Grace Community Church, Fayetteville, NY (2026)

09/08/2026

Emotional Brilliance
Sunday, September 6, 2026 • Preached by Kyle Pipes

Summary: We have a challenging relationship with emotions. We tell people to stop being emotional. We view 75% of all emotions as negative and often want to “fix” those. Even the concept of emotional intelligence repositions our emotions as something we can intellectualize. Our emotions are not something to fix or deny; rather, they are like electricity, when properly channeled and flowing, they power our lives. God created emotion and gave it to us as a gift. In the person of Jesus, we see a human being embrace and channel anger, sadness, fear, and happiness. That is emotional brilliance!
Our emotions are good, true, and should be listened to. In the passage below, we see Jesus rejoice with others (happiness), protect boundaries through anger, weep with sadness, and have to be aware of the negative intentions of others (fear). Many of us relate to our emotions differently. Some of us are managers who work quickly to keep the negative emotions in check. Others of us are surfers who ride the waves of our emotions and allow them to completely dominate. Others of us are one-hit wonders, committing to one of the emotional families like anger or happiness all the time. How do you relate to your emotions?

Our responses that are triggered by our emotions can always use some refining. Unhealthy repression and expression of our emotions hurts ourselves and others. We see the leaders make plans to kill Jesus because of their anger and fear. What are some of your responses to your emotions that you would like to change?

Embracing and channeling our emotions leads us to balance, flow, and power. When you watch an incredible athlete, they move with balance, flow, and power. When we can do that with our emotions, we will live and relate to others similarly. Which of the four emotional families (anger, sadness, happiness, fear) do you find the hardest to embrace and channel in a healthy way?

Passage for Reflection: Luke 19:37-47

As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.” Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.

09/04/2026

NEW SERIES STARTS THIS SUNDAY

Kyle will be preaching for the next 5 weeks starting this Sunday. We look forward to seeing you there!

CHANGE IN REMOTE WORSHIP THIS SUNDAY SEPT 6TH

Starting this Sunday, Grace Community Church is moving our online service from Zoom to Youtube! You can now join us LIVE every Sunday morning right on our Youtube channel- no more meeting links or waiting rooms needed.

🔗 Watch live here

After each service, the video will be set to "unlisted" to help protect our church family's privacy. If you'd like to watch a past service, just email Mike Angello at [email protected] and we'll send you the link.

We're excited about this change and hope it makes joining us from home even easier. See you online this Sunday! 🙏

BAPTISMS NEXT SUNDAY SEPT 13TH

We are excited to celebrate baptisms next Sunday, Sept 13th outside directly following service and will have lunch together afterward. Please bring a dish to share.

If you are interested in getting baptized or learning more please reach out to Mindy or David.

We will not be getting a tent so lunch will be in the gym unless you bring a blanket or camping chairs to sit outside. We will have yard games outside for the kids but no bounce house this time.

MENS CAMPING TRIP SEPT 18-20

It's not too late to join the 20th anniversary of this great event! Fun and fellowship in the beautiful Adirondacks at Nick’s Lake State Park. Meals are provided and the sites are already booked. Email Dennis Murphy at [email protected] or see Ken Kaiser for more details.

09/01/2026

The Gifts We Give
Sunday, August 23, 2026 • Preached by David Morreale

Summary: This week we closed out our series on the Holy Spirit by asking what spiritual gifts are actually for. I used to get Hess trucks every Christmas. However, we were never allowed to open them as kids. I think this is similar to two ways we tend to mishandle gifts from the Holy Spirit: shelving them (keeping them theoretical and safe) or hoarding them (using them for personal status or gain). Looking at John's Gospel, we saw that Jesus' miracles are called "signs" — never spectacle for its own sake, always pointing beyond themselves to who Jesus is. John 14:12 tells us that same Spirit-empowered life is now ours by inheritance, not imitation, or getting the right formula of faith. Turning to 1 Corinthians 12–13, we saw Paul insist the gifts are given for the common good, distributed by the Spirit's choice rather than earned or ranked — and that gifts without love aren't just diminished, they're void.

