United Methodist Church Westlake Village
Audio of Pastor Darren Cowdrey's weekly message, as we work together toward fulfilling our mission statement: "Setting a Course for a Better Life."
Live-streamed weekly from our campus in Westlake Village, CA. Video of this entire worship service is available for viewing or listening on our home page at http://www.umcwv.org for approximately 3 weeks, and then also available on our YouTube channel at https://bit.ly/4hFmuBZ
All songs used in compliance with our CCLI and streaming licenses.Copyright License # 1291056Streaming License #CSPL075029
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Episodes
526 episodes
Hamilton, Grief, And The Path To Healing
A lot of us learned Alexander Hamilton’s life just long enough to pass a test, then let it fade. So we’re bringing it back in a way that actually lands, through the Hamilton musical and one of its most tender moments: “It’s Quiet Uptown.” We ta...
What "The Waitress" Teaches About Self Worth And Psalm 139
In the second message in Pastor Darren's summer series on recent Broadway musicals, a diner waitress who names her feelings in pies might be the last place you expect to find a lesson on Christian self-worth, but "The Waitress" goes strai...
The Outsiders Musical And The Price Of Conflict
A gang story from the 1950s should not feel this current, yet The Outsiders still cuts close to the bone. We walk through the world of Greasers and Socs and the class conflict that fuels their rivalry, then trace how Ponyboy and Johnny get swep...
Jonah, Our Inner Villain, And The Hard Work Of Forgiveness
Think of the person you resent most, the one who still feels like a villain in your story. Now imagine God sending you to offer them a message of redemption and then imagine they actually repent. That is the emotional fuse at the heart of Jonah...
Jonah Chapter Two And The Hard Work Of Regret
Guilt has a way of shrinking your world until it feels like you’re living inside a sealed chamber, replaying the moment you wish you could erase. Jonah Chapter Two gives us one of scripture’s most human snapshots of that feeling: a prayer spoke...
Jonah Runs
God says “Go,” and Jonah says “Absolutely not” then buys a one-way ticket in the opposite direction. That blunt refusal is funny on the surface, but it also lands uncomfortably close to home, because most of us know what it feels like to dodge ...
Pimento Cheese Sandwiches And The Problem With Good Intentions
A single line from a movie sticks with us: “What if empathy is an evolutionary advantage?” That question turns into a faith question fast, because so many of us have been trained to think empathy makes us soft, exposed, or easy to take advantag...
What If Humility Is The Real Proof Of Belief?
Romans is not a calm textbook, it is a pastoral intervention. We start a new series by admitting the real-world challenge of tackling Paul’s most comprehensive letter in the middle of confirmation and graduation season, then we name why Romans ...
When The Spirit Breaks The Rules
The Holy Spirit does not wait for our permission, and that is both thrilling and unsettling. We start with the Pentecost story many of us know by heart, then take a sharp left into Numbers 11 where Moses hits a breaking point in the wilderness ...
How Can I Find My Role In The Body Of Christ?
Unity sounds beautiful until you try to live it with real people. Pastor Darren starts with Paul’s “body of Christ” image and makes it concrete: some of us are eyes who see a path forward, some are ears who listen, some are mouths who speak cle...
Is The Holy Spirit The Sequel To Jesus?
Sequels are supposed to continue the story, but they also expose what we really loved about the original. We kick things off by arguing about the best movie sequels, then pivot to a bigger claim: the Holy Spirit is the “sequel” to Jesus, promis...
Knowing The Way
A sign in Minneapolis says, “The bus does not stop here,” and it exposes something many of us do without noticing: we define ourselves by the places we refuse to go. From the way churches talk about belief to the way we talk about each other, “...
How Do We Hear Jesus’ Voice Amid Competing Voices?
A lot of faith language sounds comforting until you place it in real life where attention is weaponized, outrage is monetized, and everybody claims to know the truth. We lean into John 10 and ask a sharper question: how do you recognize Jesus’ ...
Surprised By Jesus
Surprise doesn’t happen often, so when a story hits you with it four times, it’s trying to wake you up. We sit with Luke 24 and the Emmaus Road, where disciples stumble through grief, confusion, and the kind of disappointment that sounds painfu...
A Different View of Easter: What If New Life Is Already Here?
Earthquakes, lightning, guards collapsing, a once-in-history moment that feels too big to miss. That’s one way the resurrection story gets told, and it can quietly train us to believe God only shows up when life gets cinematic. We start by look...
Palm Sunday And The King Who Refuses Violence
A triumphal entry is supposed to end with a coronation, but this one fades out. We follow Jesus into Jerusalem and slow down long enough to notice the strange choices: a donkey instead of a stallion, palm branches instead of fine fabric, a crow...
The Ten Commandments As A Way Of Love
Freedom sounds simple until you actually have it. The wilderness is where you learn what still owns you, what you keep reaching for, and what kind of community you’re becoming while you figure it out. That’s why the Ten Commandments arrive when...
Bread From Heaven In The Wilderness
Freedom can be terrifying when it doesn’t come with a full pantry and a clear map. We pick up the Exodus story right after the escape through the Red Sea, when the Israelites hit the wilderness and start wishing they were back in Egypt. It’s a ...
Out-frog, Out-snake, Out-locust: Our God Goes Big
What if salvation isn’t a status but a way of standing in the world? We follow the sweep from the burning bush to Passover to the Red Sea and ask how a people learn to live free. Along the way, the commands that once sounded strange—choose a la...
Should We Stop Waiting For Miracles And Start Listening To God?
A quiet life in Midian, a bush that blazes without burning, and a voice that won’t let go—this is where our journey starts. Not with spectacle for spectacle’s sake, but with an invitation to trade comfort for calling and drift for direction. We...
Finding Eden In A Noisy World
What if the point of Lent isn’t gritting our teeth but finding our center again? We open a new season by stepping into the Exodus story, watching a mother push a basket into dangerous water and trusting a future she can’t see. That basket share...
Wicked, Good, Or Both?
What if the line between wicked and good isn’t a line at all, but a question we keep asking until power loses its grip on appearances? We take Oz’s yellow brick road in a new direction, following Wicked’s reimagining of Elphaba to explore how c...
Frankenstein, Faith, And The Monster Within
A stitched body asks for love, and a brilliant maker runs. That image from Frankenstein has haunted generations for a reason—because it’s not just a gothic scene, it’s a blueprint for what happens when progress outruns care. We take Mary Shelle...
Extremism, Identity, And The Cost Of Conviction
A resistance cell burns bright, a family goes underground, and a nation hardens around them—yet the fiercest battles aren’t fought with fists or fire. We take you inside One Battle After Another to trace how extremism feeds on certainty, how it...
