Mercy Community Church
06/03/2026
Well, we don’t have a lot of Sunday photos this week! We miss our former intern turned community member, Caroline Kothari (), who has developed into a wonderful chronicler of our worship. So we’ll just have to make do with a grainy preaching video (see yesterday’s post—the message is high quality, at least!) and just a few other photos from worship Sunday. (Pastor Chad did do pretty well capturing some photos from Saturday’s MercyFest; we’re proud of him!)
Even though a picture may be worth a thousand words, we still had a wonderful, worshipping time this past Sunday—you’ll just have to take our word for it! Pastor Sid led us in our call to worship and also at the table, celebrating the Eucharist with our community. Our singing and prayer was joyful and from the heart.
And our time in the word was deeply moving as we looked at the story of two women—Mary and Elizabeth—coming together to encourage and support one another as an archetype for the church.
Then members of our own community, led by Terri, Camille, Cooper, and Pastor Brittany—prepared a hearty meal of pulled pork, potato salad, and baked beans, all homemade and made with overflowing love.
That’s what Mercy looks like, y’all!
Did she really say that?
Yes, she did.
Mary’s Magnificat turns the world upside-down.
But we’re so used to a Christianity that props up the status quo that we find ourselves questioning whether God’s will for human well-being can really be that revolutionary.
The answer is, “Oh, yes, it can.”
Pastor Chad said it this way Sunday morning:
“Somehow we find the most strange, obscure scriptures and [say], ‘Well, this is what’s important.’
“But the abundance of calls for justice and liberation and righteousness and, I don’t know, ‘love your neighbor as yourself’? [We ignore]. That’s why Jesus said that sums the whole thing up.
“Because all of justice is in that commandment.
All of righteousness, all of liberation, is in that commandment.
The R-E-S-P-E-C-T that you need, that everyone needs, is in that commandment. There’s no racism in that commandment.
Ain’t no sexism in that commandment.
There ain’t no ‘Big I and Little You’ in that commandment.
Just love your neighbor as yourself.
It’s all through scripture.”
At Mercy, we find an image of what church for one another can be in Mary’s visit to Elizabeth.
It’s in their call-and-response,
their telling the truth to one another,
their lifting one another up.
It’s in their prophesying.
They show us how we can be a community coming together in the midst of a world falling apart, pointing one another toward God’s unwavering will for justice, liberation, and wholeness.
Yes, Mary meant every word.
After all, where do you think Jesus got it from?
05/26/2026
Pentecost Sunday at Mercy was a Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered time, y’all!
Ordination is something that the church has done in many ways down through the ages.
This Sunday, we ordained Sid Imes, our beloved brother and co-worker, as a minister of word and sacrament and as a servant of the poor—or as we usually just say it, a pastor.
To ordain someone is to authorize them for a particular kind of leadership within the community and for the world. We can do this because the person we ordain recognizes that God has called them to this kind of leadership, and we as a community recognize the signs of that call in their life and work.
It’s like how the Gospel of John uses the word ‘glory’: there is a mutual seeing and knowing that allows humans and communities to recognize the ways God’s grace is at work among us. As we come to see it, we can name it clearly and celebrate it joyfully.
The abundant gifts of our members is just one more way that the Holy Spirit is wonderfully at work in this little community on the corner of Ponce.
05/24/2026
We have a new link for Sid’s ordination. Please view here:
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1410 Ponce De Leon Avenue NE
Atlanta, GA
30307
Opening Hours
| 8am - 10am |