The Big Idea: Jesus' signs and Jesus' love come from the same Spirit. We don't get to keep one and skip the other.
We tend to either shelve our gifts (keep them theoretical) or hoard them (use them for ourselves). Which of these two postures do you recognize more in your own life right now — and what tends to trigger it?
In John, Jesus' miracles are called "signs" — never the point in themselves, always pointing toward who he is. Where in your life has something ordinary — a conversation, an act of care — ended up pointing someone toward God, whether or not you intended it to?
Gifts without love aren't lesser gifts — they're void. Love isn't the "best gift," it's simply not in the same category, because gifts run out and love doesn't. Is there a gift, skill, or role you've leaned on that's quietly drifted away from love and toward performance or self-interest?
Passage for Reflection: 1 Corinthians 13:1–3, 13

If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing... And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

Formation Practice:
If you've taken a spiritual gifts survey in the past, let it go this week — not because it wasn't useful, but to stay open to what the Spirit might be doing in you now rather than what was true then.
Identify one gift you actually have, even something as "ordinary" as encouragement or noticing when someone's struggling, and use it once this week for one specific person.
If you don't know your gift yet, follow the "Spirit prompt" instead: act on the name that comes to mind, the truth that needs saying, or the generosity you'd normally overthink.
Practice needing someone else's gift out loud this week; ask for help with something you'd normally handle alone.

08/28/2026

ANNUAL MEETING AUG 30TH

This Sunday directly following service. We will take a break for coffee and donuts then resume in the sanctuary for the meeting. Hope you can attend!

YOUTH GROUP IN LIVERPOOL

Good Shepherd is partnering with other Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Baptist congregations in the Syracuse area to launch a regional youth group for grades 6-12. Joel Herbert is helping get it off the ground, and the kickoff event is this Sunday from 5-8pm at Johnson Park in Liverpool Village. Joel and Dani along with our friends Mike Case & CV Abdallah will be performing music and leading worship, and the Lutheran bishop is bringing a message. They would like to invite any of our Grace youth to be a part of this kickoff event featuring a food truck, live band, games, justice projects, and breakout sessions.

BAPTISMS SEPT 13TH

We are excited to celebrate baptisms on Sept 13th outside directly following service and will have lunch together afterward. We will not be getting a tent so lunch will be in the gym unless you bring a blanket or camping chairs to sit outside. We will have yard games outside for the kids but no bounce house this time.

MENS CAMPING TRIP SEPT 18-20

Join us for the 20th anniversary of this great event! Fun and fellowship in the beautiful Adirondacks. See Dennis Murphy or Ken Kaiser for more details.

08/21/2026

BAPTISMS SEPT 13TH

We are excited to celebrate baptisms on Sept 13th outside directly following service and will have lunch together afterward. We will not be getting a tent so lunch will be in the gym unless you bring a blanket or camping chairs to sit outside. We will have yard games outside for the kids but no bounce house this time.

SAVE THE DATE: MENS CAMPING TRIP SEPT 18-20

Join us for the 20th anniversary of this great event! Fun and fellowship in the beautiful Adirondacks. See Dennis Murphy or Ken Kaiser for more details.

ANNUAL MEETING AUG 30TH

Please put the annual meeting in your calendar for August 30th directly following service.

GRACE MEMBERSHIP

If you are not a member and are interested in becoming one please reach out to Mindy at [email protected]

08/18/2026

The Familiar Stranger
Sunday, August 16, 2026 • Preached by David Morreale

Summary:

Most of us know facts about the Holy Spirit; we've sung about the Spirit, been baptized in the Spirit's name, but knowing about someone isn't the same as actually knowing them. Jesus tells his grieving disciples the night before his death that "another Advocate" is coming — not a lesser substitute for himself, but someone of the same kind, personally present, already dwelling with them. The real gap most of us feel isn't the Spirit's absence; it's our own unawareness of a presence that's never left. Like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, who had full access to his father's house and possessions the whole time and still lived like a servant instead of a son, we can do everything right and still be asleep to what's already ours. Waking up to the Spirit isn't a performance or a feeling to chase. It's a relationship to wake up to.

