On Sunday, January 30th, we will be meeting entirely online, using Zoom (same time: 9:30am). Here is the link for Sunday: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85627759920 We’ve made this decision based on four factors: Our local health care system is severely strained, and positivity rates are at an all-time high. A growing number of people in our own community […]
We have decided to not gather on Sunday, December 26th, but instead use that time in other ways that might connect us to God’s love and each other. We have a beautiful digital liturgy we can share with you (created by Sanctified Art). To get a digital copy, simply email chris@thebranchonline.org. This liturgy could be […]
Our tradition of gathering on Christmas Eve continues this year in person and online. Join us at our building (973 28th St. SE) or on our Facebook page at 5pm. Our hour long gathering will include music, singing, a retelling of the Christmas story and we will end by lighting candles together. All ages are […]
Our first week in Advent did not include a typical sermon, but a mixture of music, prayer and reflection. There were two main sections of reflection, both introduced by Chris. The first one set up the series, inviting us to consider what the idea of “home” might mean to us and how we might be […]
Our homes are regularly a part of our holiday traditions. But home is more than just an address or a physical structure. To each of us, ‘home’ carries a multitude of meanings, memories and emotions. And in its broadest sense, home is more than the place we live and all it entails. Home could be […]
Our final week of the series invites us to interrogate what vision we have built our lives on. We close by focusing on something as simple and stunning as a flower to help us remember who we are and what we are invited to do.
What does it mean to be blessed? And how do we experiencing the blessing Christ talks about? By accumulating power? Putting on a good face? By protecting our interest? What if openness, humility and vulnerability were the door through which we experience a blessed life? To see the google doc we created together in worship, […]
Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with three passages that carry a similar theme: a life of faith, life in the Kingdom, is more than just lip service or idle listening. We are called to bear fruit. Which perhaps begs a question: how? How does one bear fruit? Together we consider some ideas and […]
Presence, Not Performance Matthew 6:1-18 (The Message) In the second week of this series we consider the temptation to turn faith into a performance. We can so easily try to leverage gifts like prayer and generosity for our own benefit — to gain the attention of others or the approval of God. Jesus is clear: […]
The last two years have turned the world upside down. And while in many ways this disruption has been hard and painful and disorienting, disruption can also create opportunity for us to see things in a new way. And yet, there is a longing right now to just ‘get back to normal’. To somehow return […]
Our final week looks at a core value that pushes against one of the strongest currents in modern day life.
Good news: this week’s podcast is nice and short. Bad news: it’s nice and short because only the first half got recorded. Back to the good news: the 2nd half was really just us giving time for people to reflect on Romans 16:1-15, write their thoughts in a google doc (which you can find here) […]
Week three brings us to the core value of simplicity. Yes, the world is in need of renewal; and yet, God does not intend for us to burn out as we try to be everything to everyone. Instead, we must choose simplicity. We must discern what is ours to do and not to do. Here […]
Week 2 of our series on our core values takes us through the value of incarnation. We consider what it means to be incarnational and what we might do to embody the presence of Christ in our everyday lives.
Our first week in a series on our core values takes a look at Liberty — a commitment we have made to practice humility, proximity and curiosity when we encounter those who we disagree with, dislike or are different from. Here’s the google doc we created together.
Our final Sunday in our series. Together, we look back at the series as a whole, and consider three themes we see in the collective of characters.
After a year and a half of upheaval and change, we are circling back to the core values we have committed to as a community. Not only do these values help us describe how we will move through the world, but they also paint a picture of the kind of life we believe Jesus lived. […]
This week, instead of focusing on one or two biblical characters, we’re looking at 28. Most of these folks, from Romans 16, are never mentioned again in the biblical text, and yet this passage (Romans 16:1-16) helps to remind us of how God calls us to live, and how that might differ from the current […]
Guest preacher Deborah McCreary invites us to consider what Shiphra and Puah’s story may have to say to us today.
Elliot leads us through the extremely short, and often overlooked book of Philemon – inviting us to ask what Onesimus, Philemon and Paul may have to teach us about our vocation.
