Views from The Ridge 1.15.2025
Sunset Ridge is a church that desires to follow Jesus, reach people, and radiate God’s love and hope to all.
This Week
Thursday, January 16 Free Headshots for Entrepreneurs 11am-1pm
Saturday, January 18 Sunset Ridge Farmers Market, 9am-1pm, Charis Park
Sunday, January 19 Scott Heare preaching: Psalm 34:8
9am Worship in the Chapel
10:15am Classes for all ages
Adult Classes: Fellowship Hall
Women’s Group: Chapel Classroom
Youth Group: Rm 218
Roots PK-K: Rm 102
Roots 1-2: Roots Room
Roots 3-6: Rm 203
11am Worship in the Chapel
To view recorded sermons from Sunset Ridge Church, please make sure to add us to your subscriptions on YouTube.
Monday, January 20 Offices & One Another Coffee closed in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Coming Up…
Sunset Ridge Farmers Market - Every Saturday, 9 AM - 1 PM
Jan 23rd -Dream Week: Neighboring Our Way to Flourishing 6-8pm
Around the Community
Another huge thank you to everyone who helped with Camelot Christmas last month. This week, Camelot Elementary delivered a very encouraging stack of thank you letters from many of the families who were blessed by your generosity.
As a reminder, we excited to share with you, Church Center. Church Center is a website and mobile app our congregation will use to stay connected. If you have already filled out your contact information, thank you. You will find all this information in this app. Please make sure it is all correct. If you haven’t already done so, please follow this link to download the app that makes it easy to give, sign up for events, check in your children before service, and more.
You will find reminders on our slides at the beginning of service for the rest of the month. As a reminder, all worship (both 9am and 11am) will be held in our beautiful chapel for the foreseeable future.
Defiant Hope
Jess Lowry Executive Director Sunset Ridge Church of Christ & Sunset Ridge Collective
As I listened to pastor Scott’s sermon on Sunday, the story of the bleeding woman healed by her bold faith of touching Jesus’s garment, and the story of Kay Warren sharing of her son’s suicide, the words that kept coming to mind were “defiant hope”.
Defiance is often seen as a negative, as a mother I can certainly think of moments in the lives of my three children where I would have categorized their punishable behavior as defiant (some of mine more than others). But as I listened to the stories of these women, there is an edge of defiance to their hope. Defiance means to resist, to fight back, to stand against a challenge, and when faced with the unthinkable, to experience your worst nightmare and live to tell a bold story of hope, that feels defiant to me.
Defiant hope proclaims that there is something greater happening than what we can see in front of us. I saw a video that went viral of a family singing around the ruins of their family home in the L.A. fires. I’ve seen countless images and videos of people stepping in to help in this unbelievable loss that is impacting so many. And I am reminded that hope is something that can spread, too.
Hope spreads by sharing stories of how God has shown up in your life in the face of tragedy. This week was especially meaningful to me as Nathan, Hunter, and I worked together to write a song that we shared at 11:00. This song was inspired by a vision I saw in prayer years after losing my daughter Ava.
Hope spreads by standing beside someone in their grief when they don’t have strength to stand on their own. It spreads in a million little ways when we give what we can to care for another human being in their time of need.
I believe that we are a community of defiant hope. One that proclaims that each person is worthy of the love of God, of care and time, of compassion and consideration. One that sees God at work all around us and works to point everyone to that goodness, even in the midst of loss and fear.
May we be people of defiant hope and may we do the small, faithful work of showing up wherever it is that we are and giving everything we have to the world between our own two feet.
Love,
Jess
Praises and Prayers
Bethany Hill is home following hip replacement surgery.
