April 26, 2026 | Word Out!
Download the Bulletin from April 26, 2026
READINGS
First Reading: Acts 2:42-47
42 [The baptized] devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
43 Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Second Reading: 1 Peter 2:19-25
19 It is a commendable thing if, being aware of God, a person endures pain while suffering unjustly. 20 If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do good and suffer for it, this is a commendable thing before God. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.
22 “He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
23 When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
Gospel: John 10:1-10
[Jesus said:] 1 “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
7 So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
SERMON—Pastor Sam Townsend
“A Devoted Church”
Good morning, church family. How many of you woke up this morning, you’re like, “Man, I can’t wait to be at church today!” ? We got three people, four people… Come on now, look, this is a beautiful, sunny day! Something that I realized as I’ve gotten older is the beauty of coming together as God’s people in his house, Amen.
So, something that you’ll notice about me is, I’m an ordained pastor, but I’m Pentecostal at heart, so you’ll see me preaching with hand gestures, and I would love to kind of see some head nods! A smile is okay! (How many of you know it’s okay to smile at church?) Come on, somebody—I’m looking at the people in the back. It’s okay to smile at church. And I love the idea that we get to gather as God’s people to encounter God and be in fellowship with one another—like, it’s such a beautiful gift, is it not?...Okay, we got seven people. It’s getting better. Okay? Would love to kind of see feedback.
But as I’ve gotten into this place of—I’m a church planter with my wife; I don’t know why, but we’re in it, right—I’ve realized, I’ve left the church and come back, and something that has been stirring in my wife and my soul is the idea of “beautiful community.” The same people that maybe have hurt you, that you feel like “I don’t want to get too close with,” I realize that every single individual that you get to “do life with,” is a gift, amen.
And I like to gather as God’s people on a beautiful Sunday morning— I woke up at 5:30 AM, because I was so excited! I don’t wake up at 5:30 every morning. And I was like, “Thanks be to God!” So, it’s a real privilege to be here today, because this is the first time where I get to bring in my ministry life as well as my professional life, all into one. So for some of you, you’re getting a lot of Sam Townsend today; like, a lot of you’re just getting a whole lot of me today, good, bad or ugly—you can email Pastor Dan, but here I am, before you today. Super-humbled, and privileged to be with you all.
I actually visited this church 12 years ago with my seminary professor sitting right over in that corner, and I remember thinking how great it would be if one day I’d be able to preach in front of this beautiful church. And here I am today. It’s like full circle. So, I’m a little giddy. Amen, I’m a little giddy. And you guys have such a beautiful, beautiful sanctuary. You have an incredible pastor, by the way, not only is he just academically intellectually inclined, like, this is a brain, but he’s also very caring and loving. And he’s actually very responsive with emails. Hallelujah! You know, sometimes pastors, I don’t know if they forget their passwords, but they just, you know, emails are hard for some people, but this man is responsive, and I love him to death. I love the opportunity to be able to come before you people. So, thank you.
Like I said, my wife and I planted a church about a year and a half ago, and we had this conviction of, “How can we re-imagine church?” Barnard did a study back in 2022 on why folks were leaving the church, and the top two answers that they researched that showed out, was that people who left the church felt like church was irrelevant and they felt like it was ineffective—that people were leaving church because they felt like it was irrelevant and it was ineffective, that folks of all ages did not see the tangible need to go to church or be part of a faith community.
Now, some of you may have friends or family members that fit into that category, but if Covid taught us anything, if there’s any good that came out of Covid it’s that maybe, just maybe, you and I maybe got too comfortable in going to church rather than being the church, okay? I’m just going to let that sit down, that maybe, somewhere along the way in our Christendom, that we got too comfortable in going to church rather than understanding that we are to become the Church.
And part of the privilege in working in the position that I do at Compass Housing is that I get to hear people’s honest opinions about church. Now I’m engaging with corporate people, community people, all sorts of people, and the thing that I hear often is that people are tired of church. They’re tired of being burnt out, hurt, disappointed, and honestly, can we really blame them, with everything that’s been going on?
But I realized something, through all the stuff that they’re telling me: that people are actually looking at, and to, the Church. I’m going to say that again: With everything going on in our society, in our culture, in our communities, people are actually looking at the church; to the church.
