Trinity Heights Church Podcast: Recent Episodes
Trinity Heights Church
Trinity Heights is a church in Morningside Heights, NYC, thoughtfully exploring how the Christian narrative centered on the person of Jesus can be compelling for life today.
In some ways it’s strange that we class books like Job, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs as 'wisdom literature'. When you read them, you will notice that they are all doing very different things, they are almost nothing alike. Moreover, they were written at very different times, often centuries apart.
But if you keep reading, it's almost as if these books respond to each other, as if one book says something and then the other book says something back. So perhaps the people who gathered these books together and those who classified these books as wisdom literature, imagined these books in conversation with each other. In this series, we're going to listen in on this conversation that took place in the ancient past and which spanned several centuries as we let each speaker take their turn.
This week, we reflect on what it means to be made in the image of God—as told in Genesis 1. Rather than treating imago Dei as a theological abstraction, Eric invites us to consider the deeply relational, grounded, and human dimensions of bearing God's likeness. To be made in God's image is to live with dignity, creativity, vulnerability, and connection.
Through stories, scripture, and honest reflection, the sermon challenges the cultural pressures that distort our sense of identity—urging us to resist performance, perfectionism, and isolation. Instead, we’re reminded that our truest selves are already enough. This is a message of grace and presence: an invitation to live fully human, fully seen, and fully loved.
Easter 2025 - This Sunday Stephen delves into Genesis 1:2, exploring how God's Spirit hovers over the "formless and void"—the Hebrew tohu vavohu. The message acknowledges how many people today feel formless, empty, or overwhelmed by chaos. Drawing connections between ancient scripture and modern experience, this sermon offers a tender invitation to imagine God’s Spirit not as distant, but as hovering close—even over the mess, uncertainty, and sorrow of our lives.
Rather than rushing to fix or fill the void, what if we embraced the God who lingers in the silence and stays present through the unformed places of our souls? What would life look like if we learned to trust that God begins His creative work precisely where things feel most uncertain? Stephen gives a gentle call to patience, vulnerability, and the radical hope that even in chaos, new life is being shaped.
Moving beyond debates about literalism or science, this week we focus on Genesis 1 as a poetic and theological proclamation—a “song” about God’s nature, creativity, and intent for the world. Eric unpacks how Genesis offers a hopeful alternative to the violent origin myths of the ancient world, presenting a God who creates through presence and peace, not chaos or conquest.
Rooted in both scripture and personal reflection, the sermon calls listeners to live as “Sabbath people”—those who embody God's image by practicing presence, community, and rest. Through meditations on love, vulnerability, and the invitation to resist consumer-driven rhythms, the message becomes both a reinterpretation of a sacred text and a practical call to wholeness in everyday life. This is not just a story about the beginning of the world—it’s an invitation to reimagine our place in it.
In this first monthly service of 2025, we take a moment to revisit and reaffirm the identity of Trinity Heights Church. What does it really mean to be "a community of Christians and skeptics exploring the Christian narrative together"? Is such a community even possible?
Drawing from personal stories, conversations with skeptics and believers alike, and an exploration of Acts 17, we consider the challenges and opportunities of fostering a space where faith and doubt meet. How does Paul’s engagement with the Athenians shape our understanding of evangelism today?
And how might we begin to view ourselves less as bringing God to others and more as working to collaborate with God wherever he might be already working - both in people’s lives and in the world around us?
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
Join Stephen and Eric in the first of many Mezzanine Conversations to come!
Today Stephen and Eric discuss the Lost Art of Conversation and how too often Christians and Skeptics alike are not taught how to have good conversations with each other.
They talk about the "God-like claims" that we often make that determine how we approach discourse with each other.
They also offer some helpful insights on how to have better conversation and how the community at Trinity Heights is practicing this.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
The story of original sin is monotonous and boring, while also being deeply tragic. The same injustices, abuses, inequalities, violences and oppressions perpetrated by a fractured humanity year after year, generation after generation.
And so what hope is there? What hope do any of us have? Well, to return to the words of John the Baptist, as he announces Jesus, "Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
The birth of Jesus and the whole Jesus project - his life, death, and resurrection - has always been about the reordering of things on a cosmic level.
Jesus showing up in the midst of our broken reality was always meant to be understood as a universe-sized intervention, a bottom-up reordering, a putting to rights of all that's gone wrong in our reality.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
One of our mantras at Trinity Heights is "there is no idea or identity that I possess that is more important than me loving the person in front of me."
One of my atheist friends recently, in another conversation with me, was saying that this has become for him sort of like a litmus test.
I like that. And maybe we can use this as a litmus test as well.
Is there some idea that you've got that you actually would say, "this is more important than loving you in front of me."
Because when that happens, if there's some idea that is actually making it hard for me to love and care for and make a person feel loved and cared for in front of me, then that idea has grown to monstrous proportions and it needs to be put in its place.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
There is a certain kind of rigid certainty exists within the church and the broader culture today. We live in one of the most diverse societies, constantly bumping up against different people, beliefs, and views. And so we're constantly confronted with certain levels of discomfort and cognitive dissonance.
But what do you do when you bump up against people who disagree with you? Do you discredit, demonize, deny, and distance them? Do you surround yourselves with an echo chamber? People who just agree with you all the time? Can we take other information and integrate it into our lives in a more healthy, holistic way?
Often times our illusion of certainty, or our commitment to a kind of rigid or calcified certainty, always ends up blowing up in our faces.
There's always collateral damage.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
Imagine if all the scholars of music in the world got together, and all these academics of music, they got together, and they had this big council, and they made this official decree, and they all signed this paper and some documents saying, "Mozart and Bach are great musicians."
We would sort of all look at them and shrug our shoulders and go, why are you wasting your time with this? You're telling us something that we already know.
This is the kind of relationship that the canon and the books that are in there had with the church.
Again, it was not an authoritative list of books. It was a list of authoritative books. And the church did not confer authority on them; they could only recognize the authority that these works had already had as they had circulated amongst the congregations over several centuries.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
Tune in to hear Eric and Stephen discuss the new format for Trinity Heights Church.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
The final installment and summary of our 6-part series in 1 Corinthians titled, "You Are a People."
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
In the fifth part of our series we looked at the famous love passage: 1 Corinthians 13. This passage has been used so often at wedding after wedding that it is difficult not to think of it as mushy sentimentalism that comes part and parcel with wedding cake and toasts to the bride and groom and confetti. For this reason New Testament scholar Richard Hayes suggests that ‘this passage needs to be rescued from the quagmire of romantic sentimentality in which popular piety has embedded it.’
In a secular democracy - where we prize the freedom to choose between different religious narratives while also ensuring that no religious authority should influence our political decisions - love is removed from the specifically Christian narrative which gave it a distinctive shape and elevated love to the greatest of all virtues. In the context of a secular democracy love becomes an abstract idea.
But for Paul there is nothing abstract about love:
'Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.'
Love is not a fleeting moment of feeling, it’s not an ethereal experience or a vague impression. Paul thinks love looks like something and he is describing what it looks like.
We might think that by making love so concrete, by demystifying love as it were, we lose any sense of love’s transcendent quality. But - perhaps counterintuitively - it is by describing love so clearly as Paul does, that love becomes something transcendent.
Because in Paul’s concrete description there are no qualifications. Paul doesn’t say love is patient so long as, love is kind only if, love sometimes hopes, love usually perseveres. There is no contingency, there is no escape clause; instead Paul says love is an unqualified posture towards everyone and that’s what makes love something transcendent no longer subordinate to the strategies of our secular democracy. No wonder Saint Augustine is able to say: ‘Love and do as you will’.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul explores community and unity while addressing the issue of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church. The Bible celebrates sex as good, sacred, and beautiful - not something to be approached with guilt, shame, or prudishness. The Christian view of sex needs to be centered on joy and delight, not scandalized by human sexuality.
The Christian stance on sexuality is not about idealizing a specific family unit but recognizing that everyone’s story is different, marked by love, joy, heartbreak, and unforeseen circumstances.
From a Christian perspective, sex is never to be treated flippantly. People are precious, all sexual encounters carry sacred weight, and personal decisions affect our community.
The church often falls into the pitfall of focusing solely on promoting oppressive systems of accountability or invasive surveillance to strive for sexual purity.
But what if we aimed to share wisdom for real-world situations, respecting personal decisions about sex and intimacy?
Rather than implementing rigid rules, the goal is to begin a nuanced conversation about the theology of human sexuality, exploring the mystery of God’s design for our intimate connections, understanding that our bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits are deeply intertwined.
In 1 Corinthians (specifically in chapter 5), Paul’s primary preoccupation is with the Corinthian church’s health as a community. He’s contending for their unity. Paul is essentially saying to his friends in Corinth, “If these issues of sexual immorality within your church are left unaddressed, they will eventually serve to undo the very fabric of your togetherness.”
How we treat each other matters, both in our personal relationships and within the larger community.
These are inextricably linked, and our approach to sexuality should reflect this understanding.
How might our sexual relationships define our broader connectedness to the community?
How might we embrace a holistic understanding of sexual intimacy as a force for either division or unity/joy?
What if we embraced Christian community as a place to nurture a holistic view of people, each filled with dignity and each an occasion for joy?
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
At first glance, it appears as though the divisions in the Corinthians church were over very different and unconnected issues. After all, what have class divisions, the exercise of spiritual gifts, and eating meat sacrificed to idols got to do with each other?
But Paul is able to see the connections beneath the surface and he frames them together with a vast theological vision.
