Advertise on podcast: Sunday Sermons from Trinity UMC Lincoln, Nebraska

Someone made you who you are. Do you remember them?This All Saints Sunday, we pause to remember those we’ve lost this year, but also all the people whose love still shapes us. Join us for a remembrance and a look at the kind of life worth remembering.

There’s a room you never went back to.Maybe no one looked up when you walked in. Maybe no one made space. Everyone knows the silent questions — Do I belong here? Will I be accepted?The good news is that God has already answered: "Yes!" This Sunday, our Love One Another series continues with three tools you can use anywhere for making sure the people around you HEAR that yes.

What do you do when trust is broken?Some are calling this "the distrust election" — a season when everyone, on every side, feels lied to. But Jesus calls his people to something better. This Sunday, Trinity begins a new series, Love One Another, with a hard, hopeful look at how trust is rebuilt: not blindly, not all at once, but by someone brave enough to go first.

Nobody wanted him at the party. So Jesus threw one.Matthew the tax collector was a collaborator, a cheat, and — as The Chosenimagines him — a little bit different. Everyone in Capernaum had a reason to keep their distance. Jesus walked up to his booth and said, "Follow me." This Sunday we finish The People Jesus Loved with a story about difference, hiding places, and a dinner invitation nobody saw coming — including a few words from Pastor Jeff about his own.

The first person to go tell the world about Jesus was the woman nobody would talk to.She came to the well at noon because the other women wouldn't be seen with her. Jesus went out of his way to be waiting there. This Sunday, The People Jesus Loved continues with the woman at the well in John 4, using clips from The Chosen: a story about being seen, being offered water that never runs dry, and discovering that God is, in fact, counting on you.

The hero of the story was the person nobody expected to stop. Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan to a man looking for the limits of love, and instead handed him a command. This Sunday we welcome Bishop Catherine Mutua of the Kenya Methodist Church, who will open the story of the Good Samaritan and ask what it means for us — here, now — to go and do likewise.

Jesus never once said, "It's all part of God's plan."When a man with leprosy knelt in the road, Jesus didn't explain his suffering. Instead, he touched him.As our series The People Jesus Loved continues with a scene from The Chosen, we'll look at where those well-meaning phrases come from, why they aren't as comforting as we hope — and what it means to be moved by compassion instead of fear.

The voices in her head had given her a new name. Then Jesus said her real one.This Sunday we begin a new series, The People Jesus Loved, featuring clips from Season 1 of The Chosen, and we start where the show does: Mary Magdalene. Luke says she was freed from seven demons; the gospels say she was the first to see the risen Jesus. In between is a story about which voices we listen to, and about the God who calls us by name.

Nobody in Zootopia hated reptiles. They just never noticed they were gone.This week’s Faith At The Movies sermon sets Zootopia 2 alongside Isaiah’s vision of the wolf and the lamb at peace — a peace that comes not from everyone becoming alike, but from truly knowing one another. Bring the kids, bring your favorite quote from the movie, and come find out why the snakes were never the problem.

You shouldn’t have to choose between your head and your heart.This Sunday, Pastor Jeff concludes the Before Everything Else series with its boldest question yet: Why do people need Trinity — and does God actually need Trinity at all? The answer runs through an ancient queen, a moment of courage, and a church that believes faith should GROW when you think it through, not fall apart.

“I can follow Jesus without the church”— really?It’s a fair question — and today we’re taking it seriously. From the word Jesus actually used for “church” to a surprise hiding in the Greek of one of his most famous sayings, discover why faith was never meant to be a solo project — and why a room full of imperfect people might be exactly where you belong.

School is back and everything just shifted. But what really matters most?This fall, we’re asking three big questions — starting with the biggest: Why do people need Jesus? The answer is hiding inside his very name, and it might change how you see everything on your calendar.

The opposite of hope isn’t despair.If you can despair, you can still imagine something better. But maybe you’ve moved past that— to the deep sigh, the quiet resignation, the place where you’ve stopped expecting anything to change. A marriage, a career, a prayer you no longer pray.An ancient vision of a valley full of dry bones asks one question about the deadest thing in your life: can it live again? God’s answer might take your breath away— and give it back.

Everything wants you angry. Almost nothing deserves it. Twenty-five centuries ago, three men refused to bow to an empire that had already taken their names — and walked out of its furnace without even smelling like smoke. This Sunday at Trinity, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego meets our age of rage, with a word for anyone tired of being set on fire: you can survive it without becoming it.

He looked like a king. That was the problem.Israel’s first king was tall, handsome, and a disaster. So when God sent Samuel to anoint a better one, even the prophet almost picked wrong… because even the faithful fall for appearances.This Sunday we look at what God sees that we don’t, and why there’s real hope hiding in the overlooked.