What are we saying? What are we doing? What are we not saying, and what are we not doing? This to me, for a lot of people, may be discouraging. I look at this as opportunity; opportunity for the people of God to be able to say, how good is the Gospel? How good is God, and all the things that He desires to do in the world, to say yes? And amen to the things of God that allow us to say, “God is still at work.”
And I realized something. Opportunity is knocking, for every church that’s around us. And I love this, that the reading that we had is Acts 2, probably one of my favorite passages. I know every pastor says that, but it truly is one of my favorite passages, that Luke actually gives us a snapshot of the very first church, a community so radically different from anything in the world had ever seen, that it turned Jerusalem upside down; that it wasn’t a perfect church, but it was a church that people can say “looked like Jesus.”
If you look at the passage, one of the first words that you see is the word “devoted,” and the word means “to persist, to be constantly attentive, to refuse, to not give up. To these people, this wasn’t casual Christianity. This wasn’t “show up when it’s convenient.” These people were bought in. These people were all in, and they were devoted to four things that we see: They were devoted to teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. If you ever underline anything in your Bibles—okay, or your Bible app, it highlights for you—all you’ve got to do is just click four things: Teaching. They were learning together. Fellowship. They were doing life together. How beautiful is it, that you can look to the person to the left, and to the right, and know, not only do they know your name well—if you’re new today, you will get to know someone who knows your name—but someone to know your name, someone to know your story, someone to say, “I am here with you and for you!” The breaking of the bread, eating together. See, I’m Korean, okay? I don’t see any Koreans in here, but as a Korean, okay, as a Korean, food is everything, right? Food, like fellowshipping around a meal. Korean barbecue fans?—I know I’m not the only one. Okay, there’s hands…right? You eat around a grill, you eat around a table. And how precious and beautiful it is to fellowship when you break bread together, that there’s something intimate and personal that comes about… And then, prayer, as we are able to seek God together. The early church actually demonstrated it wasn’t just a Sunday event. It was a daily, communal way of life.
One of my old professors used to tell me that the beauty and the significance of the cross is that Jesus died that I may be reconciled to Him, but also that I may be reconciled to my neighbor, amen, that we were made to do life with one another. And here’s what I love about this. In verse 44 it says this: that “all the believers were together and had everything in common.” That means walls came down, divisions disappeared, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, educated and uneducated. None of that mattered anymore, because when we’re truly devoted to the Gospel, you become devoted to each other, where you start seeing people the way Jesus sees the other. Amen, it’s something profound that happens in the people of God.
And as they started to learn and live and eat and seek God together, the Bible says that “they were in awe.” Scholars will translate this as an overwhelming awareness that God is real, and God is present. That’s so good. I’m going to say that again: that as they started to learn and live and eat and seek God together, the Bible says “they were in awe.” There was an overwhelming awareness that God is real, and that God is present. There was almost a tangible encounter with God that was undeniable.
Now this is where it gets really radical. In verse 45 it says this: “They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” I’m going to let that sink in for a little bit. They sold their property and their possessions to give to anyone who had need. And let’s just be real; that sounds wild. Okay, the things that you want, to sell for the sake of the Other—like, how is that even possible? I don’t even know their names, but yet I am giving, myself, the things that I love, for them? That is radical. And that’s exactly what they did, that they’ve been transformed by the Gospel in such a way that possessions wasn’t something that they held so tight on. It became open-handed.
In a culture where it’s all about self-preservation, it’s all about accumulation of stuff, right? And I love my stuff, okay? I’m a fisherman. I’ve got a kayak. I’ve got a 12-foot boat, and I love my boat, okay? I’m a fisherman at heart. I love fishing—the season’s right around the corner. But to realize, like, we are living in a time where it’s all about “what more I can get,” “how much more I can have,” that you realize, the more we have, the less we’re willing to give, amen; it’s hard! But that’s the radicalness of the first church, that they weren’t thinking about how much more they can get. They were asking the question, “How much more can I give?” Come on, I got to be hitting somebody here this morning. It hits me, because I’m realizing, “Man, I love my family, I want to steward what I have, but do I often think about the things that I’ve been given were not only supposed to be a blessing for me, but to be a blessing unto the other?
I need Christ’s work in me.
I’ve been working at Compass for the last four years. It’s been great; life-changing in so many ways. My first year of working at Compass, part of my job is, I get to give tours to donors, okay, it’s what I do. Okay, we’re at the Compass Center—and, by the way, plug, if you don’t know anything about Compass, or you want a tour of the Compass Center, come on by. You know, I’ll give Pastor Dan, he has my email, I would love to give you guys a tour of what’s happening in our city. That’s just a plug.
