Views from The Ridge 6.18.2025
Sunset Ridge is a church that desires to follow Jesus, reach people, and radiate God’s love and hope to all.
Worship
Sunday, June 8th
9 AM, Chapel, Acapella
11 AM, Sanctuary, Instrumental
Luke 8:26-39
We will be going through the lectionary this summer.
Watch previous sermons here.
Discipleship
Sundays, 10:15 AM, Bible Class & Discipleship for All Ages
Studying Luke 8:26-39
Fellowship Hall
Adult Bible Class: Open to all
BEMA Podcast Discussion group
Chapel Classroom, Women’s Discipleship Group
Room 218, Youth Group, 7th-12th grade
Roots: Children’s Discipleship through Godly Play
Bible Story Focus this Week: Acts 9:1-22
Key Verse: Acts 2:21
Room 102, PreK - Kindergarten
Room 122, 1st - 2nd Grade
Room 203, 3rd - 6th Grade
Tuesdays, 7 AM & 9 AM, Men’s Discipleship
Scott Heare’s Office, Limited spaces; Contact Scott to join a group.
Wednesdays, 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM, High School Tableship & Study Group
Upstairs Teens’ Room 218, Contact Den to join this group, open to 9th-12th Grade
This Week
Wednesday, June 18, 6-7:30pm, Worship Lab Upstairs Room 220
Join our worship band for an evening of worship, reflection, and creative practice as we rediscover who we are in Christ and what we’re made for. Contact Hunter Bates for more info.
Coming Up…
Every Saturday, Sunset Ridge Farmers Market, Charis Park
Every Sunday, Worship at 9 AM and 11 AM
Beyond Sunday
”Becoming Real”
Jess Lowry, Executive Director & Pastoral Leader, Sunset Ridge Church & Sunset Ridge Collective
This Sunday, as Evan Tardy spoke identity over our community, I found myself moved to tears. I witnessed God proclaim another identity through Evan, something she has known deep in her bones for years: preacher.
Many who were present may not have known that those two services were the first and second sermons Evan has ever preached in a church setting. And yet, I would argue that the sermons she’s been offering to her husband and four children; through everyday love, wisdom, and truth; have long been the work of a preacher too.
As I sat with her words and this theme of identity, I found myself wondering: what was it like for Jesus to embrace the public identity spoken over him?
God’s chosen, beloved child, marked by love.
We know that even Jesus struggled to minister in his own hometown.
And I wonder how many of us have wrestled to fully receive the new identities God has spoken over us.
For me, growing up meant a life in motion; new towns, new schools, new houses. Each move carried its own measure of fear and anxiety, but also held the grace of possibility This could be a chance to try on a new identity. Unlike my husband, Nathan, who lived his whole life in the same small town, I didn’t have the same shadow of “who I was” following me into every room.
But when I became a Christian, my family struggled deeply with the change. They had been hurt by religious people in their most vulnerable moments, and their fear was quick to surface: Is she becoming one of them? A hypocrite? Too good for us? Someone we no longer recognize?
All the while, I was simply; like I still am, like you are too; becoming.
I can’t help but think of this part from one of my favorite children’s books, The Velveteen Rabbit:
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
As I meet new members of our community, I imagine what it’s like to be known – or at least assumed to be known – because of your last name, your job, your zip code, your past. People think they know who you are. But here’s the truth:
We are taking on a new identity.
Beloved. Chosen. Marked by God’s love. The delight of God’s heart.
And for some of us, perhaps the hardest part is not overcoming our own past mistakes – but overcoming the perception of others. Those who “knew us when,” or who insist on keeping us suspended in time. But by God’s grace, we are not who we were yesterday.
Through God’s love, we are becoming.
Never forget,
You are so loved and so welcomed here.
Love, Jess
Prayers of the People
Kathy George is hospitalized undergoing testing.
