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What does it look like to actually experience God, not just hear about Him? In this message, Pastor Léonce teaches Acts 19:1-10 and introduces us to twelve sincere men in Ephesus that had repented, been baptized, and believed everything they were taught, yet had never encountered the Holy Spirit. They had information about God without experience of Him. Then Paul rented a borrowed lecture hall and taught during siesta, and from that room ordinary people carried the gospel to an entire province. This message challenges us to ask whether we've truly encountered God, to show up to be trained, and to remember that the building is not the mission. The people who walk out of it are. Stop settling for hearing about Jesus. Let Him be the place you actually live. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

You were made to be necessary, not a spectator. In this message from 1 Corinthians 14:26-40, Pastor Léonce unpacks one of the strangest church services in the Bible: a gathering where Paul assumes everyone in the room has something to bring. No stage, no audience — just people, each one necessary. We also walk honestly through two of the most debated verses in the New Testament (1 Cor. 14:34-35), what they do and don't mean, and why getting it right matters for every person in the room, brothers and sisters alike. Because here's the question this whole passage comes down to: not "who's allowed to speak," but "did anybody leave this room stronger because you were in it?" ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

What if the longing to be known completely and still wanted is the signature of your Creator? Today's message is from 1 Corinthians 14:25 where a stranger slips into a gathered church and falls to their knees, declaring, "God is really among you."  Pastor Léonce finishes what was left open four years ago and asks: are we building worship around the people already inside, or around the one still standing at the door? Being processed is not the same as being seen. As we approach Grand Opening, the call is urgent and clear: watch your dialect, be present, and leave room for those you're praying will walk through our doors. Say it plain, church. Because plain is how love talks. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

What if the most important thing God is building right now isn't a building at all...it's YOU? Pastor Léonce opens Vision Sunday by reframing a four-month wait into a divine decision: January 17 isn't a delay, it's an appointed day. Drawing from Habakkuk 2:2–3, he unpacks God's ancient playbook for waiting people: write the vision plain, remember it has an appointed time, and run. A finished building cannot produce a finished people. Like the Redwoods of California, we don't grow through deep individual roots. We grow through roots that run wide and interlock with others. Every Sunday between now and January isn't the wait before the work. It is the work. The vision is plain and the runway is set. God makes His people ready to run. Now it's our turn. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

What if the place your soul has been longing for already exists and you're sitting in it right now? This week, Breanna opens Psalm 122:1 where David sings about the joy of gathering with God's people, and invites us to trade one word that changes everything: from "have to" to "get to." If your soul is tired of watching other people's gatherings through a screen or if church hurt has kept you at a distance, this is your invitation home. Be the "those" of Psalm 122. Text one person before Thursday. Say "come with me on Sunday."  We don't have to gather. We get to. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

What if the thing holding you back isn't a lack of knowledge, but a lack of people? In Acts 18, Pastor Léonce introduces us to Apollos: eloquent, biblically sharp, fervent in spirit, and fundamentally incomplete. Into that gap stepped Priscilla and Aquila, ordinary tentmakers who quietly took him aside and explained "the way of God more accurately." Talent is not maturity. A gift no one is allowed to touch doesn't stay the same. It gets louder and more alone. Your commission this week: name your Priscilla, someone with permission to close your gap. Name your Apollos, one person you'll take aside. The Revolution has never been carried by stars. It's carried by people willing to take one person aside. ___________________________ Website: https://united.online/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unitedchurchonline Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uchurchonline/

What if the most sacred ground in your life isn't the sanctuary, but your office, your job site, or the classroom you're dreading on Monday morning? In this message, Pastor Léonce opens Acts 18 and dismantles the sacred/secular lie with surgical precision: God's first act in Scripture was work, and He made us in that same image. Your job isn't a detour from your calling. It's the mission field where most of your witness actually happens. If you're bone-tired of splitting yourself in two — handing God a Sunday slice while Monday runs on empty — this is your moment. Your workplace isn't filler. It's holy ground, and you're the witness already planted there. ___________________________ Website: https://united.online/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unitedchurchonline Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uchurchonline/