So, I was working at Compass and doing a tour at the Compass Center, and these were high end donors, etc. We’re doing a tour. It was going great. And I noticed in my peripherals that there was a young man, 18 years old; looked young. He looked like a child. He had a garbage bag around him, and he looked completely lost. Now, to access our shelters, you have to be over 18, but rarely do we get young people that young. So, I’m looking over; he’s clearly lost.
So I’m like,” Okay, let me put a pause on this tour.” And then I go talk to this young man. So I turned to him and I said, “Hey, you doing okay? You look lost. You look borderline-confused. Like, what are you doing here?”
And he looks at me, and he goes, “I have no idea. My parents just dropped me off here.”
I was like, “Okay, well, you do know this is a shelter? This is a men’s shelter. Like, are you sure?”
He’s like, “I don’t even know.”
“Okay, where are your parents?”
“Oh, they went to go find parking.”
“Okay, well, let’s leave. Let’s go. Let’s go find your parents.”
We go outside and we’re walking around the block. Could not find them. I’m like, “You want to call them?”
“I don’t have my phone with me. It’s in the car.”
“Okay, so why don’t we just go get coffee? Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”
I’m trying to kill time, thinking that the parents are going to come back. I’m going to get coffee. I’m like, “Why don’t you tell me your story, what’s happening here?”
“I don’t really know what I’m doing. It’s actually my 18th birthday today, and my foster parents promised me to take me out for my birthday.”
“Well, what’s in the bag?” He opens the bag, and it’s his clothes. And I was like, “What did you think was in your bag?”
“They told me it was gifts for me, gifts that they bought for me.”
And I’m like, “Did they just drop you out?”
So if you didn’t know, legally, when you turn 18, your foster parents no longer have legal rights to you no more, which means they don’t actually get services or resources from the state, from the government, etc., to provide for this kid. So once you’re 18, you’re on your own.
And what his foster parents did, on their 18th birthday, the moment that they wouldn’t get any sort of reimbursement whatsoever, they dropped this kid off at a shelter with his clothes in a bag, and this kid is in shock. He’s like, “I have no idea what to do, where to go. I’m completely lost. “
And I’m thinking this can’t be real life, like, this can’t be real. On your 18th birthday, where you literally, in a lot of ways, in a lot of traditions, you become a man, you’re getting dropped off at a shelter. No. We’re not doing this.
I’m like, “Who do you know? Where can you go? You have family or friends?”
He’s like, “Well, tonight’s youth group, and it’s a church I go to. Can we check out the church?”
I said, “That’s a great idea. They’ll help us.” We go in the car, we go down to the church. And once we get to the church, they just finished service, they’re breaking bread. And I was like, this is a perfect time. So I go to the pastor. I’m like, “Hey, Pastor, we have—I’ll call him Darnell for the sake of a name—as like, “Hey, this is Darnell’s situation. This is what’s happening. What can you do? Like, he needs help. And he mentioned this is a church he frequented. Like, is there anything that you can do?”
He looks at me, and then he looks at Darnell, and he goes, “Well, we actually haven’t seen Darnell a lot in the last several years. I wish there was something that we can do, but, but maybe if he came out a little bit more, there would be something more that we can do.”
Kid you not. I was shocked. I was like, “Wait a second, here, this is really the church?” And every ounce of me wanted to flip every table in that place, right? But I’m a professional, okay? I’m a professional. I had to keep my cool. I had to keep my cool. I didn’t want to let Darnell know and freak out, but I wanted to flip every table in every chair in that place. I was like, What do you mean? Because he didn’t attend service for a certain amount of time, that he’s no longer a part of your community?
This kid broke, because now he now he’s realizing “I got nobody.” So I’m like, “Okay, let’s go back.”
So we go back to the Compass Center, because I wanted to sign him up for housing, right? And I’m like, thinking in my head, shoot, I’ve got to call my wife. I’ve got to house this kid. Like, no way I’m going to let this happen. Like, 18-year-old kid. Totally unprofessional; should never do that. But I’m like, I can’t let this kid do that.
