Blue Ocean Church Ann Arbor Sunday Sermons

We remember Ahmaud Arbery, and are encouraged to have a prophetic imagination as we process the griefs—both large and small—from the pandemic. Learn more about Blue Ocean Church at a2blue.org, […]

We’ve been through bad times before and will be again. In the middle of a crisis, lean into the wisdom gained from a previous deliverance. Personal reflections, from Ken, on […]

Using a story from 1 Kings 19 about Elijah the prophet, we’re invited to keep our eyes open for encouragement from God as we pace ourselves for the coming months. […]

Ever feel guilty about feeling anxious, as if there’s something wrong with your God connection? Psalm 131 is a portal through that funky religious ideation. Our weekly message, from Ken, […]

The Easter story tells us that Jesus is near, he knows our name, he knows our pain, and his living presence is all around. We are a resurrection people. Even […]

When we’re going through a global crisis, it helps to tune into a different drama from a different time—the ups and downs, celebration and sadness of Palm Sunday, for example—with […]

Via our virtual service, from Ken: “Late at night, an awareness of my maternal grandmother’s life-verse, in the context of all she went through, has been a help to coping […]

In the second sermon of our Lenten series, we talk about seeing the book of Job as the spiritual transformation of a man in the face of suffering and how […]

In this introduction to our Lenten Sermon Series, Job & the Religious Mob: A Courageous Dissent, we talk about where the book of Job fits into the larger revelation of […]

Taking Bonhoeffer’s lead, we look at what it means to be led by the Spirit discerned through the Jesus of the Disinherited. This is the final sermon in our Nurturing […]

In the Pentecostal tradition, praising God is a community event. People gather together to sing praises because it helps focus on a communal expectation that God can, and will, act […]

The first to be filled with the Spirit in the gospel of Luke were women used to being shushed, who then spoke up to challenge the powers of the day—this […]

The Pentecostal-Charismatic movement has shaped much of our understanding of the Holy Spirit. But it’s a mixed bag. In particular, this movement has obscured the Jewish understanding of the Spirit […]

Jesus’s empathetic love has the power to help us heal. Through the story of Lazarus’s death, we see a God who meets people in their grief in the personal way […]

Jesus drew his emphasis on “love your neighbor as yourself” from the book of Leviticus. It’s helpful to consider self-love (self-kindness) from an much older tradition than the self-esteem movement […]

In this timely sermon we visit various ways Christians have thought about the ethics of war and violence. Learn more about Blue Ocean Faith, including service time and location, at […]

Part 1 of 2. The practice of self-kindness is rooted in the primary commandment of the Jesus movement: Love your neighbor as yourself. First, we recover the prominence of this […]

Many of our Christmas traditions are drawn from stories and folklore surrounding St. Nicholas, a saint from what is now modern-day Turkey, known for his concern for the poor. Worship […]

Ezekiel, the traumatized prophet who became a mystic and saw very weird things, brought great comfort to others in similar straits. We close out our Advent sermon series on the […]

Giants in the Bible occupy a position between the historical and the mythical. The most famous giant is Goliath. He reveals the dynamics of our fearful responses to bullying powers, […]

In the Bible Leviathan is a living, breathing creature that personifies systemic evil. It’s often seen as an embodiment of empires gone bad. While Scripture tells us we can’t defeat […]

Satan is the mother (or father) of all monsters in the Bible. In Hebrew, satan, is not a Proper Name for a spirit being so much as a function-role that […]

The demon Rabisu, the crouching vampire predator, holds no power over us because we can face our demons without fear of separation from God. This is the first sermon in […]

In the first four centuries of Christianity, the most common symbols of the faith were the Good Shepherd, the vine and the fish. We take a look at the Good […]

Research shows that listening to sad songs when we’re sad is helpful. Psalm 126 is a song meant to accompany us in a time of sadness—and offers the comfort of […]

Most of the world experiences the boundary between this world and the “beyond world” as a semipermeable membrane. More interaction-connection possible, as Scripture bears witness with the phrase: “We are […]

In Matthew 7 Jesus talks about bad fruit and good fruit. Guest Speaker Liz Dyer applies this parable to the effects of non-affirming and affirming theologies. This is the final […]

How Fundagelicalism Turned Scripture Into Something it was Never Meant to be, How to Get it Back and Manage Any Emotional Fall Out. This is the fourth sermon in our […]

The sermon uses apocalyptic teachings from the prophet Ezekiel and Jesus to give voice to the anger of those who have been mistreated by toxic religion. This is the third […]

Using the story of Jonathan eating honeycomb (1 Samuel), we talk through the importance of paying attention to our emotions in helping us determine healthy vs. unhealthy spirituality. This is […]