In this special episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s, Pastor Jad launches the Lenten series called Crossroads with a reflection on Matthew 4:1–11, where Jesus faces temptation in the wilderness. Framed as “Love 101: Resisting False Power,” the episode explores how Jesus, freshly named God’s beloved Son at his baptism, is tested not in his identity but in what that identity means. Drawing connections to Israel’s wilderness story, Pastor Jad unpacks three temptations: self-sufficiency, spectacle, and compromise, and shows how each invites Jesus to misuse power for self-protection, self-validation, or control. Instead, Jesus chooses trust, faithful dependence, and wholehearted allegiance to God. Listeners are invited to see Lent not as punishment but as formation, a season to notice where we grasp for control and to practice small, intentional acts of trust that reflect the way of love.

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In this episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s, Pastor Jad invites listeners to step thoughtfully into the season of Lent by exploring the meaning and history of Ash Wednesday. Tracing Lent’s roots to the early church as a season of communal preparation, repentance, and renewal, he explains the biblical symbolism of ashes as signs of mortality and truth-telling before God. Reflecting on Matthew 6, Pastor Jad unpacks Jesus’ teaching on almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, highlighting the difference between public faith and performative faith and challenging us to examine our motives and “audience.” Rather than focusing on outward ritual, this episode reframes Lent as an invitation to reorder our desires, prepare our hearts, and walk honestly toward the cross and the hope of resurrection.

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In this episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s, all four pastors come together to explore what it truly means to lead our lives as disciples of Jesus in everyday, ordinary life. Rooted in 2 Peter 1 (from The Message), the conversation reflects on discipleship as transformation rather than perfection; faith that moves from belief into embodied practice through God’s grace. Using rich Wesleyan imagery like stepping into the “river of grace,” the pastors discuss prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace, emphasizing growth over time, authenticity over polish, and participation over passivity. They wrestle honestly with failure, formation, and the public square, showing how God’s story shapes real decisions, leadership, justice, and love in the world. This episode invites listeners to stop tiptoeing, lean into grace, and lead lives formed by Jesus... together.

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This episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s continues the Love University journey by exploring what it truly means to love God through worship, using Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. Together, all 4 St. Luke’s pastors unpack how Jesus reframes worship away from arguments about the “right” place or style and toward worshiping God in spirit and truth—something communal, formative, and deeply lived. The conversation highlights worship as a spiritual discipline and a shared practice of giving ourselves to God, not simply a service we attend or an experience we consume, but a kind of dress rehearsal that shapes how we live, love, and lead in the world. Listeners are invited to engage scripture throughout the week, wrestle with it in community, and come to worship ready to be formed and sent out to embody God’s story in everyday life.

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This episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s invites listeners into a reflection on what it truly means to live God’s story in community. As part of the Love University series, Pastor Melissa and Pastor Jad explore Acts 2:42–47, one of the earliest snapshots of the church, highlighting practices of teaching, prayer, shared meals, generosity, and deep connection. Their conversation unpacks how these simple yet radical rhythms challenge modern ideas of independence and ownership, reminding us that faith is formed not in isolation but in shared life together. From small groups and shared tables to generosity, disagreement with grace, and showing up for one another, this episode emphasizes that the church is less about a place we go and more about a people we become... living out the gospel together in tangible, life-giving ways.

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In this episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s, we kick off the new year and introduce Love University, St. Luke’s 2026 theme centered on learning to live, love, and lead like Jesus. 3 of our pastors (Jenn, Corey, and Jad) explore St. Luke’s discipleship rhythm—Learn, Live, Love, Lead—and why deep engagement with scripture matters for faithful, thoughtful Christian living today. Drawing from Deuteronomy 11 and Matthew 22, the conversation highlights scripture as a lived, embodied practice that shapes daily life, community, worship, and public witness. The episode invites listeners to grow as “public theologians,” develop lifelong habits of learning God’s story, and take part in upcoming classes and studies designed to help faith take root beyond Sunday mornings.

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As Christmas Eve approaches, Pastors Jen, Jad, and Melissa invite listeners to look beyond the familiar glow of candles and carols and rediscover the deeper, incarnational meaning of this holy night. Rooted in Isaiah’s promise of light in the darkness and the grounded reality of Luke 2, this episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s reflects on a God who does not arrive in perfection or comfort, but enters fully into a world of dust, blood, struggle, and hope. The conversation explores how the incarnation calls us to stop looking away from suffering, to understand peace as real reconciliation and justice, and to embrace a faith shaped by God’s nearness rather than distance. Ultimately, the pastors remind us that Christmas is about making room—within ourselves and our communities—for Christ to be born anew, growing in us and calling us into lives of presence, love, and incarnational discipleship.

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As Advent draws to a close and we approach the Sunday of Joy, this episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s explores a surprising path to joy through Joseph’s often-overlooked annunciation in Matthew 1. St. Luke’s pastors Jenn, Jad, and Melissa reflect on how Joseph, a righteous man shaped by duty, expectation, and responsibility, is invited to loosen his grip, trust God’s work, and say yes to a story that disrupts all his plans. In a season when many feel overwhelmed by obligations and the pressure for everything to be “just right,” this conversation asks how we might move from fear to faith, from box-checking to presence, and from anticipation to participation. The episode invites listeners to release perfection, embrace the unexpected, and discover that true joy is found in naming Jesus in the midst of a real, messy life—Emmanuel, God with us.

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