Faith worship services, including the complete sermon, are recorded and archived for viewing on FACEBOOK at your convenience.

Sacred

Jesus is trying to show us that there’s nowhere we can go and nothing we can do that doesn’t at least have the possibility of being just as sacred as the oldest temple or the highest mountain. The sacred is always there, always before our senses. – John 6:35, 41-51    Rev. Christopher Chatelaine Samsen

Faith

“Perhaps faith is only faith when we refuse to try to make God do something for us, make God conform to our own image of who God is and what God does. To trust in God through Christ Jesus – better yet, to love Jesus is to love Jesus for who he is and not what we want Jesus to be. That’s not all that different from how we love other people, is it? Love is only love when it allows others to be who they truly are.” – John 6:1-21    Rev. Christopher Chatelaine Samsen

The Importance of Old Testament Stories

Your life and your story is just as much a part of the epic drama of God’s love as are King David’s stories as are the Apostle Paul’s as are anybody else’s. All that you are and all that you do, from the mundane to the spectacular, is wrapped up as part of a great cosmic story. Everything matters. You matter. Your stories matter. 2 Samuel 18:19-33    Rev. Christopher Chatelaine Samsen

Trinity

Whenever we speak about God – which is exactly what the word “theology” means – whenever we speak about God, we are called to an expansive task. We are called to think and act beyond ourselves. We are called to be curious about and embrace that which we don’t understand and may never understand, and yet try to understand anyway. We are called not to constrain but to embrace. – Romans 8:12-17     Rev. Christopher Chatelaine Samsen

Pentecost

“The community that the Holy Spirit is creating is a challenging one, and because of that a beautiful one. It requires self awareness, patience, and grace. It requires that we attend not only to ourselves and those right around us, but to the other and the stranger. It’s a recognition that we are only truly thriving when all of us are thriving.” Rev. Christopher Chatelaine Samsen 5.23.21 on Acts 2:1-21

“Do you want to be authentically you, the most “you” you can be? Then be beloved. Then love with the love that you’ve been given.”

“We rest on the assurance of a fully trustworthy God, a God revealed not in self-interest but in the interest of others. When human trust is broken, the trustworthiness of Jesus is the platform from which we make repair, the secure footing of a new and rebuilt trust.” – John 10:11-18

In everyone’s life, there is great need for an anam ċara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. – John O’Donahue

Christian Identity

“To believe in the light is to live into the lives we claim to be true. To make Christian an identity, not a nametag. To attempt to convince people of the truth of Christ with the love of our actions more than with the persuasiveness of our words. To make faith a state of living rather than a state of mind.”  Rev. Christopher Chatelaine Samsen 3.14.22 on John 3:14-21

Blessing

“The church is a tent, not a temple. It is a signpost in the world of God’s presence and love, but only a signpost. It’s meant not to be about itself but about being a blessing to the world.”  Rev. Christopher Chatelaine-Samsen 3.5.21 on John 2:13-22

Mortality

“Our mortality is the circumstance in which we receive God’s love as God provides for our every need through the whole of creation, and through the lives of the companions God has put us with. And if that’s what Lent is about, then Lent is about rediscovering our deepest joy, which is to know our need, and to receive our lives as gifts of love.”  Rev. Christopher Chatelaine-Samsen 2.22.21 on Mark 1: 9-15

Suffering

“When you give your life for the sake of the world, it means you’re not alone. You’re part of a body, a fellowship, a communion of love that is making the world, our community, our families, and our lives, into what they were meant to be.”  Rev. Christopher Chatelaine-Samsen 2.28.21 on Mark 8:31-38

Transfiguration

“The story of the transfiguration is not just some sort of theological obscurity. It’s a call to recognize that our daily, regular old lives are caught up in something bigger than ourselves. That living faithfully and with the heart of the servant actually matters, actually means something, and isn’t for nothing.”  Rev. Christopher Chatelaine-Samsen 2.15.21 on Mark 9:2-9

Healing the Sick

“Times of selfless service are when we feel most alive, doing the things that mean something bigger than ourselves.”  Rev. Christopher Chatelaine-Samsen 2.7.21 on Mark 1:29-39

New Heaven and New Earth

“What matters? What is worth your time and resources? What ways can you use your energy to create a world worth living in? How can you invest in your family, your community, and your world, so that at the end of the day you know that it was something worth giving yourself to? How can we be part of making this world God’s home?” Rev. Christopher Chatelaine-Samsen 1.31.21 on Revelation 21:1-7

Healing the Blind Man

“That’s where the action is – in the dirt and the mud and the messiness. That’s where Jesus is most at home. That’s where the transformation happens. That’s where hope springs us. That’s where all things are being made new. And that’s where Jesus is inviting us to be as well.”  Christopher Chatelaine-Samsen 1.24.21 on Mark 8:22-26