Pride & Penitence

Written By Church Media Squad

What if your disability isn't a punishment — and the healing you need isn't a cure?

As Paradox wraps up its Pride series, guest speaker Christian Barrera-Sandri brings a deeply personal message connecting Psalm 38's "penitent's plea for healing" to the overlapping experiences of queerness and disability. Drawing from his husband's 20-year journey with diabetes, his father's kidney transplant and ongoing fight for disability justice, and his own unexplained seizure episode, Christian challenges the idea that illness, disability, or queerness are signs of God's punishment — and points instead to what Jesus actually offers: not a magic cure, but a restored community.

Discussion Guide
 

Watch Recent Sermons:

Featured
Pride & Penitence
Pride & Penitence

What if your disability isn't a punishment — and the healing you need isn't a cure?

That the Works of God Might Be Seen in Them
That the Works of God Might Be Seen in Them

"Who sinned, this man or his parents?" That's the question that opens John 9 — and it's a question that still gets asked, in different words, about anyone whose body or identity doesn't fit the frameworks we're handed.

In this guest message, Esther Loewen — a licensed marriage and family therapist and former pastor — walks through three places where the story of the man born blind in John 9 echoes her own experience, and the experience of many trans people today: being treated as a puzzle to solve rather than a person, the holiness of embodied transformation, and the demand to testify again and again before being believed. Esther shares pieces of her own transition story and ends with a question for the whole church to sit with: if God were doing something sacred in the life of a trans person, would you be able to see it?

Good News in a Body
Good News in a Body

On Pride Sunday, guest preacher Jaz Bowen-Waring (Lutheran pastor and founder of Queerfully and Wonderfully Made) brings a message rooted in Luke 4 and the incarnation: when Jesus stood up in the synagogue and declared, "Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing," everything changed.

Back to Sermons
Church Media Squad

Imagine having a website that truly reflects the heart of your ministry. Finding the right plan can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. But don’t worry – we’ve got your back.

Whether you're just starting out or managing a bustling mega-church, The Squad is here to help your church shine online.

https://churchmediasquad.com/websites
Next

That the Works of God Might Be Seen in Them