For example, the Corinthians had sensationalized the gift of tongues and made it the mark of serious Christian faith and by doing so they placed a question mark over the faith of anyone who didn’t possess this particular gift. In this context, Paul uses his famous body analogy and pushes it to an absurd place. (Corinthians 12:17-21)
Paul pushes the analogy as far as he can go because he wants them to know how absurd their behavior is when they create a spiritual class system in the church. The point of the gifts is to nurture unity and togetherness in the body.
But then again, in another dispute over dietary differences, Paul calls some Christians weak and others strong depending on whether they eat meat sacrificed to idols? (1 Corinthians 8:9-13)
Paul is having a joke at their expense. He knows that the Corinthians have been trained to think in terms of class and status, it was part of their culture and how they operated day in and day out. And so Paul plays along and he says - with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek: You who are so ‘strong’, you super believers you, don’t stumble your ‘weaker’ brother.
Throughout the letter, Paul maintains the distinction between mature and immature Christians but the Corinthians have been using the entirely wrong register. For Paul, maturity and immaturity are always about whether or not a person’s life brings people together or pushes people apart, whether they create peace or strife between people, whether they create unity or division.
How can our lives be a bridge between people who think they can’t be together?
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
Guest and friend of Trinity Heights, Steve Gumaer, delivers a reflection on Matthew 19.
Paul gets bad news from Corinth… his friends are at each other's throats.
Disputes have broken out all over the place over multiple issues.
Paul says he is coming to visit them and that he 'does not want to see them only in passing’ (1 Cor 16:7)
In other words, when he gets there he is going to have to stay a while to sort all of this out.
Paul writes this letter to the Cornithians (which this new series is based upon) as a stopgap measure, until he can go to them in person.
Paul’s strategy for addressing these conflicts is revealed in the first couple of verses where he says: ‘To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours’.
He calls them the church, using the ancient Greek term ekklesia which refers to a gathering of citizens responsible for the affairs of the city. He also tells them that they are a people and reminds them that they are ‘together with’ everyone everywhere who calls on Jesus’ name. A gathering, a people, together with… in other words, from the outset of this letter Paul is getting the Corinthians to think corporately and communally.
The theological equivalent of supposing that the sun goes around the earth is the belief that the whole of the Christrian truth revolves around me and my salvation. Many Christians today assume that the central question is ‘What must I do to be saved?’ or ‘How can I enter a right relationship with God?’ And this is not just the wisdom of many contemporary Christians, but the wisdom of our broader culture which claims that salvation is found in discovering and becoming our true selves. The self is something buried deep down inside us just waiting to be discovered.
In this context Paul is a Copernicus or a Galileo… because the radical story Paul is drawing us into is one where salvation is not just about me personally but about a collective and corporate salvation where we are saved together. And in this story your ‘self’ is not something found within yourself but your selfhood or personhood emerges at those places where our lives touch each other.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
In our final part of our series "The Trinity as Community", we read Matthew 28:19: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We often focus on the action—going, making disciples, baptizing. But sometimes, it feels like a religious assembly line, missing the relational depth.
The key is the part that says, “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” When you bring the Trinity into the mix, discipling and baptizing become richer and deeper. Sharing our faith can feel awkward, like we’re pushing an agenda. These fears come from losing touch with the essence of the Trinity—God as a loving community, relational from the start.
Let's reconnect with this through two stories.
First, Dorothy Sayers, a British crime novelist, devout Christian, and author of "The Mind of the Maker," explains how the Trinity informs creativity:
Idea (the Father): the initial spark; "I have an idea for a painting."
Energy (the Son): the process of creating, with all its struggles and efforts.
Power (the Spirit): the impact of the finished work on others.
Sayers shows how great art reflects the Trinity through these elements.
The second story is about a viral TikTok video, "When Alexa Accidentally Plays Classical Music." A little boy in his high chair listens to Mozart's Requiem. He asks his mom, "Do you like this song?" She says, "I do, it's very peaceful." He replies, "It is… think about that. Think about that, mommy, and I will think about you." He continues, "You’re thinking about me and you?" She says, "Sure." Then he adds, "Sure, we could bring daddy too. We can bring everybody."
This boy captures how great art opens up a world of love and relationship, where everyone is welcome—a beautiful picture of the Trinity’s loving community.
These stories remind us that discipling and baptizing should be about creativity, generosity, and hospitality, drawing people into God’s love, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
In part 2 of our 3 part series on the Trinity as Community, we explored how Trinitarian ideas intersect with contemporary discussions in art and science.
We proposed that God as the Trinity is the foundation of our reality. This might seem to contradict contemporary scientific understandings, which focus on string theory, quantum fields, and the Big Bang.
Today, science is our primary tool for explaining the universe, often sidelining religion. Modern culture sometimes views rejecting religion as enlightened.
However, discarding religious concepts is not straightforward. For example, early in Einstein’s career, his equations suggested the universe was expanding, implying a beginning, which conflicted with his belief in a steady-state universe. He introduced a "fudge factor" to his model.
In 1929, Edwin Hubble’s observations confirmed the universe's expansion, leading Einstein to embrace the Big Bang theory, admitting his initial resistance was philosophical, not scientific. Interestingly, the Big Bang theory was proposed by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian Catholic priest, who accepted a universe with a beginning.
Thus, the Christian concept of the Trinity informs both art and science. God’s triune nature, a community in himself, is fundamental. His personal nature underpins all reality, predating matter, energy, space, and time. This contrasts with the contemporary view of an impersonal, random universe. The Trinity shows that absoluteness and personalness are inseparable in God.
From this perspective, arts and sciences are distinct yet complementary. The sciences rely on God’s absoluteness, while the arts draw on his personalness.
Often, we feel compelled to align with one over the other, but a more complete human experience might come from embracing both aspects. Reflecting God's image involves acknowledging the importance of both his absoluteness and personalness, recognizing that questions about human nature are as significant as scientific inquiries.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
Oftentimes, Christians and Skeptics alike view the concept of the Trinity as a kind of Christian mythology, a strange part of the story, off to the side, mysterious and nebulous.
And, as a result we struggle to understand just how fundamental and essential Trinitarian Theology has been throughout the ages with many early Christians and theologians coming to the conclusion that the Trinity is in fact the embodiment of love itself as a foundational element of the universe.
A wild claim and one that we'll be peeling back the layers of in this three-part series.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
In this episode, Chris Lawrence delivers our reflection.
A week after Easter, we see Doubting Thomas standing alone, out of sync with the rest of his friends, unable to bring himself to believe, unable to match the energy of their ecstatic belief.
Yet, we see that he was not ostracized.
Thomas wasn’t left behind to figure things out for himself. Instead, Jesus shows up on his behalf, embraces the humility of God and presents his body, the very proof Thomas had asked for
Thomas shows us that in these Easter and post resurrection stories, it’s not always easy to JUST BELIEVE.
With Easter a week behind us, it’s quite possible that there’s been enough trouble in the world and maybe enough stress and struggle in our own lives, that the good news of Easter begins to fade.
Perhaps for us the dazzling shaft of light illuminating the empty tomb has quickly lost its mystery and now all we’re left with is a dark cave.
Whatever our post-Easter headspace might be, we see that Thomas, full of doubt, was not sacrificed for the majority as if he was expendable. He’s an integral part of the post-Easter story and his position deserves to be considered.
And so, we read his statement, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” - John 20:25
And, we find that his challenge was met.
The resurrected Jesus showed up on Thomas’ behalf as the physical embodiment of new creation, even as he bore the marks and scars of the old world; remnants of a struggle not to be glossed over. In Jesus, God is “caught up in the struggle” and his wounds speak to anyone and everyone who has ever endured suffering.
And yet, Jesus is not only God’s commitment to physical reality, but also God’s commitment to time. As Jesus presents his scarred body to Thomas, he not only embodies the humility of God, he also embodies the patience of God.
It is a beautiful thing that Christians can be people of a particular patience. In a world which often seems to only know violence and retaliatory response, the Christian can pause, and this is a rare gift in the sort of world in which we inhabit.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
On Easter Sunday we celebrated the miracle of Christ’s resurrection and explored the implications of his crucifixion and return from the grave, often misunderstood to be the way that we might go to heaven when we die and leave this world behind, a world destined to end. Stephen stated that, “it may come as a relief to some of you to know that while it is true that the Easter message is at the heart of Christianity, it is not about the end of the world and how we can go to heaven.”
John begins his gospel with, “In the beginning…” which theologian N.T. Wright jokes is like saying, “I just wrote a new and original symphony,” only to have the symphony begin with the famous opening of Beethoven’s 5th, because that’s exactly what John is doing: he starts his gospel by evoking the very first verse of the bible in Genesis: "In the beginning…"
But this is John’s way of saying, “this story of Jesus, this good news that I’m about to tell you is a new creation story” and at the end of John’s Gospel, you find that, like in the account in Genesis, John begins to count the days. In the Genesis creation story the author lists the days of the week; John suddenly becomes obsessed with the days of the week. He keeps reminding us in the middle of all of this calamity - the trial, crucifixion, and death of Jesus - which day of the week it is.
The resurrection of Jesus is not meant to be understood as an odd event in the world; the resurrection is the beginning of a new world and points to the way the world is going to be. We are meant to look at the resurrection of Jesus Christ and see new creation.
Because, we have all had hopes and dreams that we’ve lost or will lose. We all have something in us that’s been broken or will be broken. We all have people we love and care about, friends and family who will be taken from us and who we'll one day be taken from.
