Midtown Presbyterian Church

Midtown Presbyterian Church

At Midtown Presbyterian Church, we value honest questions and genuine community, working alongside one another as we discover more about what it means to follow Jesus in the modern world, and in Phoenix. You are welcome here. Listen to our teachings in this podcast to follow us, and be sure to join us Sunday mornings; visit thespringmidtown.org to learn more.

  1. 2d ago

    Flawed But Faithful | Bedrock or Stumbling Block? - Matthew 16:13-23 - Arienna Lacey

    In this third week of our sermon series exploring the character of Peter, Arienna Lacey poses an extremely important question: What does it really mean to know Jesus? Not just know about him, but truly recognize him for who he is? In Matthew 16:13-23, we find Peter standing at a crossroads that every believer eventually faces. When Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is, the answers from the crowds are not entirely wrong, just incomplete. They see a great prophet, a powerful figure, someone empowered by God. But Jesus presses deeper, turning the question personal: who do you say I am? Peter's answer cuts through all the cultural noise and assumptions: you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. That confession changes everything. It reframes not only who Jesus is but who Peter is called to be. There is a profound truth here for us as well. Right identification of Jesus leads to right identification of ourselves. When we strip away the cultural caricatures, the watered-down versions, and the convenient images we construct, we begin to see Jesus as king over all things, not just a historical figure or a spiritual comfort, but the anointed one whose reign touches every corner of our lives. The question this passage puts before us is both simple and searching: have we settled for an almost-right understanding of Jesus, and what might we be missing in the half we have wrong?

    Flawed But Faithful | Bedrock or Stumbling Block? - Matthew 16:13-23 - Arienna Lacey

  2. Oct 26

    Flawed But Faithful | Eves on the Storm - Matthew 14:22-34 - Gayle Parker

    What happens when the storm raging around us feels more real and more powerful than the God we say we trust? That tension is at the heart of one of the most gripping moments in the life of the apostle Peter, found in Matthew 14. This week, Gayle Parker invites us into the boat in the dead of night, battered by wind and waves, where the disciples encounter Jesus walking toward them on the water. What follows is a raw and honest portrait of what faith actually looks like in the middle of a crisis -- not polished or perfect, but real, stumbling, and ultimately rescued. The central lesson is both simple and profound: we are always choosing where to fix our eyes. When we focus on the Savior, we find ourselves capable of things we never imagined. When we focus on the storm, we start to sink. This message speaks directly to the storms each of us is navigating right now -- whether a health crisis, a broken relationship, a career crossroads, or a season of deep uncertainty. The invitation is not to pretend the storm is not there, but to recognize that Jesus is already in the middle of it, walking toward us.

    Flawed But Faithful | Eves on the Storm - Matthew 14:22-34 - Gayle Parker

  3. Oct 20

    Flawed But Faithful | The Call of a Fisherman - Luke 5:1-11 - Clint Leavitt

    What does an ordinary life look like when it becomes truly extraordinary? In this first week of a new sermon series on Peter, that question sits at the heart of our exploration of Luke 5, where we meet a weathered fisherman named Peter. His encounter would reshape not just his life, but the course of history. This week Clint invites us into a story that challenges the cultural pressure to build small, self-centered lives and instead points us toward something far more expansive. The central insight is striking: the life our souls most deeply crave is not found in optimization, accumulation, or noise, but in a life of outward-facing, self-giving love. Drawing on the miracle of the miraculous catch of fish, we see how Jesus steps into the middle of Peter's exhausting, ordinary workday and opens him up to abundance he never could have manufactured on his own. The fish are not the point, though. The point is that Jesus is always moving toward us, always fishing us out of the cold waters of self-centeredness and into something warmer and more alive. Peter's story becomes a mirror for our own, and the question it leaves us with is both simple and searching: what nets are we still holding onto that are keeping us from the big life Jesus is offering?

    Flawed But Faithful | The Call of a Fisherman - Luke 5:1-11 - Clint Leavitt

  4. Oct 11

    Keeping The Pace of God | A New Story for Work and Rest - Revelation 21:1-6 - Clint Leavitt

    What if the story we are living in is shaping us far more than we realize? Every choice we make, every relationship we invest in, every Monday morning we drag ourselves out of bed, all of it flows from a deeper narrative we have accepted as true. Our final message in this sermon series invites us to examine the stories our culture hands us, whether the relentless pursuit of personal happiness, the treadmill of performance and productivity, or the exhausting self-help myth that it all depends on us. Then it holds those stories up against something far older and far truer. Drawing from Revelation 21, we are invited into a vision of the future that is not about escaping this world but about heaven coming down to renew it. God declares, 'I am making all things new,' not making all new things. That distinction changes everything. Our work, our relationships, our ordinary Tuesday afternoons all carry eternal weight in this story. The spiritual invitation here is profound: when we root ourselves in the true story of God, we stop treating our work as a savior and start seeing it as participation in something cosmic and beautiful. We find that rest is not laziness but trust, and that our labor is not futile but woven into the renewal of all things.

