In this study we'll dig into the parables of Jesus using Amy-Jill Levine's book, Short Stories by Jesus, as our guide. Levine, a Jewish New Testament scholar, invites us to hear Jesus’s parables through the ears of his original first-century Jewish audience. We often tame these stories into comfortable, neat moral lessons. Yet, to those who first heard them, Jesus’s parables were provocative, surprising, and intentionally unsettling. By recovering their original cultural and historical context, Levine helps us strip away centuries of assumption to uncover their raw, challenging edge. In this study, we’ll step back into the ancient world, wrestle with difficult questions, and allow these timeless stories to disturb our comfort and transform our understanding of God’s kingdom.

Required book: a good study bible

Recommended book: Short Stories by Jesus - Amy Jill Levine ($13 from the church by Sept 14).

You can register on Sunday Mornings at the church

or by clicking here. 

Empire isn't just ancient history — it's the air we breathe. In this study, we'll turn to Kat Armas' Liturgies for Resisting Empire to ask what faithful belonging looks like when the systems around us prize dominance over people. Armas, a Cuban American theologian, traces how the earliest Christians resisted Rome not through force but through countercultural community — and she offers us liturgies for doing the same today. 

Required Book: Liturgies for Resisting Empire by Kat Armas ($18 through the church, order by Sept 14) 

You can register on Sunday Mornings at the church or by clicking here.