What if you don't know how to bring up Jesus in an everyday conversation? In Acts 17:22-34, Pastor Léonce shows us how Paul built a bridge to the Gospel by meeting people where they were. Instead of leading with condemnation, Paul started with their questions, their longings, and their search for meaning and pointed them to Jesus. We may live in a different time, but people are still searching. The question is: will we build the bridge? ___________________________ Website: https://united.online/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unitedchurchonline Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uchurchonline/

What if the ache you're carrying isn't proof something's wrong with you, but proof you were made for more? Pastor Léonce takes us to ancient Athens, where Paul found an altar "to an unknown god" in the most impressive city on earth. Atlanta, we're that city, chasing achievement that promises to fill the ache but only makes it echo louder. The gospel isn't "try harder to find God." It's that He's been pursuing you all along and took the name Jesus to climb down to the one altar you could never scale. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

What's really choking your faith? Not the big stuff...the et cetera. The thorns that were already in your heart before your phone became the best fertilizer they've ever had. Day One of 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, Pastor Léonce opens Mark 4:1–20 and the parable of the soils, landing hard on the thorny ground. This soil never said no to Jesus. It just never said no to anything else, either. He names three false promises your devices make and shows exactly how they map onto the three thorns Jesus warned about. But it's not a shame sermon. Jesus was forsaken so you'd never have to earn His attention again. And He's never once been distracted from you. Your attention is your soil. Cleared ground is cleared ground. He's ready to plant something in it. Open today's Prayer Guide in the United Church app and choose your entry point into the fast. Download the app at https://united.online/nextsteps ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

What would you do if the door was closed and someone's eternity was on the line? In Mark 2:1-12, four friends refuse to take "no room" for an answer. They climb a roof, tear it open, and lower their paralyzed friend directly in front of Jesus and Jesus responds to their faith with forgiveness and healing. Because someone went to extraordinary lengths to get you to Jesus, now it's your turn. Tear the roof off. Someone's forever is waiting on the other side of your desperate faith. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

You might know a lot about Jesus. But have you actually met Him? Pastor Léonce opens Acts 17 with a question that cuts through inherited faith, cultural Christianity, and secondhand belief, and gets to the King who actually exists. The one who didn't demand your blood. He gave His own. If your faith has felt more like a hand-me-down than a living thing, this is where the roots start going deeper. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

What do you do when doing the right thing leads to the worst outcome? Paul and Silas freed a girl from spiritual bondage and it landed them stripped, beaten, and thrown into the deepest cell of a Roman prison. But at midnight, bleeding and chained, they did something unexpected: they started singing. In this message, Pastor Léonce unpacks Acts 16 and exposes a quiet exhaustion many Christians carry: performing truth instead of living free in it. This is a message about what sustains you when no one's watching—and who might be watching anyway. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

Sometimes the door that won't open isn't God ignoring you. It's Jesus standing in it, redirecting your steps toward something greater.   In this message, Pastor Léonce unpacks Acts 16, where Paul faced two consecutive closed doors—both from the Holy Spirit—only to discover that divine redirection led to the birth of the first European church through Lydia, whose heart God opened by a riverside.   Whether you're in a career hallway, relationship uncertainty, or spiritual dryness, God is working in your waiting, forming the roots that sustain you when the next door opens. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church

Some of the hardest fractures in life aren't between enemies — they're between friends. People who loved the same things, held the same line, and built something together. In Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas — two men who would have died for each other — had a disagreement so sharp they had to part ways. Luke doesn't soften it or tell us who was right. He just records it, and shows us what God did with the pieces. Pastor Léonce Crump Jr. shares something he hasn't said from any stage yet — a fracture he's still living in, with no resolution yet. If you're carrying a broken friendship or a relationship you've quietly written off, this one is for you. ___________________________  Thank you for listening to United Church's podcast! Subscribe for weekly sermons. Connect with us: Website: united.online Instagram: @unitedchurchonline Facebook: @uchurchonline YouTube: @united.church