We can be familiar with the Spirit and still not know the Spirit. Like knowing everything about a person without ever having actually met them, doctrine and Sunday habits can give us facts without acquaintance.
Reflection: If you had to describe the Holy Spirit the way you'd describe someone you actually know — voice, habits, presence — where would you come up short?

Jesus calls the Spirit "another Advocate" — not a lesser presence, but a person, already here. John 14:17 says the Spirit already dwells with the disciples, present tense, not a future arrival to wait for. The real issue isn't the Spirit's absence; it's our own unawareness of a presence that's already there.
Reflection: Where in your life have you been asking God to "come closer" when the real invitation is to wake up to how close God already is?
The older brother in the prodigal son parable had full access to his father's house the whole time, and still lived like a servant instead of a son. Keeping the rules doesn't automatically mean you're awake to the relationship. Waking up to the Spirit's presence means living like a child of God, not a servant of God. Reflection: Where have you turned your relationship with God into a checklist rather than a relationship, just going through the motions of faithfulness without being awake to who's actually with you?
Passage for Reflection: John 14:15–17

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you." (NRSVUE)

Formation Practice: Breath Prayer
Pick one moment in your daily rhythm where you're most on autopilot — your commute, your first cup of coffee, right before you fall asleep.
Breathe in slowly while praying: "Come, Holy Spirit."
Breathe out slowly while praying: "I want to know you."
Repeat a few times, giving it your full attention rather than rushing through it — the goal isn't to manage a feeling or solve something, just to practice waking up to a presence that's already there.
Do this daily throughout the week, in the same moment each day if possible, so it becomes a rhythm rather than a one-time exercise.

08/14/2026

BAPTISMS

If you or anyone in your family would like to be baptized please reach out to David or Mindy.

NEW SERMON SERIES

This summer the Psalms have taught us to bring our whole selves to God. Starting this Sunday Aug 16th, Experiencing God, turns to someone many of us have prayed to for years without really knowing: the Holy Spirit. Three weeks, real questions, an invitation to know him better than before.

SAVE THE DATE: MENS CAMPING TRIP SEPT 18-20

Join us for the 20th anniversary of this great event! Fun and fellowship in the beautiful Adirondacks. See Dennis Murphy or Ken Kaiser for more details.

ANNUAL MEETING AUG 30TH

Please put the annual meeting in your calendar for August 30th directly following service.

GRACE MEMBERSHIP

If you are not a member and are interested in becoming one please reach out to Mindy at [email protected]

08/11/2026

Learning to Sing Again
Sunday, August 9, 2026 • Preached by David Morreale

Summary:

We closed our summer series, Prayers for Being Human, with Psalms 23, 126, and 150. A message about what it actually looks like to hope again. We started six weeks ago in anxiety, and worked our way through anger, shame, doubt, and wonder. This week we landed in hope, and tried to protect that word from what our culture has done to it: hope is not the same thing as optimism. Optimism predicts an outcome. Hope trusts a person, regardless of the outcome. Psalm 23 showed us a shepherd who doesn't remove us from the valley but walks through it with us, even on the days that presence isn't something we can feel. Psalm 126 showed us people sowing seed into ground that had already disappointed them once, trusting God's remembered faithfulness into a future they couldn't yet see. And Psalm 150, the very last psalm in the Bible's prayer book, showed us that praise isn't a performance we owe God once everything's resolved. It's older and deeper than that, present before we have words and sometimes still present after words are gone. We closed with communion, remembering that Jesus sang a hymn with his disciples on the way into his own worst night, which means the invitation to sing was never conditional on the valley being over first.

1. Presence, not evacuation (Psalm 23). "You are with me" is a claim about what's true, not a promise about what you'll feel. Where in your life have you had to trust God's presence rather than sense it, and what would it look like to keep trusting that on the days it still doesn't feel like anything?

2. Remembered faithfulness, sown forward (Psalm 126). Hope isn't a bet on the harvest; it's trust in the character of the one you're sowing toward, even after a harvest that disappointed you. What's a "harvest" you're still waiting on, and what would it mean to keep sowing toward it honestly — tears and all — instead of either forcing false optimism or giving up on planting?