Yet, the resurrection is a promise, that just as God has reclaimed Jesus from the grave one day he will reclaim all of creation, he will do this for creation and he will do this for you and for me. He will restore us to each other.
And, there is no greater promise than that.
He is Risen.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
Like us during an election cycle when hopes ride high that if we can get the right person elected they will make the world a better place, the crowds had high hopes for Jesus when he entered Jerusalem. They hoped that King Jesus would banish the Romans who taxed them into poverty and executed them when they complained.
The Pharisees offered a solution to the Roman problem: we need to follow the Torah with precision so that when we revolt God will guarantee our victory over Rome. But the Sadducees had quite a different solution: we can’t beat this superpower so the solution is not revolution but cooperation. Which agenda would you have supported: emancipation or survival?
As is often the case the political solutions were out of touch with reality. How can the Sadducees talk with a straight face about ‘surviving’ to a people whose friends and family are being crucified? But then again how can the Pharisees talk about emancipation when going up against an unimaginably strong superpower?
The chasm that usually exists between political & political reality is often because we haven't understood the depth of the problem we're up against. That was certainly true of the people in Jerusalem that day who externalized evil in the form of the hierarchies over them. Evil is "out there" and embodied by someone else.
But Jesus refuses to offer simplistic solutions that were philosophically, theologically naïve about the problem of evil. He won’t let them externalize evil and locate it outside themselves and in someone else. Right after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem he goes to the Temple and turns over the tables of the money changers. A symbolic act, a type of prophetic street theater, which said ‘look, it is at the heart of your institutions, it is in your parties and partisanship, it is in your political ambitions that evil resides. It’s all much closer to home.
Jesus recognized that the disarray in Israel was symptomatic of a greater disarray in the created order and in humanity as a whole, a problem that was well outside the scope of the small political ambitions of the people which couldn’t possibly deal with the reality of evil as long as they externalized it in someone else.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
Luke chapter 9 and uses the phrase, “He set his face towards Jerusalem.”
Luke is referring here to Jesus and his resolute focus on the holy city with the direction of Luke’s gospel hinging on these words. Once Jesus turns his face towards Jerusalem, everything that follows falls in the shadow of this idea.
The city of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day was many things. But most importantly, Jerusalem was the site of the holy temple and was understood to be the exact place on earth where the God of the universe had chosen to meet with his people. Jerusalem itself was seen as being the literal embodiment of the pulling together of heaven and earth.
Right after Jesus “sets his face towards Jerusalem," he and his disciples are met with aggressive inhospitality as they pass through a Samaritan town. The Samaritans hated the impenetrable institutions and inaccessible hierarchies surrounding the temple and they rejected the temple in Jerusalem as the sole seat of God’s power, instead declaring their own Mount Gerizim and the temple on it as their personal center of religious life.
The disciples get their feelings hurt when the Samaritans are not hospitable toward them and ask Jesus, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Jesus rebukes them and they continue on to another town.
Jesus does NOT rebuke the Samaritans. He confronts the disciples for adopting an all too familiar posture, a holier than thou attitude that declared, “We are the chosen few and those unsophisticated, uneducated, unclean Samaritans, they should all do us a favor and die.”
Jesus understood this insidious demonization of the Samaritans. He also understood the Samaritan’s inhospitality to be a forgivable misunderstanding.
Jesus' slow march to the holy city was not to reinforce the elitist hierarchies of the temple. It was Jesus expanding the presence of God for all, with the site of the temple shifting from the physical building onto Jesus’ own body. And so Jesus himself becomes the physical embodiment of the pulling together of heavens and earth and ultimately makes himself available to the Samaritans, Jews and everyone alike.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
When Jesus is warned that Herod wants to kill him, he says, ‘Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem you who stone the prophets and kill those sent to you.’ Jesus recognizes that Herod is the most recent iteration of a long history of Israel’s leaders defending themselves from people like him in order to maintain the status quo.
Matthew’s gospel tells us that Herod had all the baby boys in Bethlehem two and under put to death. Mark and Luke tell similar gruesome stories about Herod. George Orwell says: ‘In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible’, and Herod was the indefensible status quo of Israel. When faced with a choice between Herod or Jesus, Israel’s leaders went with Herod. They had to narrate their reality so that they could make peace with the decision.
Because language is used to defend the indefensible, Orwell explains that our ‘political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.'
Joe Biden was the chair of the special senate committee for foreign relations from 1997 to 2003. During his tenure, Biden began to advocate for the invasion of Iraq 5 years before George Bush executed the war. After Bush waged a war of aggression, Obama became president and smoothed it all over. By that time Obama felt he could drop the euphemistic language and said ‘we tortured some folks’. He went on to explain, ‘While I don’t believe that anybody is above the law, I also believe that we need to look forward instead of backwards’. Obama instructed America to put the illegal war and the torture program down the ‘memory hole’ - another Orwellian term. Obama himself would go on to start new wars, renew the patriot act, and arrest more journalists and their sources than any president to date.
If the church is going to have a prophetic imagination, we have to be willing to break with the herd and refuse to speak the political language handed to us by the predominant culture. This may not mean success for the church in the sense of convincing others to see what we see; but the church is not called to be successful, but rather to be faithful.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
The prophet’s ability to predict events decades if not centuries into the future can seem mysterious and appear as if they have psychic powers or a crystal ball. But when we read Jesus’ words closely - and the words of other prophetic voices - we discover that Jesus and other prophets understood how their time and place was really functioning - regardless of how others said it was functioning. In other words the prophets had a far more intimate knowledge of their own contemporary situation than anyone else around them and it is this deep understanding of their contemporary situation that gives them such predictive powers.
But this too is mysterious - why do the prophets understand their contemporary situation more deeply than the people around them?
We can explore this mystery by considering the question that Jesus often asks his listeners ‘Have you not read?’
Given that the vast majority of people were illiterate in Jesus day this may seem like an odd question to ask. It seems the obvious answer is ‘no of course they haven’t read, because they can’t read or write!’
But when Jesus asks this question he is addressing the literate Pharisees and the educated Sadducees and the cultured Herodians; in other words, Jesus’ sharpest confrontations are with the educated cultured class.
And every time Jesus asks the question ‘have you not read?’, followed by a well-known passage of scripture, he is showing these self appointed guardians of Israel that they do not really know these scriptures in any meaningful way and are in fact at odds with their own texts.
They had co-opted the language of scripture to tell the story in such a way that essentially pushed God out of the way and allowed them to seize control and maintain their own power. By asking have you not read, Jesus wanted to rescue them as he want to rescue us from a self-serving language that leads us astray and disconnects us from the realities of our own contemporary situation.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
During a TV interview, British comedian and outspoken atheist, Stephen Fry, was asked, “What would you do if you died and found out God existed?” Fry responded that he would walk up to God and say, "Bone cancer in children. What’s that about? How dare you create a world where there is so much misery that is not our fault. It’s evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?"
Stephen Fry isn’t wrong when he says that our world is full of injustice and pain. Jeremiah and the Psalms are filled with obvious anger and frustration directed at God, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician? Why has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?"
The same feelings of resentment and rage that Stephen Fry directs towards God are in fact echoed with as much vitriol and despair within the Bible itself.
Pastor Stephen once said, “The problem of evil and suffering in the world is as much a philosophical problem for Christians as it is for everyone. The question of innocent suffering before a good, all-powerful God is the engine that drives the entire biblical narrative. It’s in multiple psalms, every verse of the book of Job, in the cry of Jesus on the cross. The Bible creates space for and provides us language to bring our complaints against God.”
The Biblical narrative itself is designed to hand us the language of lament in times when our own words fail us and when all we have is a wordless groan.
In response to the Prosperity Gospel in American Christianity, Kate Bowler (professor of American Religious History at Duke who was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at the age of 35) says, “We don’t serve a Quid Pro Quo God. Our lives are built with such delicate material; it doesn’t take a lot to topple the whole thing over... our culture makes us feel embarrassed for the terrible things that happen to us. It makes us feel ashamed, lonely and like a loser. I would love if we had a culture that could embrace those of us that fall... give us a language and support to help us feel like we’re not problems to be solved, we’re just people to be loved.”
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
The prophet Jeremiah witnessed the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple at the hands of Babylon. Even after being allowed to remain with his people in Judah instead of being taken to Babylon, he had to flee to Egypt where he eventually died, never having returned home.
A tragic sequence of events for a prophet of Israel who understood full well that the very prophetic tradition of which he was a part had started back with Moses and the Exodus out of Egypt. For Jeremiah, to be stuck back in Egypt would have felt like a cruel joke.
If you open the book of Jeremiah and jab your finger down on any given line of text you’re more than likely to find gut-wrenching grief, lament and gruesome descriptions of human mortality/death. But why focus on death and dying?
Lydia Dugdale is the director of The Center for Medical Ethics at Columbia University, having first established The Program for Medicine, Spirituality, and Religion at Yale School of Medicine, and is also the author of a book, "The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom."
Lydia is an exemplar of what it means to actively practice hope, AND look into the darkness and explore human mortality and what she calls, "The Good Death". She is adamant that working to form a healthy concept of "The Good Death" is what informs our ability to live "The Good Life."
Lydia says that she wishes everyone, regardless of youth or health, might internalize the fact that they have a death diagnosis.
People are given 3-6 months to live, and all of a sudden feelings of jealousy, attachment to material possessions, the pursuit of success, all begin to subside; all the ‘Imperial Consciousness' stuff falls away and what remains is The Prophetic Imagination - the hope for a mended world, longing for resurrection and understanding that time is precious and people matter.
