Elevation Waterloo Sermons

In the accounts of the Resurrection recorded in the varied Gospels a strange theme occurs: when Jesus shows up after the his resurrection even the people who knew Him most intimately fail to recognize Him! Join us this Easter morning as we look at these puzzling stories and unpack the ways that we too can fail to recognize Jesus and the work of Resurrection in own lives. 

Join us on Palm Sunday as we explore repentance as a radical reimagining of a better world beyond our current constructs. Discover how the crowds lining the streets on Palm Sunday struggled to envision a better way, and how Jesus’ entrance was inviting both them and us to imagine and partner with Him in ushering in the new KINdom.

As we continue in our series on repentance and repair, we will look at the Galatian church to see how fear often prevents us from living  out the full freedom of following Jesus. 

This week we will continue to dig into our Repentance and Repair series as we walk through the season of Lent. We will be spending some time exploring what it looks like to approach the practices of repentance and repair communally, as well as sharing the Eucharist together as a community.

This past Sunday, Devon Wagler invited us to explore repentance in light of hidden injustices in our midst, and around the world. We explored a practice of communal grace united with our repentance, and discussed modes of repair in our lives. If you missed it or would like to hear it again, head on over to our podcast.

This past Sunday, we started our lent season with a look at the series themed 'Repentance and Repair'.

If you missed out, join teaching team member Brian Pengelly on our podcast as he helps us explore the theme, leaning on the scripture from Matthew 12:1-8.

This week we turn our focus to the third aspect of our vision: reimagined church. Join Mel Burke and Steve Coupland as they explore this idea together.

We are entering into a three week conversation on our vision of open hands, diverse voices, and reimagined church.

This week we will explore the idea of “open hands” as a practice leading to liberation, a deeper connection with God and a more compassionate and connected humanity. Join Cathleen Getchell as she starts this series off.

This Sunday, we turn our attention toward the Epiphany, as we continue to explore some of the details of the biblical narrative surrounding the coming of Christ. Brian Pengelly will be sharing with us, and we hope that you are able to join us as we begin this new year together!

On this, the last Sunday of 2023, we turn our attention to the incarnation, considering the implications of this theologically rich activity of God.

This week in Advent we’re continuing in our series, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’; diving deeper into the hope that Jesus brings when He comes, and how that still rings true today.

This Sunday is the start of the new Church year, which begins in the season of Advent. For our three Sunday’s of Advent (Dec 3, 10, and 17), we will locating ourselves in a series we’re calling Come Lord Jesus.

As Advent anticipates Christmas, so to will each of our Sunday’s urge us in anticipation of the coming of Christ in our lives.

We begin this Sunday with a look at the landscape of darkness with ‘Christ is Coming’.

We’re concluding our “Through the Lens of Jesus” series this week.

We’ll be spending time looking at some of the ways that the lens of Jesus invites us to both consider and reorient our lives to the upside down nature of the Kin-dom.

This week, we continue our series on looking at scripture through the lens of Jesus. Devon explores how Christ’s focus on peacemaking may inform our approach to scripture as a whole.

This Sunday we continue in our series “Reading the Bible Through the Lens of Jesus” with Cathleen inviting us to consider that our journey with Jesus encourages a shift from a posture of certainty to one of curiosity.

This Sunday we continue in our series of reading the Bible through the lens of Jesus with Mark Dettweiler speaking.

We will turn to a familiar story in John 8, considering the shift from judgment to grace that we see in Jesus.

This week we will continue our series about learning to read the Bible through the Jesus-centred lens, with a deeper dive into Lectio Divina.

What is lectio divina? Lectio = word; divina = sacred

What does it mean to read scripture through the lens of Jesus? Or that Jesus is the one through whom we read scripture?

Join us this week as we wade into the waters of this important conversation.

This week we continue our series on metaphors for our church as we return to the metaphor of an open table.

Brian Pengelly will be bringing us back to the idea of a table big enough that we can always add another chair and everyone feels at home and is welcome.

We will also be re-examining 1 Corinthians 11 and how the text was about making everyone included, rather than making sure only the worthy got to take part.

