A Note from Pastor Mark

Church family,
If you have ever sat up through the night with someone who was sick or waited by the
phone for news that was slow in coming, you know there is a particular kind of tiredness
that comes with it. You are not doing much. You are just there, awake in the dark, while
the rest of the world sleeps. Watching. Waiting.

The ancient world had a name for this. They divided the night into watches, and
someone was always assigned to stay awake through each one. A city needed
watchmen on the wall. A ship needed eyes on the horizon. The household needed
someone to listen for trouble… The night was never left unattended.

I have been thinking about that this week, because I believe the church is meant to be a
community that keeps watch. Somewhere in our congregation right now, someone is
wide awake at three in the morning. Maybe with worry. Maybe with grief. Maybe with a
decision that will not let them sleep. And one of the quiet callings we have to each other
is simply to stay near, to notice, to be awake alongside the people God has given us.

So here is my invitation this week. Before Sunday, read Matthew 14:22-33 slowly out
loud... Then ask God to bring one person to mind who might be in a long night of their
own. Pray for them. Maybe even reach out. You do not need the right words. Presence
has a language of its own.

Then comes Sunday, and we will step out of the boat and into this story together... Gods
hand will be holding on to us…

Grace & Gratitude,
Pastor Mark

What is worth everything?


That sounds like a strange question, but Jesus spends an entire afternoon in Matthew 13 asking a version of it... By the end of the day, he has told seven. That is not an accident. That is a teacher who knows one image is never enough.
The first two parables are about size and speed. The kingdom is like a mustard seed, the smallest seed a Galilean farmer regularly planted, which grows into a shrub large enough for birds to nest... The kingdom is like yeast a woman hides in three measures of flour, close to fifty pounds, enough bread to feed more than a hundred people. In both cases the beginning looks like almost nothing. You cannot watch yeast. But you can taste the results.
That should mean something to our church. We do not always feel large. We do not always feel powerful. In a denomination that has walked through real change these past few years, it is tempting to measure the kingdom by visible strength. But God's kingdom has never needed to start great in order to end up being everything. Paul describes the Christian life the same way, being transformed from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Not all at once. One degree at a time. For most of us, faith is not a lightning bolt. It is bread rising slowly. It is grace working through us until one day we notice we are more patient than we used to be, more generous, quicker to forgive.
Then Jesus shifts from small beginnings to enormous worth. A man finds treasure hidden in a field and, in his joy, sells everything he has to buy that field. A merchant who has spent his whole career searching for fine pearls finally finds the one, and he does the same thing. He sells it all, gladly.
Notice the word Matthew uses. Joy. Not obligation, not duty, not sacrifice. Joy. The same word shows up in Hebrews 12:2, where we read that Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross. The farmer and the merchant are living out a small version of the same pattern.
Here is the uncomfortable truth these parables press on us. Everyone worships something. Everyone builds their life around whatever they believe is most valuable, whether that is money, approval, success, or family. Jesus said it plainly: where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). So the question is never whether you will give everything for something. You already do. The question is what you have decided is worth everything.
Our problem is not that our desires are too strong. It is that they are too weak. We settle for lesser things, warming our hands around a candle while God is offering us the sun. We settle because we have not yet found something we believe is worth everything. Paul found it: "I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8).
Look at the farmer. Look at the merchant. Neither one is standing around after with buyer's remorse. They are full of joy, because they know exactly the worth of what they received. That is what following Jesus is supposed to feel like. Not a loss. A great discovery. So maybe the invitation this week is simply this. Do not despise the small, quiet work God is doing in you now.
Despite our brokenness, God's grace restores the divine image within us, one degree of glory at a time. And when you finally see what the kingdom is worth, do not hold back.
Sell the field. Buy the pearl. Let the yeast keep working.

Because the kingdom of heaven is worth everything.

Pastor Mark

This Sunday, we turn to one of Jesus' most striking parables, the Wheat and the
Weeds (Matthew 13:24 30, 36 43). A farmer plants good seeds, but in the night an
enemy scatters weeds into the same field. When the workers want to rip the weeds out
immediately, the farmer stops them: wait for the harvest, or you'll destroy the wheat
along with it.

One of the things I find most helpful in reading this parable is remembering what it's
describing. Jesus isn't just telling a tidy morality tale. He's describing the whole world,
right now, as a field where good and evil grow tangled together, sometimes so tangled
we can't cleanly tell which is which. This is what it means to live between the arrival of
God's kingdom and its final completion. The kingdom is truly here, but it hasn't fully
arrived yet, and that tension shows up everywhere, in our neighborhoods, our news
feeds, even our own hearts.

That's part of why the farmer's patience matters so much. It's not passivity or
indifference. It's trust that God alone sees clearly enough to judge rightly, and that our
job in the meantime is to keep growing good fruit rather than pulling up everything that
looks suspicious.

I'm looking forward to sitting with this parable together this week, and to talking honestly
about what it looks like to live faithfully in a world where the wheat and the weeds are
still growing side by side.

See you Sunday,
Pastor Mark

We Get To…
This week, we turn to one of Jesus’ most generous parables—the Sower who scatters seed everywhere, on every kind of ground. Some falls on the path, some on rocks, some among weeds, and some in good soil. What makes the story so striking is the farmer himself: he throws seed with no hesitation, no calculation, no fear of running out.

Jesus isn’t just telling an agricultural story. He’s describing the heart of God—grace flung wide, grace that lands on the ready and the not‑ready, the soft‑hearted and the stubborn, the steady and the barely‑hanging‑on. This is Prevenient Grace, the grace that was reaching for us long before we knew how to reach back. And that grace is the spark that ignited the Methodist movement.

John Wesley knew every right answer and still felt empty—until one night on Aldersgate Street when his heart was “strangely warmed.” He didn’t just believe God loved the world; he finally felt that God loved him. That warmth sent the early Methodists into muddy fields, coal mines, and crowded streets, throwing seeds of good news at everyone. Their faith didn’t stay indoors. It changed the world.

That’s part of why this parable matters so much right now. The last few years have been heavy. Churches have felt it. Communities have felt it. But hard seasons don’t get the last word. We are people with warmed hearts. We are people who scatter grace.

And that leads to the turn at the center of our life together:
We don’t have to. We get to.

We get to gather on Sunday.
We get to open our doors wide.
We get to come to a table that turns no one away.
We get to bring our questions, our hopes, our messiness.
We get to trust that God is not finished with us yet.

Jesus is honest about the soils—the hard path, the rocks, the weeds, the good soil. But this isn’t a test. All four live inside each of us. Some parts of our hearts are soft and ready. Some are packed down. Some are tangled with weeds we keep meaning to pull. The real question isn’t whether we’re “good soil.” It’s whether we’ll let God keep working the ground of our souls.

And here’s the promise:
Nothing done in love is ever wasted.

A quiet prayer.
A welcome to a stranger.
A cup of coffee for someone grieving.
A ride offered without fanfare.

God gathers every seed and grows it into something larger than we can see.

As we begin this season together, my prayer is simple:
Let us be soft, open soil.
And let us be a church that throws seeds like crazy—not because we must, but because we get to.

Warm hearts.
Both hands full of grace.
Seeds for everyone we meet.

I’m looking forward to walking this parable together, and to rediscovering the joy of being Methodist—out loud, open‑armed, and overflowing with grace.

See you Sunday,
Pastor Mark