Like Lydia, Jeremiah wasn’t gazing into the darkness from a place of overwhelming despair but rather from a place of hope. Through his art, Jeremiah points us towards the fragile beauty of life, mines our universal longings for resurrection, and unearths what often feel like our absurd hopes for a restored, mended world.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
We are inundated by messages that say that “hopeful” or promising language is too much, too idealistic for this world.
The prevailing wisdom tells us repeatedly, this world is a violent world that needs violent solutions. We are confronted by the “facts” and we clam up.
“Hope... is an absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims we have been told are facts... hope is subversive, for it limits the grandiose pretension of the present, daring to announce that the present to which we have all made commitments is now called into question.” - Walter Brueggemann
Prophetic Hope is not optimism.
Optimism is somehow managing the reality and massaging the facts and attempting to create reasons for positivity. It’s fatuous.
HOPE however isn’t afraid to look into the darkness. Christian hope, rooted in ancient traditions reaching back to the Hebrew Bible, connects us into a perspective, a posture which is one of hope, in the middle of darkness.
Texts such as Isaiah 25:6-9 and the stories about banquets and weddings told by Jesus in Matthew 25:1-13 are energizing us to defy the darkness. In Jesus’ story he insists hope is an active work to be done through the night, keeping our lamps fueled even if the wait seems interminably long.
Jesus will come, at the midnight hour, and we will see a new world comprised of all the tens of thousands of gestures of justice, sacrifice, grace and love, with all the compassionate and loyal movements rolled up into a new world where there is only beauty.
No more tears, only beauty, only love and no more death… all that has been beautiful, all that has contained love (however imperfectly we enacted it) will be preserved and brought forward to this new world. The great mending. The great reversal.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
We often get the impression that the prophet operated as a lone voice over and against the rest of society. This idea is reinforced when we flick through the prophetic books of the bible and find that they are all named after particular prophets: Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Jeremiah etc.
Certainly, there were times when the prophets felt alone. Remember Elijah sitting by himself, wishing for his own death, claiming that he was the only faithful prophet left?
But even then, Elijah was not alone, because Obediah had hidden 100 prophets in caves and supplied them with bread and water.
Or take Moses for example, when God commands him to go to Pharaoh he replies, ‘I’m not eloquent, I am slow in speech and of tongue’. And so God brings his brother Aaron to him so that they can fulfill the prophetic calling - not alone but together.
Before they confront Pharaoh, they go to Israel, gather the elders, and begin to cultivate the prophetic imagination in them asking, ‘do you remember when things were different? Can you imagine a different future?’ In other words, the prophets belonged to prophetic communities in which their own prophetic imaginations could be cultivated.
For as long as there have been prophets, there have been those who ape the prophetic voice. Last episode we compared the prophets of Baal who ate from Jezebel’s table with the prophets of God who were surviving on rations of bread and water hiding in a cave. The prophets around Jezebel’s table knew what to say and what not to say if they were going to survive and they had no interest in delivering a word from ‘beyond’.
This culture of fear and coerced agreement contrasts with the culture of love which Jesus cultivates amongst his disciples. Jesus says ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ If we love each other the way Christ loves us then we know we will be there for each other no matter what. This kind of love produces freedom to be honest and this honesty and love are the wellspring of the prophetic imagination.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
This episode contrasts the imperial imagination with the prophetic imagination. The imperial imagination tells us that this is the way things are, this is the way things have always been and this is the way things are always going to be. In other words, the imperial imagination is very good at perpetuating the myth of its own eternity.
On the other hand, the prophetic imagination can see through the way the now is being presented, it knows things are not the way they seem, moreover the prophetic imagination has access to deep memories so it can remember a different past. And because the prophetic imagination can see through the way the now is being presented and can remember a different past, the prophetic imagination can envisage and hope for an entirely different future.
But in order for the prophetic imagination to be able to do all this, the imagination has to be free and the prophetic imagination finds its freedom in relationship with the God who is completely free. But a god, who is ‘coincidentally’ aligned with all our major institutions and the views of the surrounding predominant culture is probably not a free god but the servant and slave of the established order.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
The history of Biblical prophetic tradition has everything to do with the relationship between the prophet and the Creator God for whom the prophet functions as a mouthpiece. Continued to this day, it’s a tradition that has been fostered by communities throughout history from generation to generation.
Freidrich Nietzsche felt that abstract ideas were easier to understand when they found their roots in individuals. He called these people exemplars. A contemporary exemplar who has continued the Biblical prophetic tradition in our day and who embodies the idea of The Prophetic Imagination, is novelist, essayist, poet and organic farmer, Wendell Berry.
Berry published a book titled "The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture", where he traces the injustices foundational to the initial settling of America and then goes on to outline the ensuing growth of small agricultural communities, the effects of the Industrial Revolution on said communities and the physical, spiritual and psychological unsettling of the American people as they slowly began to be treated less like humans and more like the cogs in a machine.
Berry traces the rise of a kind of person he calls the Consumer Exploiter, contrasted with the Producer Nurturer. He states that in a perfect world all would take on the posture of a Producer Nurturer and there would be no room for Consumer Exploiters.
Berry is a believer committed to the idea of a Creator God. A God that he believes he is in partnership with, as a steward of the land and as a partnering voice in intimate relationship with his Creator.
Berry speaks with creativity and imagination. He speaks out against the injustices of our dominant community and through story, poetry, gorgeous lines of inquiry, robust curiosity, poignant dissatisfaction and healthy doubt, speaks into our present moment with a modern fluency that points towards a new freedom and future.
This kind of prophetic voice doesn’t stop with Wendell Berry. It continues to this day carried by other individuals. A tradition that’s still being encouraged by entire communities.
So, what kind of community works to foster a prophetic voice?
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc
In this enlightening podcast episode, Pastor Stephen Cheung delves deep into the profound mysteries of the doctrine of the Trinity, drawing from the Gospel of John and the Athanasian Creed. Through a careful examination of scripture and historical context, he explores the intricate nature of the Triune God and its significance in Christian theology. Cheung eloquently guides listeners through the paradoxes and complexities inherent in understanding the Trinity, emphasizing the importance of embracing mystery rather than attempting to resolve it. He challenges conventional approaches to doctrine, urging believers to step beyond the confines of intellectual comprehension and into a deeper, more profound experience of divine community and love.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc #spiritualexploration
On this Easter Sunday, Pastor Stephen delves into an encounter between the Apostle Paul and a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens, as recounted in the book of Acts. Paul's preaching about Jesus and the resurrection intrigued some but left others skeptical. However, Paul seized the opportunity to share the message of the resurrection with them, emphasizing its significance in the Christian faith.
By reframing the resurrection as both a promise and an invitation, the episode challenges listeners to reimagine their futures in its light. It highlights historical examples of how belief in the resurrection has inspired acts of compassion, justice, and social change. Ultimately, this episode encourages us to consider how embracing the reality of the resurrection can lead to a renewed sense of purpose and hope in our lives.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc #spiritualexploration
What does it mean to be human? Amidst our daily routines and societal discussions on rights, the notion of humanity remains elusive and complex. Drawing from existentialist perspectives and cultural observations, Pastor Stephen navigates through the intricacies of defining humanity in a world that demands its rights fervently. Through a journey spanning cultural reflections and biblical insights, the narrative culminates in an exploration of Jesus Christ as the epitome of humanity, embodying the divine image and offering a profound lens through which to understand our own humanity.
Follow us on socials!
Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok: @trinityheightschurch
trinityheights #nycchurch #nycfaith #nyccommunity #nycgospel #churchinnyc #nycchristian #nycbelievers #nycworship #nycinspiration #newyorkcity #nyc #spiritualexploration
12.11 [Sermon] To rescue us from the "lullaby effect" that comes from overfamiliarity with the Christmas gospel narratives, Eric contrasts Jesus with his contemporary and attempted assassin, Herod the Great. The latter's excessive wealth, paranoia, and brutality leads us to especially welcome Jesus as the Prince of Peace.
This Advent series explores the vast implications of the birth of Christ and the resounding love, joy and peace imbedded in the story of the creator God who intervenes on behalf of his creation and stakes his claim once and for all in the reality that he has always deemed to be "very good."
11.20 [Sermon] You've probably heard, "Glory to God in the highest," especially around Christmastime. Why do we pursue fleeting glory--fame, beauty, and bliss? How would our lives be transformed by pursuing the everlasting glory of God?
This Advent series explores the vast implications of the birth of Christ and the resounding love, joy and peace imbedded in the story of the creator God who intervenes on behalf of his creation and stakes his claim once and for all in the reality that he has always deemed to be "very good."
11.20 [Discussion] The Story Behind the Doctrine: Part Four - Mezzanine Discussion - Stephen and Eric recap the sermon series and discuss the four main ways doctrine tends to be misunderstood aka 'The Four Flips'. Eric plugs the BEMA podcast and finally opens up the conversation with four questions:
-
What do you think of when you hear the word doctrine? Have you ever thought of doctrine as being rooted in story?
-
Doctrine is often misunderstood as being detached from reality. What are some ways you’ve seen doctrine play out in real time and in very real, concrete ways?
-
In the series it was mentioned that doctrine isn’t about finding answers but is actually more about being immersed in the mysterious. How might learning to rest in mystery and paradox inform our lives for the better?