This week we will continue our three-part series looking at metaphors for the church. We will explore the theme of textiles as we consider the ways that the Church is like a woven tapestry – full of beauty, diversity, and engaged in the work of mending and repair.

Evolving Faith podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1TjGbGZSaPoCMwFV3tXas8

This week we began to look at the first of three different metaphors for the church as we consider our identity moving forward. What if we saw ourselves through the lens of an ecological metaphor, like a forest garden, as a community of cultivation, interdependence, rootedness, and vibrant justice?
“When you lack the verdancy of justice, your soul is dry, totally without tender goodness, totally without illuminating virtue.”-Hildegard of Bingen

This week, we will wrap up our current series on the theology and practice of foot-washing by leaning into the practice. Our service will feature some more contemplative elements.

During the discussion time in the gym, there will be an opportunity for anyone interested to practice foot-washing (or hand-washing as an alternative) outside in the courtyard. This is an invitation, and everyone can make the choice to participate or not as they feel comfortable.

In our second week looking at the theology and practice of foot washing, we will be looking at the particular story of Jesus washing the feet of Judas.

What does it mean to love and serve those that are different than us, or that we might consider as our enemies? How do we bear with one another even if we are so markedly different at times?

We are continuing our Deep and Wide series this week, exploring the length, width, height, and depth of God’s love.

We are excited to have Patricia Layng speak on the depth of God’s love for us.

We are continuing our Deep and Wide series this week, exploring the length, width, height, and depth of God’s love.

We are excited to have Jonathon Sawatzky speak on the width of God’s love for us.

We are diving into our four-part Deep and Wide series starting this week, exploring the length, width, height, and depth of God's love.

This Sunday we are excited to have Cathleen Getchell speak on the length of God's love for us.

This week, we will be talking about about how we know and experience God as an introduction to our July series: Deep and Wide. We’ll be exploring a few ideas as we navigate the mystery of knowing and experiencing the love of God who is vast and beyond us, and closer than the air we breathe.

This Sunday, we will turn our attention to the ancient practice of baptism. Why do we do it and what meaning does it carry for us as individuals and as a community? We will explore three main aspects of baptism.

It's Pentecost Sunday. It's the birth of the Church and the end of the Easter season.

We'll be wrapping up this Tabled series by pulling together some developing themes around the Eucharist table. If God is the host, then the table is not ours; it is Christ's. And if the character of God is one of generosity and an open embrace, then everyone is invited to come and eat.

Stemming from this, we'll consider the question, 'what actually happens at the table?' What is this communion meal about, and how can we open ourselves up to receive more than bread and wine?

We continue in our series called Tabled. This week we turn our focus to the peacemaking power of food. At the centre of this idea is sharing food together, and yet, we can broadly sketch out a great number of injustices - historical and present day - that surround and surface from food.

This Sunday we will map out some of the ways justice is lacking when it comes to food before we pivot toward peacemaking.

This Sunday we will be continuing our Tabled series by taking some time to explore the meaning and significance found when we gather around the Eucharist Table. What does this invitation to come, receive and remember mean for us today? In what ways does our approach to the Eucharist table reflect our calling to follow Christ in extending an open table to all? 
Our kids will be staying with us for the service and so our shortened sermon around this theme will be crafted with them in mind as well. Kids of all ages will also be invited to receive and participate in communion together with the adults.

This Sunday, in the second week of our Tabled series, we move from the feast itself to the act of invitation.

Who gets invited?

Who’s banquet feast is it anyway?

We will turn to a parable in Luke 14 as we consider invitation, welcome, and belonging.

Fasting and feasting.

Jesus gets questioned about why his followers are more prone to feasting than fasting. Feasting is a thread that runs through the whole of the biblical story, from cover to cover, bursting with feasts of all kinds throughout. What would it look like if we were a community marked by feasting?

What are some of our modern ideas about feasting? Can feasting be bad? We’ll attempt to look at a few of these questions together before we carry on the conversation around discussion tables.

