Kuna United Methodist Church Sermons

The one constant in the universe is change. This week, Pastor Mia helps us understand how we were made for change. God created us to be moldable, like clay, to be shaped and reshaped. Neuroplasticity, the ability to rework our brains by building new neural connections, makes spiritual growth possible.

Change is constant, and so is God. As God molds and shapes us, we change but God remains the same. This theory is fundamental to unde...

On Pentecost Sunday, we celebrate the beginning of the human community called the church. This journey started when Jesus’s apprentices, the disciples, were filled with the Holy Spirit and became the apostles who went out to preach.

Today, the journey continues with us and the places we will go. Despite the rewards, faith journeys aren’t always without challenges. One of the difficulties is the realization that the destination cons...

Mark’s Gospel tells the story of four people tearing a hole in the roof of a crowded building so they could lower a paralytic down to Jesus for healing. They didn’t do the healing, however, they were essential to the story.

Healing for the paralytic was an urgent matter for the four . They couldn’t wait for Jesus to finish preaching to the crowd—they needed to get the paralytic to Jesus immediately. Their faith and creativity caugh...

Carrying a rock on the Camino de Santiago became a powerful symbol of letting go—of burdens, grief, or sin. As I journeyed, I realized the rock I needed to release was my hyper-vigilance, a habit born from years of living in an unsafe home environment. Though it once served a purpose, it had become damaging, and God made it clear it was time to lay it down. Letting go is never easy, even when we know it’s necessary. It requires dee...

When Jesus rose from the dead, the whole world changed and there was no going back. The disciples who followed Jesus knew things would never be the same after the crucifixion, but they didn’t see the future clearly. When they encountered a stranger on the road to Emmaus, their eyes were opened. At that moment, the disciples discovered Jesus is Lord.

This week, Pastor Mia highlights the ways in which the disciples’ journey to Emmaus ...

Wombs, tombs, and cocoons. In this message about emergence and transformation, Pastor Mia reminds us that Easter is God’s invitation to new life.

The transformation to new life begins in the dark. Sometimes the darkness is a place of pain or sorrow—a tomb. And sometimes the darkness is a place of safety and warmth—a womb. Emerging from the darkness is challenging, especially when it’s comfortable, because we aren’t sure about the n...

The crowds who followed Jesus lived under violent and repressive Roman occupation. They needed to be saved and couldn’t do it themselves. Because they witnessed Jesus’s teaching and healing, they believed Jesus was the new king would give them the victory. And so, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they welcomed him with a parade.

The victory those crowds anticipated was a military defeat of their Roman rulers, not the ...

All relationships have problems. Failed relationships aren’t necessarily caused by big issues like abuse. More likely, failed relationships are the accumulation of many little things brought on by neglect and disconnection.

We’ve all neglected our relationship with God. We don’t keep the sabbath, we worship the idols of consumerism and materialism, and we fail to help the needy. You could say, God is like that friend should call but...

We all have something we're powerless against. Death is one. The other is the collection of things that get in between us and God. When we admit we are powerless and finally turn to God, Jesus washes away the things that suppress us from living in full relationship with the Lord.

When Jesus makes us clean, he's not washing dirt off our bodies. Instead, he's cleansing us from another type of grime, the captivity of sin and death that...

In this third Sunday of Lent, we explore the profound ways Jesus is our Savior, focusing on Jesus as a moral example. Jesus teaches us to live a life of love, integrity, and selflessness. Jesus' life is a testament to kingdom living, calling us to shift from self-centeredness to self-giving. Through actions and teachings, Jesus provides a model for moral and ethical living, inspiring us to embody the image of God within us.

Jesus'...

John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but how? This week guest speaker Pastor Steve Tollefson wrestles with the question, how did Jesus set us free from sin?

When we try to understand how Jesus’s death on a cross makes it possible for sins to be forgiven, the thing we’re trying to understand is atonement. Atonement is the reconciliation of God and people through the sacrifice of Je...

God became human to save us, but what was God saving us from? On this first Sunday of Lent, Pastor Mia takes on that question.

God's covenant with the Israelites included rules intended to help the people live their lives with order and decency. The Israelites, however, disobeyed God's commandments by continually worshipping idols and neglecting to keep the Sabbath. Because of the people's failures, the covenent was broken.

You'd lik...

The Transfiguration of Jesus was a pivotal moment, providing a glimpse at the divine nature of Christ. It is when Jesus, accompanied by Peter, James, and John, ascends a mountain and is transformed, his appearance becoming flashes white like lightening.

The disciples' reaction to this event is one of awe and confusion, as they struggle to comprehend the full significance of what they have witnessed. This mirrors our own spiritual jo...

How does resurrection work? The Apostle Paul took a shot at answering that question in his first letter to the Corinthians. In his explanation, Paul says a physical body dies and is raised as a spiritual body. Because we have physical bodies, we understand how they work. But what are the spiritual bodies Paul is talking about?

Paul attempts to explain the connection between physical and spiritual bodies with the analogy of seeds and...

Pastor Mia concludes the series, The Walk: Essential Practices of the Christian Life with a look at the weekly rythmn between work and rest. A pendulum swinging back and forth can help us visualize the movement between work and rest.

We're created to work, and God epxects us to work. Working provides a sense of purpose and it lets us experience the joy of contribution, but rest is important too. The Book of Genesis tells us God res...

As we move further along in the Walk: Essential Practices for the Christian Life, Pastor Mia helps us understand the significance of deeper relationships.

Christian living includes three relationship dimensions: Up, In, and Out:

• Up is the relationship with God.
• In is the relationship with close friends.
• Out is the relationship with the crowds.

Jesus maintained the three relationship dimensions by constantly praying “up” to God,...

The journey into the Kingdom of God doesn’t follow a linear path. Discipleship is a cyclical process of observation, reflection, discussion, planing, accountability, and action.

As Pastor Mia continues guiding us through The Walk: Essential Practices of Christian Life, we learn Kairos moments can prompt us to enter the discipleship circle. Kairos moments are events of higher emotion when time slows down. Kairos moments can be beauti...

Pastor Mia continues guiding us through The Walk: Essential practices of the Christian Life. This week, she helps us make sense of habits for being Christlike.

In Christian living, we move continuously through a set of four quadrants that help us cultivate the practices of Christian living. The quadrants are worship, community, serving, and sharing. We can navigate these spaces by loving God and loving people, pouring out and fillin...