River East's adult Sunday School ministry is affectionately known as "Cross Training." Since there was no sermon this past week, by popular demand, here is Gerald Loewen's presentation on attachment theory, originally offered on January 19, 2025, after the worship service.

The Q+A section of this session got quite personal for several individuals, and so it has been omitted from this recording.

On January 19, Aaron dove into the many mysterious aspects of Luke 4:14-30. Rather than finding clean answers, he rested on the questions, inviting us to hold them together as the community of believers.

Sorry for the delay—we unfortunately keep running into recording issues!

On January 12, Mary Anne dove into the story of Jesus' baptism in Luke 3:1-22, helping us see the many different registers that baptism can take.

Once again, the original audio for this sermon was unable to be published, and so a re-recording is here instead.

Still playing catch up!

On December 29, 2024, Gerald Hildebrand took us through Luke 2:21-38, and the Gospel's unusual inclusion of two elderly prophets: Anna and Simeon. "Want to know what's really going on? Ask an old person."

We're catching up on uploads after the Christmas break!

On fourth advent, December 22nd, Mary Anne offered this short homily focusing on the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:26-45). The sermon was complimented with an original ballet piece, created and performed by a member of the congregation—as piece which unfortunately doesn't translate well to the podcast medium!

Please Note: Unfortunately, the original audio file for this sermon was corrupted and unusable. This is a re-recording (hence the different audio quality).

River East Church has a long-standing tradition of holding a 'Music Sunday' on Third Advent, meaning we forgo a sermon and instead have a service of songs, poetry, and other artforms.

Thus, we once again are drawing into the archives for sermons this week's episode. This time it's a sermon first preached by Aaron in Advent of 2022, entitled "Emmanuel Who?" This sermon dives into Isaiah 7:10-16, and asks why the Gospel of Matthew chose to quote this text when announcing the coming of Christ.

This Second Advent, Aaron used the readings from Joel 2:12-13, 28-29 as a way to explore Christ's Incarnation (as well as some tropes from Star Trek). Is the Incarnation best told as a 'rescue plan' for humanity? Or as a 'master plan?' for all creation?

On December 1, First Advent, Mary Anne reflected on the famous story of Daniel and the Lions' Den (Dan 6:6-27). Instead of viewing this story as lauding the personal piety of one man, perhaps we can see it as a story of strategic resistence against an Empire, rooted in the hope of God.