-
At certain moments in history, doctrine was used as a means of abuse and control (Inquisitions, etc…) However, doctrine’s earliest origins actually have more to do with maintaining human freedom in the face of a totalitarian controlling state. How might a deeper understanding of the early origins of doctrine instill freedom, courage and wholeness within each of us?
In our present day, the idea of ‘doctrine’ is often understood to be an unwavering set of rules rigidly enforced by the self proclaimed ‘doctrine police’. And so, the word itself carries with it a certain degree of baggage and may even bring to mind horrific images of historic inquisitions. But, what if we went back, stood alongside early Christians and immersed ourselves in the nuanced story of Christ? What would happen if we were able to understand how a dry word like doctrine might actually be referring to the distillation of a vast story? The story of God’s intervention on behalf of his creation with the key plot points aka ‘doctrine’ compelling humanity towards a greater fullness and deeper hope even amidst the chaos of our contemporary world.
11.13 [Sermon] The Story Behind the Doctrine: Part Three - Trinity - Stephen Cheung presents on the doctrine of the Trinity; the deeply mysterious state of God as three in one. Three distinct beings, yet still one God, immersed in a perpetual state of relationship. And, if we allow ourselves to view God this way, our ideas of a bearded, power hungry monad in the sky start to dissolve as we begin to understand that the doctrine of the Trinity opens up the possibility that the source of all love might actually be found within God Himself. In our present day, the idea of ‘doctrine’ is often understood to be an unwavering set of rules rigidly enforced by the self proclaimed ‘doctrine police’. And so, the word itself carries with it a certain degree of baggage and may even bring to mind horrific images of historic inquisitions. But, what if we went back, stood alongside early Christians and immersed ourselves in the nuanced story of Christ? What would happen if we were able to understand how a dry word like doctrine might actually be referring to the distillation of a vast story? The story of God’s intervention on behalf of his creation with the key plot points aka ‘doctrine’ compelling humanity towards a greater fullness and deeper hope even amidst the chaos of our contemporary world.
11.06 [Sermon] The Story Behind the Doctrine: Part Two - Resurrection - Stephen Cheung explores ideas in and around the doctrine of Resurrection, tying it into last Sunday's teaching on Incarnation and reinforcing the idea that the bodily resurrection of Christ is not only central to the Christian faith but also stands as a life and creation affirming gesture as God stakes his claim to the creation he has always understood to be 'very good.' In our present day, the idea of ‘doctrine’ is often understood to be an unwavering set of rules rigidly enforced by the self proclaimed ‘doctrine police’. And so, the word itself carries with it a certain degree of baggage and may even bring to mind horrific images of historic inquisitions. But, what if we went back, stood alongside early Christians and immersed ourselves in the nuanced story of Christ? What would happen if we were able to understand how a dry word like doctrine might actually be referring to the distillation of a vast story? The story of God’s intervention on behalf of his creation with the key plot points aka ‘doctrine’ compelling humanity towards a greater fullness and deeper hope even amidst the chaos of our contemporary world.
10.30 [Sermon] The Story Behind the Doctrine: Part One - Incarnation - Stephen Cheung explores the doctrine of Incarnation; the mystery of the creator God who takes on human flesh and immerses himself in his own creation. A being both fully God and fully human; a paradox pointing to the question, "What does it mean to be human?" In our present day, the idea of ‘doctrine’ is often understood to be an unwavering set of rules rigidly enforced by the self proclaimed ‘doctrine police’. And so, the word itself carries with it a certain degree of baggage and may even bring to mind horrific images of historic inquisitions. But, what if we went back, stood alongside early Christians and immersed ourselves in the nuanced story of Christ? What would happen if we were able to understand how a dry word like doctrine might actually be referring to the distillation of a vast story? The story of God’s intervention on behalf of his creation with the key plot points aka ‘doctrine’ compelling humanity towards a greater fullness and deeper hope even amidst the chaos of our contemporary world.
10.23 [Sermon] International Justice Mission - Miguel Lau - This IJM Sunday we explore the work of International Justice Mission to end trafficking and slavery and hear from Miguel Lau. Miguel serves as Senior Officer of Church Partnerships for IJM. In this role, Miguel leads IJM’s engagement with the Church globally, and guides IJM’s offices around the world as they seek to develop creative partnerships with churches and Christian organizations.
10.02 [Sermon] Being Disciples: Part Four - Staying Power - Chris Lawrence wraps up our series 'Being Disciples' and explores how resilience is not in fact a gift but is a habit that needs to be learned. Or maybe it's something to be “caught” by association, from those who have found themselves pushing through threatening and painful experiences.
10.09 [Sermon] Being Disciples: Part Three - A Larger Story - We conclude our Being Disciples series on following Jesus. Our prevailing cultural mantra "As long as I'm not hurting anyone..." turns out to be a woefully insufficient rule of life. Jesus instead invites us into the grand story of devoting ourselves to the good of one another, as he did for us.
10.02 [Sermon] Being Disciples: Part Two - Knowledge and Dust - We often think of spiritual growth as acquiring knowledge or information download. But, when we look at the life of Christ we begin to understand that Jesus's own understanding of spiritual growth seems to be much more holistic and fully embodied. Jesus doesn't view his disciples as 'brains on sticks' but rather understands that true spiritual growth involves learning and growing within the context of relationship, as we follow him, learn from his actions and take on his way of 'being in the world.'
09.25 [Sermon] Being Disciples: Part One - Come Follow Me - Join us as we explore what it means to follow and learn from the life of Christ. From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus made very specific decisions, including the way he went about calling his disciples. These small stories, which recount Christ’s first interactions with his future followers, are in fact full of meaning. So if we choose to take Jesus seriously we begin to realize that his life does count, the way he lived matters and this in turn begins to shape the way we live as individuals and as a church.
09.11 [Sermon] Thoughts on Church: Part Two - Bodies, Banquets and the Muscle Memory of Love - As we wrap up our 'Thoughts on Church' miniseries we explore what it means to gather and worship as a community of Christians and Skeptics - but this time with a twist. Because, buying into church is one thing but if we're really going to explore prevailing 'Thoughts on Church' we have to recognize that many view organized religious gatherings to be archaic, outmoded and outdated and would rather not have anything to do with something, seemingly so out of touch with contemporary reality. So, why do we still choose to meet Sunday after Sunday? What does gathering together actually do? And, how do we find ourselves shaped and changed by our decision to live and worship alongside others?
09.11 [Sermon] Thoughts on Church: Part One - God With Us - On the first Sunday of our Fall Schedule we explore what it means to gather and worship as a community and more specifically, what it means to gather and worship as a Community of Christians and Skeptics. And, is this even possible? Can doubt and faith actually live alongside each other? Or, perhaps Jesus’ own community, his disciples, close friends, family and the crowds that followed him were in fact the very first Community of Christians and Skeptics. Perhaps they wrestled like we do and felt the same intermingled love, joy, pain, faith and doubt that we all feel. And, maybe that’s actually what this whole Gospel thing - this ‘Good News’ thing - is all about. Because, in the midst of that first Community of Christians and Skeptics - there was Jesus. He was with them and for them and wanted them to be with and for each other.
Intro and Outro Music: "Suddenly" by Eric Marshall, performed by the Trinity Heights Worship Band
07.17 [Sermon] The Things That Shape Us: Part Five - Prayer - Lesslie Newbigin once said “The deepest motive for mission is simply the desire to be with Jesus where he is, on the frontier between the reign of God and the usurped dominion of the devil.” That desire and that consciousness is not something which just 'happens' in us. What if Christian prayer is a process of being shaped by a growing intimacy with God, which then, in turn, produces in us the longing to see the kingdom "come on earth as it is in heaven?" What if prayer learned in this way, practiced in this way, grows the desire to be on the “frontier" which Newbigin mentions? How different that sounds than just being told to “say our prayers” or being encouraged to reel off a whole list of requests to God? I hope we become praying people in the sense of being shaped by our relationship with God, and being formed into those who hunger and thirst for righteousness in our world.
07.10 [Sermon] The Things That Shape Us: Part Four - The Bible - Reflecting on the strange collection of writings that make up the Bible, Rowan Williams says, "The diversity of the Bible is as great as if you had within the same two covers, for example: Shakespeare's sonnets, the law reports of 1910, the introduction to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the letters of St. Anselm and a fragment of The Canterbury Tales - all within the same two covers. And remember that the chronological span of the books of the Bible is even longer than that of the examples I have just given." So the reality is that as soon as you think you know what the Bible is, you turn the page and it turns into something different. So how should we approach this book?
06.26 [Sermon] The Things That Shape Us: Part Three - Baptism - As the story goes, Jesus enters the water and as he comes up the Spirit of God descends on him like a dove and a voice from heaven says, "This is my Son with whom I am well pleased." Reflecting on this story, early Christians began to make connections with another story involving Water, Spirit and Voice. The Creation Story in the book of Genesis tells us, there was watery chaos and over that watery chaos there was the Holy Spirit hovering or a great wind blowing, or perhaps one is a sort of metaphor for the other, and then a voice speaks, saying "Let there be.." and from the watery chaos comes the world. The Water. The Spirit. The Voice. So early Christians began to associate the event of baptism with new beginnings and, like Paul, understood that the Christian life is in fact New Creation - a glimpse into the future kingdom and the coming renewal of all things.
