Thank God I found my wallet. Thank God it's Friday. Thank God I got a good parking spot.

Darlene Stratton, back at Litchfield Nazarene in an interim role, wants to know whether any of that counts as fervent.

In the second half of a series she started in July, she goes to Luke 17 and the ten men with leprosy who were all healed and all did exactly what Jesus told them to do. One turned around and came back. Jesus asked where the other nine were, and Darlene spends a while being honest about why she can't be too hard on them.

Then she goes underneath the story. Most Bibles split Luke 17 into three separate pieces with headings, and she argues they were never meant to be read apart. What sits right before the ten lepers is a request. What sits right after is a group of people missing the whole thing.

There are also two different Greek words for healing in that passage, and only one man got the second one.

Preached Sunday morning, September 13, 2026. Part two of Thank God, from Luke 17 and Romans 1.

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

Our whole culture is trying to answer one question, and Jon Stoe thinks it keeps handing that question to things that were never built to carry it. Politics. Sexuality. Feelings. Other people's labels.

Who am I?

In the last message of Battle in the Heavenly Realms, Jon traces identity back to Genesis 1, where God says something about us before anyone else got a word in. Then forward through the fall, where he says something more than innocence was lost, and into what the cross actually restored.

Along the way he stops at Luke 10, where seventy-two ordinary people come back from a preaching trip stunned that even the demons listened to them, and Jesus answers with a sentence about lightning and then a second sentence almost nobody quotes.

He closes at the armor of God, and makes a case that the six pieces Paul lists are not six things at all.

Preached Sunday morning, August 30, 2026. The final message in Battle in the Heavenly Realms, from Ephesians 6, Genesis 1, and Luke 10.

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.

If you have ever tried to quit something, really meant it, and then done it again a week later, Jon Stoe has a word for what you're dealing with.

Part three of Battle in the Heavenly Realms moves from where the battle started to where it actually gets fought. Paul locates it precisely in 2 Corinthians 10, and it isn't out there somewhere. It's in your head.

Jon works through what a stronghold is, why it's different from just a bad thought, and the progression the enemy has been running since Genesis 3. A question, then doubt, then deception, then disobedience. He also explains why you can't demolish a stronghold by deciding harder, using the image of a demolition crew standing outside a building and shouting at it.

He closes with something he asked his wife's permission to tell, about the first years of their marriage and what she couldn't sleep through.

Preached Sunday morning, August 23, 2026. Part three of Battle in the Heavenly Realms, from 2 Corinthians 10 and Ephesians 6.

Litchfield Church of the Nazarene is a welcoming, bilingual community of faith in Litchfield, MN, whose mission is to produce fruitful disciples of Jesus Christ. We gather every Sunday at 10:45 AM. New messages drop on the podcast each week. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. Learn more at litchfieldnaz.com.