Arlington United Methodist Church

05/29/2026

Fear Closes the Table

Scripture:“Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”— Matthew 12:50 Reflection:Jesus says something in Matthew 12 that sounds startling at first. His mother and brothers are outside, and when he is told they are looking for him, he answers by pointing to his disciples and saying that whoever does the will of his Father is his family....

Scripture:“Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.”— Matthew 12:50 Reflection:Jesus says something in Matthew 12 that sounds startling at first. His mother…

05/28/2026

Family is a Gift, Not a God

Scripture: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me…”— Matthew 10:37 Reflection:Family is one of God’s great gifts. Most of us know that in some way. We know the blessing of being loved, named, fed, protected, shaped, welcomed at the table. Even when our family stories are complicated, there is often still that deep ache for home, for belonging, for a place where we are known....

Scripture: “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me…”— Matthew 10:37 Reflection:Family is one of God’s great gifts. Most of us know that in some way. We know the blessing of …

05/23/2026

Making Room for the Spirit

Scripture “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials.”— Acts 15:28 Reflection Acts 15 tells the story of one of the church’s earliest and most important debates. Gentiles were coming to faith in Christ, and the church had to decide what that meant. Did these new believers need to take on the full requirements of Jewish law in order to belong?...

Scripture “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials.”— Acts 15:28 Reflection Acts 15 tells the story of one of the church’s earliest …

05/22/2026

Join us Sunday at 11 for Pentecost. Sermon series continues:
Distortions: Blood Over Baptism?

05/22/2026

Courage to Be Renewed

Scripture “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.”— Romans 12:2 Reflection Paul’s words to the church in Rome remind us that Christian faith is not only about changed behavior. It is also about changed thinking. The mind matters. The way we see the world matters. The assumptions we carry matter. The categories we use to decide what is possible, faithful, wise, or dangerous all shape the life we are able to live....

Scripture “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.”— Romans 12:2 Reflection Paul’s words to the church in Rome remind us that Christian faith is not only ab…

05/21/2026

When God Says Look Again

Scripture “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing.”— Isaiah 43:18–19 Reflection There is a kind of remembering that strengthens faith. We remember God’s faithfulness. We remember the stories that formed us. We remember the people who taught us how to pray, how to serve, how to love, and how to keep going when life became hard....

Scripture “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing.”— Isaiah 43:18–19 Reflection There is a kind of remembering that strengthens faith. We rem…

05/20/2026

When Jesus Questions the Questions

Scripture “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”— John 4:21, 23 Reflection When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, nearly every part of the encounter challenged an assumption someone had been carrying for a long time....

Scripture “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will w…

05/18/2026

Faithfulness – Thinking New Thoughts

Scripture “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”— Acts 10:15 One of the most important turning points in the early church came when God confronted Peter with an assumption he had never seriously questioned. Peter had been formed by the traditions of his faith. He knew which foods were clean and unclean. He knew which people were inside the covenant community and which were outside....

Scripture “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”— Acts 10:15 One of the most important turning points in the early church came when God confronted Peter with an assumption he had nev…

05/16/2026

Freer, Not Richer

Scripture:“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…”— 1 Timothy 6:10 Reflection:The real promise of the gospel is not that Jesus will make us richer. It is that Jesus will make us freer. That is such an important distinction. Prosperity theology says the good life is about increase, success, and visible favor. The gospel says the good life is about Christ freeing us from what has mastered us — greed, fear, envy, striving, false worth, and the desperate lie that more is always better....

Scripture:“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil…”— 1 Timothy 6:10 Reflection:The real promise of the gospel is not that Jesus will make us richer. It is that Jesus will make us free…