Pine Ridge Panda

When the people in Nehemiah 8 heard the Torah read aloud — really read, with care — they wept. Not because it hurt. Because they’d missed it. This Sunday we ask: how do we read Scripture the same way? Not to win an argument, but to actually encounter something. Join us.

Something from this week’s sermon that’s stuck with me. Where have you seen Pine Ridge still being reformed?

Not just a name on the sign out front. Reformed theology carries a specific posture toward faith — one that stays open to being corrected, sharpened, even changed, as we keep listening for God. What do you think of when you hear “Reformed tradition”?

Sunday’s panel was something I won’t forget quickly. What name would you give to God based on your own experience?

Scripture is full of women who knew God deeply and encountered God directly — and whose stories have sometimes been overlooked. Hagar. Miriam. Deborah. Ruth. Mary Magdalene. This summer we’re asking whose voices we need to hear more. Who comes to mind for you?

An enslaved woman, abandoned in the wilderness, certain she and her son were about to die — she met God. And she gave God a name: El Roi. The God who sees me. She’s the only person in all of Scripture to name God. That’s worth sitting with. Who have you met God through that surprised you?

This Sunday is one I’ve been looking forward to all summer. A panel of women from our congregation will reflect on the God they’ve known in their own lives — drawing from the stories of Hagar and Sarah, women who met God in unexpected places. Join us.

This one landed differently for me than I expected. What question do you think God might be asking you right now?

God asked Adam “Where are you?” God asked Cain “Where is your brother?” God asked Job question after question from the whirlwind. Did God not know? Or is something else going on? This one opens up the bigger question of what prayer actually is. What do you think?

We made it to the end of Pride Month together.

This month I tried to say clearly what I believe: that God's love has no asterisk. No fine print. No terms and conditions.

If you've been told the church has no room for you — that your identity is incompatible with faith, that you have to choose between who you are and who you believe in — carry this with you:

You are wanted. Not welcomed with conditions. Not tolerated. Wanted — exactly as you are, in the full uniqueness of how God made you.

In Kansas City? We'd love to have you at Pine Ridge: pineridge.org
Finding a welcoming congregation: covnetpres.org/cnp-churches

Happy Pride.