06.19 [Sermon] The Things That Shape Us: Part One - Communion - I don't know if you’ve ever noticed, but as you read through the New Testament Jesus is always eating. Every time you turn the page he’s eating. He eats with the Pharisees, he eats with tax collectors, he eats with prostitutes and sinners. He eats with his disciples. He feeds the five thousand with the loaves and fish. He's always eating. And if he’s not eating he’s talking about eating. When Jesus wants to picture the future kingdom he talks about a great wedding feast, a great banquet where the reconciled are invited. And, it’s in this light that we view the fundamental practice of communion and begin to understand how we might begin to reflect the full resolution of Christ and find ourselves shaped by His commitment to the reconciliation of all people and all things.
06.12 [Sermon] The Things That Shape Us: Part One - Stephen Cheung explores the basic practices that shape and form what it means to be Christian. Historically, when we look at what the disciples and early Christians understood about allegiance to Jesus Christ, you come up with a small bundle of core disciplines that point to a specific posture and way of living with others in the world, disciplines that inform our understanding of reality and shape us in surprisingly unexpected ways .
06.05 [Sermon] Pentecost Sunday: Spirit of Presence - What do Christians today believe about the mystery of the Holy Spirit? AND, what do we do with these beliefs? How does this stuff play out in real time? Do we behave as if the Holy Spirit exists, works and moves? OR, do we actually rely more on the power of our own efforts?
05.22 [Mezzanine] I Will Give You Rest: Reflections on the Sabbath - Part Five - At the end of each sermon series, rather than pushing on to the next thing we intentionally take time to rest and reflect on what's been said. This time around we speak with Mark and Mara and hear how Jesus' invitation into Sabbath rest has recently entered their lives in a new way and continues to inform the rhythm of their week as they work from home and raise two small children in New York City.
05.15 [Sermon] I Will Give You Rest: Reflections on the Sabbath - Part Four - Stephen reminds us with the creation story that the Sabbath is an invitation to live freely, and concludes with practices that bring us into the pleasant experiences of rest.
05.08 [Sermon] I Will Give You Rest: Reflections on the Sabbath - Part Three - Reclaiming Sabbath isn't always easy especially as we swim in the waters of hurry, efficiency and empire. Chris Lawrence suggests that we might find our way back to true Sabbath rest by following Jesus and adopting His 'unforced rhythms of grace."
05.01 [Sermon] I Will Give You Rest: Reflections on the Sabbath - Part Two - Stephen Cheung reminds us to welcome the Sabbath as our Beloved. In the Sabbath, God grants us permission to rest, to cease from striving. Creation is good, and Sabbath is "very good."
Stephen suggests four practices for us to lean into Sabbath delight:
- Start where you are with the pleasures at hand.
- Introduce one slow meal in the week.
- Introduce an entire day in your week where you rest.
- Make Sabbath possible for everyone within your sphere of influence.
04.24 [Sermon] I Will Give You Rest: Reflections on the Sabbath - Part One - Stephen Cheung reveals how American culture has slipped away from the restorative gift of Sabbath rest. He reminds us that the Sabbath is integral to Creation, not an addendum - the practice that restores our relationships with ourselves, others, and all creation.
Stephen suggests four practices for us to lean into Sabbath presence:
- Fight the urge to check the phone first thing in the morning.
- Put your phone into Airplane/’Do not disturb’ mode when meeting with people.
- Don’t bring the phone to the bedroom.
- Turn off the phone for 24 hours once a week.
04.17 [Sermon] Easter Sunday - When we look around at the people in our lives: children, family, lovers, friends - all the ones we hold dear - and realize that death works to divide and separate us all, it's then that it becomes clear that, 'It is love that believes the Resurrection."
Palm Sunday: A Triumphal Entry of Sorts 04.10 [Sermon] Palm Sunday - Historically, it's thought that there were two dramatic processions that entered Jerusalem that day. The Roman parade of governor Pontius Pilate - a true display of power and military might. And, the entry of Jesus - riding on the back of a donkey. Glitz and glamor on the one hand. Humility, meekness, gentleness and love on the other.
04.03 [Mezzanine Panel Discussion] Mountain of Salt, City of Light - With our study in the Sermon on the Mount complete, we take a step back and spend some time remembering what's been said. Stephen, Eric, Ben and Mercy all reflect on the series. *Feel free to refer to the questions below as they correspond to the two parts of the group discussion.
Part One:
Question 1: Over the course of Mountain of Salt, City of Light what things jumped out to you as being new ways of understanding the Sermon on the Mount?
Question 2 : How have you felt yourself leaning towards escapism as opposed to pressing into reality? What practices have you adopted to root yourself more firmly in the world as it is?
Question 3: The old Arabic phrase says, “There is salt between us” meaning two people are committed to each other. How do you see yourself as being salt and light binding people and God together?
Question 4: If all of the plot lines of human history converge in Jesus, then what happens next? What is God’s “new and unexpected future for humanity?” And, how do we fit into that story?
Part Two:
Question 1: In what ways have you found our cultural context to create a conflict between your inner and outer life?
Question 2: Who do you think your enemies are? And, how does the call to love them make you feel?
Question 3: Before this sermon series had you ever thought about the Lord’s Prayer being a revolutionary prayer?
03.27 [Sermon] Mountain of Salt, City of Light: A Study in the Sermon on the Mount - Part Nine - As we wrap up our Mountain of Salt, City of Light series, we explore the "Parable of the Builders" and the final metaphor used in the Sermon on the Mount: the metaphor of a house. Two houses actually, one built on sand and the other built on rock. But why does Jesus use this image of a house right at the end? To find the answer, we look back over the entire sermon series and remember that a mountain isn’t just a mountain, salt and light aren't just salt and light and a house isn’t just a house.
03.20 [Sermon] Mountain of Salt, City of Light: A Study in the Sermon on the Mount - Part Eight - Many of us have grown up with a secretly held view that much of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is hopelessly optimistic and needs to be replaced by a more realistic ethic. After all, many say, we are on a suicide mission if we take to heart what Jesus says about loving enemies, turning cheeks, and refusing us the right to judge people who upset us. Or perhaps, maybe, we are intoxicated by a presumption that “the world must be made right by might'' - "violence is necessary." So we have a huge hammer and everything standing in our way resembles the head of a nail, to be swiped at. When children in bomb shelters are dying every day our blood boils. How do we hear what Jesus says and find in these words, the words of life? We can love even (or especially) in a time of war.
03.13 [Sermon] Mountain of Salt, City of Light: A Study in the Sermon on the Mount - Part Seven - Brandon reviews and recaps the territory we've covered in the Sermon on the Mount over the past few months, focusing on some of Jesus' key teachings and offering practical insights into how we might go about reading Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7.
02.27 [Sermon] Mountain of Salt, City of Light: A Study in the Sermon on the Mount - Part Six - Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, says "Love your enemies" and Etty Hillesum did just that. Born a Dutch Jew, Etty ignored all advice from friends and, completely of her own volition, went to work in the hospital at the Westerbork Transit Camp - the final German outpost in the Netherlands before Auschwitz. She was able to provide care to the prisoners and show love and kindness to everyone there, even the German guards. But, before long, Etty found herself to be an inmate and writing from the camp she said, "There must be someone to live through it all, to bear witness to the fact that God lived, even in these times." She went on to write in her diary "Now is the time to put into practice - love your enemies." Finally, when Etty found herself on a train to Auschwitz, her own death at the hands of her enemies looming, she threw a note from the train that read, "Let them know, we left singing."
02.20 [Sermon] Mountain of Salt, City of Light: A Study in the Sermon on the Mount - Part Five - In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says six times, "You have heard it said... but, I say to you..." and each time He repeats this phrase He attaches it to a unique moral teaching. "You have heard it said... 'You shall not murder...' but I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment..." At first glance it appears that Jesus is intensifying the law but when we look closer we realize that what he's actually doing is presenting a new kind of wholeness. He's pulling together our inner and outer worlds and reconciling the posture of our hearts with the actions of our bodies.
02.13 [Sermon] Mountain of Salt, City of Light: A study in the Sermon on the Mount - Part Four - Jesus says that He has "come to fulfill the Law and the Prophets," but what does this phrase mean? Is Jesus the ultimate rule follower or does He mean something else?
02.06 [Sermon] Mountain of Salt, City of Light: A Study in the Sermon on the Mount - Part Three - One way to interpret Jesus' use of the metaphors of "Salt and Light" is to understand them as a direct calling on the lives of Christians to "add flavor" to a bland world and "light the way" in a world full of darkness. But, when we begin to understand the metaphors of "Salt and Light" within the cultural context of Jesus' day we begin to come closer to understanding their original meaning which we find to be deeply rooted within the ancient customs surrounding Covenant, Commitment and Promise.
01.30 [Sermon] Mountain of Salt, City of Light: A Study in the Sermon on the Mount - Part Two - When we hear Jesus repeat "Blessed are those" again and again in the Sermon on the Mount, it's easy to begin to feel that Christ is presenting a list of ways we might each be "blessed" and find individual favor with God. But, when we look closer and begin to realize that Christ's list is actually embracing the posture of the weak, voiceless and suffering we begin to realize that this is a list more concerned with justice and the flourishing of humanity as a whole.
01.23 [Sermon] Mountain of Salt, City of Light: A Study in the Sermon on the Mount.
Stephen Cheung explores the rich meaning and symbolism in and around the longest continuous discourse of Jesus found in the New Testament.
01.16 [Sermon] Chris Lawrence speaks on "Cana Grace" John 2:1-11 - The Art of Making That One Cup of Water Go a Long, Long Way - We are still just beginning a new year. Are we going to live 2022 deeply, live it with rich purpose, enjoy times which will be appreciated and looked back on in years to come with special fondness? That’s really setting the bar very, very high isn’t it? Maybe we are worried we will just scrape through in survival mode, languishing - that’s one of the most common complaints from people who feel they have missed out, or things have gone all very insipid and colorless. Jesus makes water become wine. Can he do that again? Or is that just a bedtime story to tell the little ones?