    Keeping The Pace of God | A New Story for Work and Rest - Revelation 21:1-6 - Clint Leavitt

  5. Oct 4

    Keeping The Pace of God | Identity Shifting - Deuteronomy 5:12-15 - Tom Parker

    What if one of God's most countercultural commands turned out to be one of his greatest gifts? As our teaching series on work and rest nears its close, we explore the fourth commandment, the Sabbath, through the lens of Deuteronomy 5:12-15, where Moses calls the people of Israel to observe a day of rest rooted not just in creation, but in redemption. Tom traces the story of a people who had been enslaved for centuries, who had never known the freedom to stop, to breathe, to simply be. Into that story, God speaks a command that must have sounded almost too good to be true: you cannot work. We wrestle with what it means to take that command seriously today, not out of rigid rule-keeping, but out of genuine trust in the God who rescued us. Along the way, we are reminded that Sabbath is not just about rest for ourselves -- it carries a moral dimension that extends to everyone around us, a call to ensure that those who serve us and work alongside us are also given the dignity of rest. This is a message about formation, about how the rhythms we build into our lives shape who we become and whose we are.

    Keeping The Pace of God | Identity Shifting - Deuteronomy 5:12-15 - Tom Parker

  6. Sep 27

    Keeping The Pace of God | The Problem of Work - Genesis 3:1-19 - Clint Leavitt

    What if the frustrations of our work are not signs that we have failed, but rather signs that we are living in a world that was made for something better? That is the question at the heart of this week's message, which draws us into one of the most foundational passages in all of Scripture, Genesis 3. Here we encounter the moment when human work shifted from a sacred partnership with God into something marked by toil, incompleteness, and disappointment. But far from being a story of defeat, this passage offers us an honest and ultimately hopeful diagnosis of why our work feels the way it does. We are introduced to two inadequate responses that many of us default to without realizing it: the romantic approach, which loads all our hope onto finding the perfect job or calling, and the cynical approach, which concludes that none of it matters anyway. Scripture refuses both of those exits and instead invites us into a more truthful and more life-giving vision. When we understand that the thorns and thistles of our work are a consequence of a broken world rather than a personal verdict on our worth, we begin to find a kind of freedom that neither romanticism nor cynicism can offer. This message calls us to name the real problem honestly and to discover that an honest diagnosis is actually the first step toward healing.

    Keeping The Pace of God | The Problem of Work - Genesis 3:1-19 - Clint Leavitt

  7. Sep 20

    Keeping The Pace of God | A Day unto the Lord - Exod 20:8-11; Lev 23:3 - Gayle Parker

    What if the Sabbath is less about what we stop doing and more about who we turn toward as we pause? That question sits at the heart of this week's message, which draws from the fourth commandment in Exodus 20 and the call to holy convocation in Leviticus 23. Both passages make the same declaration: the seventh day is not merely a break in the weekly rhythm but a day unto the Lord. There is a world of difference between a day off and a day set apart for God, and that difference changes everything about how we approach rest. We live in a culture that measures worth by productivity, and the anxiety that comes with that pressure is real. The commandment to cease work was given to a people freshly freed from the relentless grind of slavery, and it was given so they would never drift back into that bondage. The same invitation stands for us today. When we stop, we are not just recovering energy for the next workweek. We are declaring that we are not slaves to our output, our fears, or what others think of us. We are beloved children of a God whose love for us exceeds anything we could earn. That declaration, made one day every seven, has the power to reshape how we see ourselves and how we move through the other six days.

    Keeping The Pace of God | A Day unto the Lord - Exod 20:8-11; Lev 23:3 - Gayle Parker

  8. Sep 14

    Keeping The Pace of God | Work as Cultivation - Genesis 2:4-8, 15-22 - Clint Leavitt

    What if the cultural ideals we celebrate most (self-reliance, following our hearts, doing it our way) are actually leading us away from the life we were made for? This week's message takes us on a fascinating journey from John Milton's Paradise Lost to the opening pages of Genesis, uncovering how a centuries-old shift in Western thinking has quietly reshaped the way we understand work, identity, and purpose. At the heart of it all is a countercultural vision rooted in Genesis 2, where God forms humanity as a necessary and beloved partner in the ongoing cultivation of creation. Work, in this biblical vision, is the unlocking of God-given potential in the world, for the good of others. We explore what it means to be made in the image of a God who both transcends creation and intimately inhabits it, and how that dual nature of God reframes every hour we spend at our desks, in our classrooms, in our kitchens, and in our communities. If our work has felt too small, too draining, or too disconnected from anything that truly matters, this message offers a vision wide enough and deep enough to change that.

    Keeping The Pace of God | Work as Cultivation - Genesis 2:4-8, 15-22 - Clint Leavitt
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About

At Midtown Presbyterian Church, we value honest questions and genuine community, working alongside one another as we discover more about what it means to follow Jesus in the modern world, and in Phoenix. You are welcome here. Listen to our teachings in this podcast to follow us, and be sure to join us Sunday mornings; visit thespringmidtown.org to learn more.

Information

  • Creator
    Midtown Presbyterian Church
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    415
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    Midtown Presbyterian Church