3. Praise as primal, not performed (Psalm 150). Singing isn't something the valley can take from you; it can only cut off your access to it for a while. Where have you lost access to praise this season, and what's one small, honest way you could reach back toward it this week?

Passage for Reflection: Psalm 126:1–6

"When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, 'The LORD has done great things for them.' The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like the watercourses in the Negeb. May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves."

Formation Practice:
Once a day this week, sing something out loud — whether quietly or loudly, even off-key, even if you don't fully mean it yet.
You can start with Psalm 126:5: "May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy." Say it slowly first, then try singing it. Or, sing a well-known worship song/hymn you know by heart. Or make it up. The point is to do it
Remember this isn't about performing a feeling you don't have. It's about practicing your way back to something you already have.

Preview:

I hope that you have enjoyed this series as much as I have. I know in the process of writing these sermons God has met me in meaningful ways. My HOPE and prayer is that the messages have led to similar outcomes for you: a transformative encounter with the living God, especially in the midst of the worst parts of being human. Next, we are going to dive into that topic exactly: Experiencing God. We will be learning more about the Holy Spirit and cultivating a mental framework and embodied practices to help us experience God more regularly.

Grace and peace to you,
David

08/07/2026

BAPTISMS

If you or anyone in your family would like to be baptized please reach out to David or Mindy.

UPCOMING SERMON SERIES

This summer the Psalms have taught us to bring our whole selves to God. Starting Aug 16th, Experiencing God, turns to someone many of us have prayed to for years without really knowing: the Holy Spirit. Three weeks, real questions, an invitation to know him better than before.

SAVE THE DATE: MENS CAMPING TRIP SEPT 18-20

Join us for the 20th anniversary of this great event! Fun and fellowship in the beautiful Adirondacks. See Dennis Murphy or Ken Kaiser for more details.

ANNUAL MEETING AUG 30TH

Please put the annual meeting in your calendar for August 30th directly following service.

GRACE MEMBERSHIP

If you are not a member and are interested in becoming one please reach out to Mindy at [email protected]

08/04/2026

Wonder

Sunday, August 2, 2026 • Preached by David Morreale

Summary

This week we explored Wonder through the lens of Psalms 8, 19, and 29, and asked how we stay alive to beauty in a world built to make us numb to it. Cynicism teaches us to look away fast; wonder is the discipline of looking again. Here are three ways that plays out in these psalms:

1. Wonder doesn’t shrink you, it names you. Psalm 8 moves from staring up at a night sky enormous enough to make you feel insignificant, to a stunning claim: humanity is “crowned with glory and honor” in the middle of all that scale. Wonder isn’t just meant to move us toward mountains and stars; it’s meant to move us toward people, including the ones we’d rather look past. A man moved to reverence by the Colorado mountains outside his windshield felt only irritation when someone unhoused knocked on his window asking for change — missing that the image of God was standing right there. Whose face have you been tempted to look past this week?

2. Wonder retrains our desire and our speech. Psalm 19 opens by marveling at the wordless speech of the heavens, then pivots to praising God’s instruction as “sweeter… than honey.” Real wonder doesn’t stop at admiration; it recalibrates what we want, turning obligation into desire and reshaping the words that come out of our mouths. What’s one thing in your life that currently feels like duty that wonder might turn back into something you actually want?

3. Wonder holds power and intimacy together. Psalm 29 pictures a voice loud enough to split cedars and shake the wilderness, and yet elsewhere, Scripture shows us that same voice crying out from a cross, calling a dead man from a tomb, and bending down to whisper to a frightened child, “Talitha koum.” The God big enough to thunder is the same God who whispers your name. Where in your life do you need to hear that voice whisper your name this week?

Passages for Reflection

Psalm 8:1, 3–5
“O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens… When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have established; what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”

Psalm 19:1–3, 14
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard… Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.”

Psalm 29:3–8 (selected)
“The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders… The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon… The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.”

Grace Community Church

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