01.09 [Sermon] Christ in the New Year - On this first Sunday of 2022, Bryant Parsons speaks on anchoring all of our New Year's Resolutions, hopes and good intentions in a power greater than ourselves: a power that changes us, a power that works in us and through us and even in spite of us, to bring about the renewal and redemption of all things.
Trinity Heights Church
12.19 [Reflection] Advent - Part Four: Angels, Shepherds and the Lamb of God - On this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, Eric Helvie reflects on the moment when the angels appeared to the shepherds, proclaiming the birth of the Messiah while also shining the light of heaven down upon them. It's as if heaven is pointing directly at the shepherds, their lives, livelihood and culture and saying there's deep significance here.
12.13 [Update] News from Myanmar and End of Year Giving - On Sunday we had the privilege of hearing from Health and Hope about the refugees flooding in from Myanmar on the India border. Afterward, Richie Ledo and Eric Helvie had a brief conversation explaining the reach of your generosity to the world as we continue to finance peace-making in those places which need it most desperately. Please take a listen for an update on our global giving and our financial sustainability as a congregation in New York. And please prayerfully consider supporting the ongoing work of Trinity Heights.
12.12 [Sermon] Advent: A Season of Hope and Expectation - Part Three - On this third Sunday of Advent, Brandon Epting speaks on the merging of Justice and Righteousness. These two things go hand-in-hand and when taken together we see that the outcome is, in fact, Peace.
12.5 [Sermon] Advent: A Season of Hope and Expectation - Part Two: Mary and Elizabeth - On this second Sunday of Advent, Chris Lawrence of innerCHANGE speaks on the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth in the hill country just north of Jerusalem. Both are "with child" and beginning to understand the world altering importance of their parallel pregnancies. The story of their meeting is brimming with significance as it hones in on the importance of relationships, the need for peaceful places in our lives and the cultivation of patience as we invest in the people around us.
Trinity Heights Church
11.28 [Sermon] Advent: A Season of Hope and Expectation - Part One - On this first Sunday of Advent we look with hope and expectation towards the birth of Christ, as it sets in motion a sequence of events that tug at the fabric of creation and begin to pull all things towards their ultimate renewal, redemption and resurrection. Stephen Cheung preaches on Matthew 1 and the long list of names at the beginning of Matthew's gospel. A clumsy list, easy to rush through, and yet when we begin to look carefully, we realize that these are not names of pedigree or prestige but rather a list of second sons, prostitutes and the powerless. The genealogy of Jesus is a list that questions our notions of earthly power and authority and forces us to understand that the power and authority of Christ is something altogether different.
11.21 [Mezzanine Panel Discussion] Colossians: Violence Progress and Peace - With our seven part sermon series in Colossians complete, we take a step back and spend some time reflecting on what's been said. Stephen Cheung, Eric Helvie, Raf Landeiro, Chase Chumchal and Jesse Thorson all reflect on the series. *Feel free to refer to the questions below as they correspond to each of the three parts of the group discussion.
Part One:
Question 1: In your own life, what might it look like to embrace capital “P” peace as opposed to inner peace or “Serenity Now?”
Question 2 : In what very real ways have you seen the peace of the Gospel place a question mark over “American Peace” or “Pax Americana?”
Question 3: Why is war very rarely part of the conversation, even during conversations specifically about the problem of violence?
Part Two:
Question 1: If God’s providence isn’t about Him making things happen to you, but rather, is about Him sustaining and moving all things towards his goals, how does that make you feel?
Question 2: In your experience where have you seen someone embrace/choose peace instead of violence?
Part Three:
Question 1: In what ways have you experienced people pushing for agreement inside and outside of the church?
Question 2: What do you think it looks like to put your own ideas and identity aside in order to love the person in front of you?
11.14 [Sermon] Jenn Petersen - International Justice Mission - It's always a privilege to hear from our dear friend, Jenn Petersen who serves as Director of Church Mobilization in the Northeast for International Justice Mission, coming alongside churches as they seek to partner with God’s heart for biblical justice and join Him in the renewal of all things. Trinity Heights Church is pleased to be in partnership with IJM as we commit to help fight Cross Border Trafficking in Asia Pacific. As a church, we are dedicated to aid in the efforts to end human trafficking and it’s an honor to be partnering with Jenn and IJM as they continue to work on behalf of the innocent, abused and enslaved.
11.7 [Sermon] Colossians: Violence, Progress and Peace - Part Seven - One of our mantras here at Trinity Heights Church is, "There is no idea or identity that is more important than loving the person in front of me." And, we believe this is what Jesus was saying when He said, "Love one another as I have loved you." Jesus isn't calling us to agree with each other, He isn't asking us to all come to the same opinions. That would be impossible. The good news is Jesus doesn't ask us to do the impossible. He asks us to love each other and cultivate a posture of love to all of those around us.
10.31 [Sermon] Colossians: Violence, Progress and Peace - Part Six - The question, "What does it mean to be human?" shows up in Colossians in the form of a very curious but very significant phrase, "The Image of God." This phrase appears twice in the letter, once in chapter one to describe Jesus as "The Image of God" and again in chapter three saying, "we are to grow in our knowledge of The Image of God." So here we have a definition of humanity, to be fully human is to reflect God's image. This is our calling, this is our vocation. To reflect God's image, to reflect God's love and joy and peace, to reflect God's patience, kindness and goodness, to reflect God's faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, hospitality and generosity.
10.24 [Sermon] Colossians: Violence, Progress and Peace - Part Five - "What is violence?" At first glance, it may seem like a strange question and yet the word "violence" is very important for our culture and in recent years has acquired a much broader usage. Many things other than direct bodily harm are often labeled a form of violence. So when we contemplate the idea of violence, whether we prefer a wider or more narrow understanding of the word, we must come to grips with what it means to do violence to something. And, we begin to understand that when order, time, love and care have been invested into anything whether a person, an artwork, a garden, a system, etc... Only then can any one of these things fall victim to violence. If nothing is ordered to anything, then it is impossible to do violence to anything.
10.17 [Sermon] Colossians: Violence, Progress and Peace - Part Four - It's easy to misunderstand the nature of the providence of God and only ever allow the idea to exist in the realm of miraculous parking spots, trains caught on time and the good luck of a fortuitously packed umbrella in an unexpected downpour. But, God is not a puppet master and we are not his marionettes.
Rather, the providence of God is responsible for creating, sustaining and moving everything toward his purpose. All creation, including humanity, are moving toward his goals. In other words, everything is going somewhere and it is God who faithfully sustains everything and "progresses" everything along in the ultimate direction of His will.
10.10 [Sermon] Colossians: Violence, Progress and Peace - Part Three Often we need to remind ourselves that it is normal for the church to operate in the margins of society. So how much power do we need? As a fringe community the answer is of course: none. When we strive to embody Jesus our focus shifts away from power, prestige and position and instead turns towards grace and peace, and a far-reaching harmony that permeates and characterizes all of our relationships.
10.3 [Sermon] Colossians: Violence, Progress and Peace - Part Two
Our hope this season is that we might be a church that embraces community first. A community that narrates the story of Jesus. A community that proclaims Peace in a world reeling under the weight of its own violence and brokenness. We’re here, finally in-person, as a community of Christians and Skeptics, and we proclaim that “We stand for life against death; and instead of war, we stand for peace”
9.26 [Sermon] Colossians: Violence, Progress and Peace - Part One
Five years ago, today we started with a sermon series in Colossians and today we embrace having come full circle as we start again in Colossians and explore the themes of violence, progress and peace.
[Sermon] In anticipation of our fifth anniversary this month, today we feature Stephen Cheung's sermon from Trinity Heights Church's first ever service on September 25, 2016.
9.12 [Sermon] Feet on the Ground : Psalm 131
It’s always a privilege to hear from our good friend, Chris Lawrence of InnerCHANGE in East Harlem.
Chris Lawrence - We are inundated, overwhelmed and easily crushed by the scale of what is needed to put things right in our world. Howard Thurman said “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Psalm 131 calls us to humility. A Psalm of just three verses which has special resonance in a time of climate crisis, of failed attempts to bring peace to regions such as Afghanistan. So many of us feel unsure about how to be part of the solution and not just making things worse. Jesus wants us to live lives we can love. Humility and meekness in the face of complex apparently unsolvable issues is our calling.
8.29 [Conversation] Eric Helvie and ALARM founder Dr. Celestin Musekura continue their discussion and wrap up Genesis 1: Life Together, Again in the Fourth and Final Part of the sermon series. Dr. Musekura - For some Christians, we misunderstand actually what reconciliation means or what community is. We have probably had a bad understanding that we are saved to form a group that is self-serving. The reason why I’m involved in reconciliation is to challenge us, Christians, to understand that Christ calls us to love our neighbors. To love God and to love our neighbors like we love ourselves… Now we have defined neighbors as those who look like us, those who think like us with the same religion, with the same doctrine. That’s wrong… reconciliation or the extension of God’s grace is an open embrace that welcomes everyone to the table. And, it’s by welcoming everyone to the table that we get to know them, we get to share with them, they get to share their journey. BUT, we want people to change their journey even before we know what it is.
