easier.

This Easter, may we go as people of the morning.
People who rise.
People who hope.
People who carry good news into weary places.

Christ is alive, and because of that, the world is already turning toward light. Let’s step into that light together—one act of compassion, one word of courage, one morning at a time.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Have a blessed Easter!

Pastor Greg

Mar 26

Palm Sunday: From Triumph to Surrender

John 12:12–27 and Psalm 118:19–29

Palm Sunday invites us into one of the most dramatic turns in the Gospel story. Crowds gather with palm branches, shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord—the King of Israel!” as Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey. It is a moment filled with excitement, hope, and the expectation of triumph.

But Jesus knows that triumph is not the end of the journey. As the cheers fade, he speaks of a grain of wheat that must fall into the earth and die in order to bear fruit. He admits that his soul is troubled, yet he chooses to walk forward in faithful surrender, saying, “It is for this reason that I have come to this hour”

Psalm 118 helps us understand this holy reversal. The psalmist proclaims that “the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” and that this surprising work is “the Lord’s doing”. God builds life not on the stones the world celebrates, but on the ones it overlooks.

Palm Sunday reminds us that God’s way is not the way of force or spectacle, but the way of humble love. It invites us to consider where we may be clinging to our own versions of triumph—control, certainty, or comfort—and where Christ may be calling us instead to the deeper freedom of surrender.

As we enter Holy Week, may we walk with Jesus from triumph to surrender, trusting that what falls into the earth in us can, by God’s grace, bear much fruit.

Pastor Greg