During the season of Lent we have been digging into a series we have called “The Postures of the People” - spending time reflecting on some of the postures found in the life of Jesus, as well as those who walked with him on earth. This week Devon Wagler will share a message of blessing others. 

This week, we'll be exploring the posture of protection as we take some time to discuss the ways that we can develop a culture and community of protection especially for the more vulnerable among us.

As we continue in this Lenten season considering the postures of the people, we turn to the story of Lazarus. We will consider the posture of vulnerability in community that we find toward the end of John 11.

We will join together this week to celebrate the second Sunday of Lent. Melissa is carrying on with the “Postures of the People” theme with this week’s sermon titled ‘Awe and Adoration”.

On the first Sunday of lent, we turn to a story of walking on water. Jesus walks on the waves and meets his weary friends and followers in morning light, amid crashing waves. Peter is invited out onto the waves. As we consider the Postures of the People, we turn our attention to Peter’s posture as one who had the courage to risk.

This Sunday, we partook in a fishbowl conversation!

A fishbowl conversation is a form of dialogue that can be used when discussing topics within large groups. A number of chairs are arranged in an inner circle. This is the fishbowl. The advantage of a fishbowl is that it allows the entire group to participate in a conversation.

This week, Christie Penner Worden joins us as a guest speaker. Christie is the North American Director for RaiseUP Faith (The platform that produces the OneStory Curriculum that we use here at Elevation). With a focus on equipping and coaching, resourcing and training, Christie is a strategic leader who is passionate about discipling children, empowering leaders and providing effective support to those who love and serve today’s kids. 

Christie will bring a fresh and broad perspective as she teaches from her own experience and expertise, helping us to imagine what inviting our Elevation kids into genuine faith and community could look like!

In our second week sitting with the crossing over story found in Joshua, we consider the role of endings and starts, as well as the importance of beginnings. We will look at Joshua 4 and the practice of markers in communal remembrance

Join us for the next three Sundays as we turn our attention to some 'crossing over' stories found in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. 

Change management experts speak of 'boundary events' as those that mark our journey and help us move from one reality into a new one. As a church, we find ourselves on the cusp of a significant boundary event with the addition of a transition team to our leadership community. 

This week we consider the stories of giants and grasshoppers found in Numbers 13.

We are entering the season of Epiphany this week. It’s a season of revelation, illumination, and light breaking in. It’s a season that invites us to consider the myriad ways God reveals the Divine to us, through us, and in us.

This week we’ll focus in on the story of Jesus’ baptism found in Matthew 3.

Happy New Year Elevation! 

As we find ourselves in the season of Christmas, we are reminded that this is a season of light breaking in. It's the arrival of the Light of the world. Today we consider the light breaking in as beauty. We are invited to wake up and arise, to pay attention to the light, to orient our lives around beauty, and then join God in the co-creation of the beautiful in our midst.

This Sunday we are looking at one of the ways that Jesus describes the Kingdom of God in Luke 13. What could it mean to say that the the Kingdom of Heaven is like leven? How has the kingdom shown up in our lives as a slow kind of fermenting transformation?

It seems the wilderness might be our new fixed address for the church in Canada. For some this might be a cause for lament, for others, it's a chance to reimagine. If there are no tips, tricks, or techniques that can relieve us of this wilderness experience, how shall we live? What can we do as communities of faith who want to follow Jesus? What does humane faith look like as we seek to love God and our neighbors? How might the body of Christ live out its vocation in the wind-whipped depths of the wild?

Everywhere you look there are signs the religious landscape in Canada has changed. The most recent Statistics Canada numbers on religion Canada gives us quantifiable proof, it seems we might be headed for a wilderness experience as the church in Canada. What does that mean for those of us committed to following Jesus? Could this moment, "our for such a time as this" in the wilderness be all bad? Is it possible it might be Jesus himself calling us out into the wild?

For the month of October, we’re moving our focus into the neighbourhood. In this last of three weeks, we will consider the pace of Jesus, the idea of proximity, and how we can make small shifts toward greater presence in the life of our community.