Discipling Life

This was one of those Sundays that I ended up skipping my prepared sermon outline and going in a different direction . I ran the audio recording through a transcriber to produce this manuscript of the sermon as I preached it: May 17, 2026, Seventh Sunday after Easter (Year A), at Ebenezer UMC and Black Creek UMC. This is the text of the sermon as preached at Black Creek.   Next Sunday is Pentecost. We sometimes refer to that day as the birthday of the church because that is when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the people gathered in Jerusalem at the temple for the Jewish festival of Pentecost. Part of the celebration of that festival was to commemorate the giving of the law through Moses. And so, here people were gathered to hear the preaching of the apostles, and they received the word of God through that preaching as the Holy Spirit was poured upon them. Today, this Sunday before Pentecost, we look at what took plac e just before that, when Jesus met with his disciples for for...

In this sermon titled “A New Life,” I explore how the risen Christ meets us in our most fearful and isolated spaces , just as he did with the disciples on that first Easter evening. We often find ourselves huddled behind locked doors due to psychological paralysis or the weight of a world that has fallen apart, but the miracle of the resurrection is that Christ does not wait for the air to clear before he enters the room. This message highlights the “new birth” as a radical, internal reconstruction of the soul rather than a mere behavioral “patch job,” anchoring us in a “living hope” that persists even through suffering. Grounded in the Wesleyan truth of prevenient grace , we see that God always moves first, taking the initiative to breathe his Spirit into our wreckage and transform us into a forgiven community. Ultimately, I want to emphasize that this new life is not about the exhaustion of trying harder, but about trusting in the divine promise of the one who has already conquer...

This is a manuscript of the sermon I preached on March 15, 2026 (Fourth Sunday of Lent) at Ebenezer and Black Creek. The scripture lessons for this are: 1 Samuel 16:1–13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8–14, and John 9:1–41 . As we move deeper into the season of Lent, the focus shifts from the internal discipline of the wilderness toward a profound revelation of the character of Christ. This sermon weaves together the anointing of David, the guidance of the Good Shepherd, Paul’s call to live as children of light, and the healing of the man born blind. We see how God’s vision redefines our own reality and our own way of seeing God, ourselves, and others. The intent is to move the listener from a surface-level perception of the world toward an “anointed” vision that recognizes the image of God in all people, particularly those whom society—and our own prejudices—would prefer to overlook. Introduction: The 40-Day Journey Toward Clarity I was talking to someone recently during an Emmaus weekend, ...

Have you ever been asked to do something that made absolutely no sense to you? How did you respond? This dynamic is perhaps best illustrated in the simple, often frustrating exchange between a parent and a child. A parent asks a child to do something, and the child inevitably asks, “Why?” The parental response is frequently a firm, “Because I said so.” Let’s try this again: Have you ever been asked to do something that made absolutely no sense to you — but you did it anyway because you trusted the person who asked?  Trust is the necessary bridge that spans the distance where our understanding ends. This is faith. As we navigate the Lenten journey, we rely on a trust-based faith. While our logic demands a destination before a departure, spiritual reality often requires the departure before the destination is even revealed. This is seen in the call of a man named Abram. To understand the weight of Abram’s call, we must first look at what he was leaving behind. Archaeology tells us ...

 Sermon preached 2/22/2026 - Lent 1a - EUMC & BCUMC by Alan Swartz 1. Introduction: The Call to the Wilderness We begin our Lenten journey not in the dust of the desert, but in the lush abundance of a garden. It is a common misconception to view Lent merely as a season of arbitrary deprivation. In truth, Lent is a strategic “journey into the wilderness” designed for the restoration of the soul. To understand our need for this season, we must look back at the paradise of provision in the Garden of Eden. There, humanity was entrusted with the dignified vocation of serving and guarding that defined the first human work as priestly stewardship. Adam and Eve were not merely gardeners; they were the first liturgists, tending to the world as a sanctuary of God’s presence. However, we must reckon with the gravity of the fracture that occurred in that original sanctuary. This Lenten journey is a rescue mission because the death warned of in Genesis was not merely the stopping of ...