Westminster Presbyterian Church, Alexandria Va

King David is a person with tremendous capacity for good and evil, compassion and cruelty, tenderness and violence. Why would an all-powerful and all-knowing God invest God’s very self in a person like David – or for that matter a person like you or me? Why would God take such risk? Larry Hayward preaches from 1 Samuel 16:1-13.

Dr. Victoria Barnett, Director of Programs on Ethics, Religion and the Holocaust at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, challenges our understanding of how the Holocaust radically transformed the relationship between Christians and Jews. She will provide an overview of the role Christian churches played and explore post-Holocaust conversations between Christians and Jews. One session will focus on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s role in this history.

Over 3500 years span the calendar between the people of Israel in the wilderness, Christ and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, and Van Morrison in the Irish countryside. But each experiences water as an entry point of a deeper experience of God. Larry Hayward preaches from Exodus 17:1–7 and John 4:7–15.

Dr. Victoria Barnett, Director of Programs on Ethics, Religion and the Holocaust at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, challenges our understanding of how the Holocaust radically transformed the relationship between Christians and Jews. She will provide an overview of the role Christian churches played and explore post-Holocaust conversations between Christians and Jews. One session will focus on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s role in this history.

Faith normally comes to us in a place and may take us to another place, but it is rarely if ever “place-less.” We can never underestimate the role of geography in forming our faith, giving it roots, leading it to live. Even when geography is the source of friction and pain, we cannot escape it. Our faith takes form around place. Larry Hayward preaches today from Genesis 12:1-4.

In eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the woman and man were not giving into or falling into some base, lower nature; rather they were rising, extending themselves, aspiring to exceed and excel. They were responding to all that is good and noble, hopeful and helpful, not base or demeaning: Nourishment, beauty, knowledge. What’s not to like? Larry Hayward preaches today on Genesis 3:1-7 and Matthew 4:1-11.

Rev. MaryAnn McKibben Dana, writer and Presbyterian pastor, leads us in Improvising with God. How is God at work in our lives and how do we respond? Examples of God’s improvisation from scripture are explored as we challenge ourselves to see God in creative and surprising ways through music, pop culture, literature and psychology.

Third of a three-class series on world religions and Christian theology that adopts a way of belonging, behaving, and believing for the common good.

We welcome to our service the Reverend Whitney K. Fauntleroy, the Westminster Associate Pastor Nominating Committee’s candidate for Associate Pastor for Youth & Young Adults. Reverend Fauntleroy comes to us from Wilmington, NC. She holds a Master of Divinity and a Master of Arts in Youth and Young Adult Ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary. Reverend Fauntleroy preaches today from 1 Samuel 3:1-10.

Sathi Clarke, Wesley Seminary’s Chair in World Christianity and Professor of Theology, Culture & Mission Second of a three-class series on world religions and Christian theology that adopts a way of belonging, behaving, and believing for the common good.

Dr. Larry Hayward concludes an accidental sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount, preaching on Matthew 5:38-48. How do we address the gap between the demands of these words of Jesus and the world in which we seek to understand and live them out?

In her sermon a few weeks ago, Casey FitzGerald challenged us to re-engage with Scripture such that we might see the tension within it; between it and ourselves; and between it, ourselves, and our world. Today, she leads us in hearing a large piece of Scripture—three chapters from the gospel of Matthew—that our time in worship does not normally afford us to hear. Let anyone with ears, listen.

Sathi Clarke, Wesley Seminary’s Chair in World Christianity and Professor of Theology, Culture & Mission This is a three-class series on world religions and Christian theology that adopts a way of belonging, behaving, and believing for the common good.

Peter Wehner, Senior Fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, speaks to us about how many orthodox and evangelical Christians feel increasingly marginalized. How should we think about engagement in a culture that is both effective and faithful, and what is the political role in all of this?

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?” “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.” Though Jesus never uses the word “church,” he is describing not only what the individual life of the Christian is to be, but also what the followers of Jesus Christ are collectively to be. He is describing the church. Larry Hayward preaches on Matthew 5:13-20.

The decades-old conflict between Israel and Palestine is at a critical impasse. What will American diplomacy be in the days and year ahead? Ambassador Wilcox talks about this tragic conflict between Israel, who aspires to be a democratic and Jewish state, and Palestine, whose people live under unjust occupation and want a state of their own. Ambassador Wilcox served in the U.S. Foreign Service for 31 years, his last post as Chief of Mission and U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem.

The Beatitudes speak to what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be the church. Are they commandments to follow in this life, or are they descriptions of the life to come? Are they reflections of the way things are or the way things ought to be? Larry Hayward preaches on Matthew 5:1-12.

Dr. G. Wilson Gunn, Jr., General Presbyter, National Capital Presbytery, speaks to us about adaptive change and leadership in posts where we seek to lead, about changes at the presbytery level, and answer any questions members might bring to the session concerning our presbytery.

The Christian Church around the world is in a season of focusing on the beginnings of the ministry of Jesus Christ. How did Jesus’ ministry reflect the political circumstances of his day, and how did he prepare for it? How did his followers respond to his call to ministry? Larry Hayward preaches today from Matthew 4:12-22.

A follow-up to their fall discussion on Christian-Muslim engagement, at this session Salih speaks to the challenges of fostering interfaith dialougue in America. His wife, Dr. Zeyneb Sayilgan, brings a Muslim woman’s perspective to the conversation. Salih Sayilgan is a teaching fellow at the Catholic University of America where he teaches courses on Islam and World Religions.