So we get there and I’m about to sign him up with the case manager, get him somehow, situated with housing. So, we get there, and as we are walking in, I noticed one of our shelter guests walking down—and I’ll call him Clint— Clint actually got housing the day before, and he’s getting, he’s pumping music. He’s having a gay old time, like, he is living life, because he’s like, “I got housing! I’ve been on the wait list. I got housing! God is good all the time!” All the stuff. He’s walking out, and I look at him like, “Clint, congratulations. I hope life is good for you, praying all the best.”
He looks at me, and he looks at Darnell and he said, “Wait a second, you’re way too young to be here. What are you doing here?” And I was like, well, kind of explaining to him the situation. And he’s looking at Darnell, and he’s like, “Nope, that’s not happening.”
And he’s like, “Well, why don’t you come stay with me for a year?” And I was like—?!?
And Clint goes, “Look, this is no place for an 18-year-old. I’m thankful for this place. I’m thankful for all the services, and the guides, and the people that are around. But this is no place for an 18-year-old.” And he goes, “You stay with me for a year. I’m going to house you.”
And Darnell is weeping at this point. He’s like, “You don’t even know me.” And I’ll never forget this. He’s like, “You don’t even know me.” And this is how Clint responds: He said, “I don’t need to know you, but Jesus knows you. I’ve been given a lot. You’re in need, so get your stuff. We’re going home.”
I broke. I was like, I was— I have never heard of anything like that. And I’m like, Ah, this is what it means to be the church. This is an opportunity for the Gospel to be displayed to someone who is in need. Verse 45 says, again, “to anyone who had need,” anyone—not just people who look like them, not just people who acted right, not just people who were deserving, anyone who had need.
And that’s essentially the heart of the Gospel, family, that Jesus didn’t come for the put-together people. He came for the broken, the messy, the ones society had written off, the least of these. Right now, in this city where people are experiencing high levels of homelessness, people who have lost their housing because of job loss, medical bills, mental health struggles, domestic violence, we have people sleeping in cars and tents and in shelters. And if there was anyone who has need, the question that I want to propose to you is this: Do they know that they’re included in God’s family? Can they experience a church, a place that sees them, values them, responds to their needs?
What it can look like today is that—I work at Compass Housing Alliance, so of course, I have a bias—but we serve people experiencing homelessness, providing shelter, case management, support and a path towards stable housing. I’ll be honest with you. Compass can’t do this work alone. But this is why I love being here, to be able to preach and share. I love it when the people of God can come together and say, This is not their problem, this is our problem, amen. Like, this is not just their lives; this affects the Body of Christ, the kingdom of God as a whole. And it’s an opportunity for us to represent Christ, to respond in a way, with devotion, with sacrifice and with open arms. And what this could look like, practically, is thinking about needs. What are they needing?
I told you earlier, there is nothing more powerful for me than prayer and presence. Prayer and presence. It could be opportunities of donation drives, volunteering to serve meals, advocating for affordable housing in our neighborhoods, getting to know someone by name. A lot of the folks that we serve, they feel like they are nameless. So, they’re given nicknames and street names. I don’t call them that. I call them by their birth name, the name that they were given, and to see their faces light up, like, you know me by name! I tell you, family, it is powerful when you can instill in people hope.
A community that we see in Acts; so devoted together, so responsive to need, so radically inclusive that people were starting to say, “That’s what Jesus would do,” verse 47: “and the Lord added to their number daily to those who were being saved.”
Do you see the connection? That when the church lives like Jesus, devoted, sacrificial, inclusive, that the Gospel spreads; that people are drawn to a community that actually looks different from what culture and the world are doing, not because we’re just “better, “but because we’ve been transformed by grace!
Friends, family, our neighborhoods are experiencing homelessness; they’re not a project or a problem to solve. They’re made in the image of God, so that anyone who has a need, the Gospel rescues us and it compels us to respond.
So, here’s my invitation: that we may be the hands and feet of Jesus, be prayerful to those in need, volunteer your time and your resources. We all have something to give. Give sacrificially, that our hearts may be open, because when we do, we’re not just helping people find housing. We’re building the kind of community that looks like Acts 2; we’re becoming the church that looks like Jesus.
Will you pray with me?
God, we praise you for an amazing Sabbath Sunday. We thank you, God, that you are the example for the early church. Thank you for showing us what’s possible when your people are all in. Forgive us when we’ve looked past those in need. Forgive us when we’ve loved our comfort more than our neighbors. Give us eyes to see what you see. Give us hearts that break for what breaks yours. Make us a Church that looks like Jesus.
In His Name, Amen.