8.22 [Conversation] Genesis 1: Life Together, Again - Part Three
Eric Helvie and Dr. Celestin Musekura discuss the effects Covid has had on communities and consider ways that we might come back together with renewed hope despite feelings of exhaustion, isolation, grief and loneliness.
Dr. Musekura - We begin to see that there is hope if we look beyond the moment. (In Rwanda) we began to build a community in the refugee camps of Christians who had fellowship, who began to help each other. Somebody told me that, “In my community we helped each other to suffer peacefully.” Another pastor told me, “Because of the community around me, I could tolerate my grief, I could grieve with hope.”
Eric Helvie and Jesse Thorson discuss Jesse's recent sermon, titled "Participating in God's Creative Activity"
Jesse Thorson - We're invited to understand our place in the world by looking at (Genesis 1) and, according to the authors, it involves ordering the chaos that is still left in the world and filling what is empty.
8.15 [Sermon Series] Jesse Thorson delivers Part Two of Genesis 1: Life Together, Again - “Participating in God’s Creative Activity”
Genesis 1 has a lot to say about how God creates, and it tells us that God intends for humans to participate in God’s creative activity.
Jesse Thorson - Work or stewardship is anything that keeps the chaos of the cosmos at bay while providing for the mutual flourishing of humans and other forms of life on planet earth. God created a universe with dangers and risks, to be sure, but these dangers and risks are also the
conditions for the possibility of depth, beauty, richness and creativity... God didn’t finish naming all of his creatures, he brings them to Adam… If we are to recognize the gravity of our human vocation – that God has called us to participate in his creative activity – perhaps we would approach and engage with the natural world a little differently.
8.8 [Sermon Series] Dave Herman delivers Part One: “Chosen for What”. This sermon launches our new four part series titled, Genesis 1: Life Together, Again.
Dave Herman - We often hear that God sent Jesus to reconcile us back to God. But God also sent Jesus to reconcile us back to ourselves, each other, and the rest of the created world. And, we in turn, are invited to embody that declaration.
8.1 [Sermon Series Recap] Eric and Stephen discuss our last sermon series, "Galatians: Discord, Tension and Resolution” and spend some time recapping key points.
Eric Helvie - I find it compelling that Paul shows a willingness to go into risky relational territory, while building ideas of reconciliation into his rebuke of the Galatians. And yet, he also says in chapter four verse twenty, “How I wish I could be with you now and change my tone.” It’s almost as if he’s breaking the fourth wall. He steps outside of his writing for a second and acknowledges the limitations of the written letter in the letter itself: essentially saying that “in-person” interaction is far better and if he was able to be with them physically, this problem might be resolved more efficiently and with more flexibility.
7.25 [Sermon Series] Stephen Cheung delivers the conclusion of our five part sermon series, “Galatians: Discord, Tension and Resolution”
Stephen Cheung - Paul, in Galatians, plays with the idea that we straddle two time zones, we live of course in this age where humanity is divided against each other but we also embody the age to come, by our love and unity with each other. Each time we choose unity over division, each time we choose love over hate, each time we choose togetherness over enmity we look back through the mists of time to the ancient promise made to Abraham and then we turn and look to the horizon, to what comes next.
7.18 [Sermon Series] Stephen Cheung delivers Part Four of our five part sermon series, “Galatians: Discord, Tension and Resolution”
Stephen Cheung - Each story that Paul tells in the first two chapters of Galatians starts with the feature of people being divided, people at odds with each other, people being left out and excluded. And, each story travels in the same direction away from division toward unity, away from enmity toward solidarity, away from exclusion toward inclusion.
7.11 [Sermon Series] Stephen Cheung delivers Part Three of our five part sermon series, “Galatians: Discord, Tension and Resolution”
Stephen Cheung - In Galatians Paul says he has been crucified to the world and the world to him, and in Corinthians, he expands on this idea explaining that the world’s strength is weakness and the world’s wisdom is foolishness. So we might understand Paul in Galatians as saying the world’s entire system of values is dead to me and I to it. In other words, the centrality of the cross is about an entire system of values or an entire mode of operating being done away with.
7.4 [Sermon Series] Stephen Cheung delivers Part Two of our new five part sermon series, “Galatians: Discord, Tension and Resolution”
Stephen Cheung - Paul’s emotional response to the situation in Galatia is precisely because he understands that in a world full of people alienated from each other, isolated from each other separated from each other, the good news about Jesus offers us a way back to each other. As far as Paul is concerned, this is the only hope for us collectively. And so to abandon the gospel of Jesus Christ is to abandon each other and to abandon each other is to abandon the gospel.
6.27 [Sermon Series] Stephen Cheung delivers Part One of our new Five Part Sermon Series titled "Galatians: Discord, Tension and Resolution."
Stephen Cheung - Discord in music creates tension and that tension is only released when the music becomes harmonious or more consonant. I wonder if Paul is writing a symphony or rather a letter to the Galatians, like that. The kind of letter which plays those discordant notes and leaves his readers longing for the tension to be released, for the chaos to be resolved, for the harmony to be restored in a way that only the gospel can do.
6.20 [Sermon Series] Tim Creber delivers the last part of the 1 Thessalonians series and reflects on how our priorities may have shifted over the course of living through a global pandemic.
Tim speaks on the final chapters of 1 Thessalonians as Paul seems to be shaking the early church awake: encouraging them to be fully present to the needs of others. And, how we, having experienced the pain of separation from others during Covid, may, more than ever before, be awake to the importance of relationships, friendships, family and the needs of those in our lives and all of those around us.
6.13 [Sermon Series] Brandon Epting delivers Part Three of our new Four Part Sermon Series titled "Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians."
Brandon speaks on 1 Thessalonians Chapter Four and addresses the idea that living a life of limits means we accept our humanness, press into being fully human and find wholeness within the context of community.
6.6 [Sermon Series] Eric Helvie delivers Part Two of our new Four Part Sermon Series titled "Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians."
Eric speaks specifically about 1 Thessalonians Chapter Three and Paul's use of intense language to bolster his relationship with the early church. Paul's words of longing and love resonate today as we explore the shape of life together: life informed by our future hope for resurrection and new creation.
5.28 [Sermon Series] Join us this Sunday on Facebook Live as Tim Creber delivers Part One of our new Four Part Sermon Series titled "Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians."
The specific way Paul structured his first letter to the church in Thessalonica showed his deep love for them. A love that resonates today as we explore the shape of life together: life informed by our future hope for resurrection and new creation.
Eric and Stephen recap key points from the sermon series “How to Grow Spiritually” and discuss how “following in the dust of the rabbi’s feet” may lead to some unexpected places.
Stephen Cheung - So in fact Jesus is “The Known.” We know Jesus through history and through him we are introduced to the boundless mystery of God.
When Jesus says, “Follow me,” there are any number of ways that He could have finished that sentence, “Come follow me and... I will make you wise. Come follow me and I will make you spiritually mature. But, Jesus says, “Come follow me and I will make you Fishers of Men.” This is Christ’s goal, to turn us into Fishers of People. This, if you like, is Jesus’ definition of spiritual maturity.
But, what does it mean to be “Fishers of People?
When Jesus calls his disciples and says, “Come follow me,” he’s saying something that should cause us to question our typical western approach to acquiring knowledge.
Early Jewish writings describe the relationship between a rabbi and his disciples like this, “The disciple must cover himself in the dust of [the rabbi’s] feet.” In other words, the disciple would follow the rabbi so closely, they would literally be walking in the dust of his feet. And so, the saying developed, “May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.”
This literal experience of following closely becomes a metaphor for knowledge and spiritual growth.
This week we go back to the basics as we start a new series and reflect on Jesus calling the first disciples.
What makes our identity? Eric and Stephen reflect together as we conclude our series 'How to Plant a Church... Again'.
If we follow the corporate media on where to look, we'll miss what's happening around the world--both the atrocities that devastate the nations and the purpose that God designed for them.
Jesus constantly criticized corrupt earthly powers because his kingdom is not of this world. Will we be the kind of people who live according to Jesus' reign or get swept up in the tribalistic ideologies of this world?
This weekend we welcome author Kyra Dawkins for a conversation on her new book, The We and the They.
We continue the conversation on Trinity Heights' identity as a community of Christians and Skeptics.
Join us for a discussion about the intersection of church and culture as Trinity Heights explores its identity as a community of Christians and Skeptics
If we want to communicate with another culture effectively, we'll need to learn to speak their language. That's the Word becoming flesh.
Stephen reveals what sparked his imagination when he was an agnostic, and what that means for how we live Jesus' incarnate life in this world.
Prayer isn't always easy, so let's be easy on ourselves. This weekend Chris and Naomi walk us through the simple practice of talking to our Father in heaven.
This time of year we celebrate Epiphany on the chuch calendar, when we start to see the world in a completely new way.
Luke writes about a priest and a pauper so we can proclaim the good news with confidence.
In the first message in our Advent series 'The Descendant', Matthew builds up Jesus' reputation, only then to undermine what he created. What is going on, and what does it mean for us today?
Is the Flood a children's story, a story of God's anger, or something else entirely? We continue with Part 6 in our series, "Genesis: A Prelude'.
We conclude with the third and final week of our interim series on the election, War and Peace.
We are taking a break from our Genesis series in order to reflect on what it means to be the church in the run up to this election.
We are taking a break from our Genesis series in order to reflect on what it means to be the church in the run up to this election.
How is God in Genesis radically different from the gods of the ancient and modern worlds?
In part two of our series we are invited to explore what role lament should play in a journey of faith through exile
How did we get so far from home? Is there any hope that we can return? Today we begin our new series on Exile.