10/02/2026
Beginning this Sunday at Ten Oaks Middle School -
Do Unto Others: A Better Way to Live Together
There are two things we’re supposedly not supposed to talk about: faith and politics.
I don’t buy that.
Our faith helps shape what we value.
Politics is a way to bring those values into the shared life of our communities.
At its most basic level, politics asks a question we shouldn’t be quiet about:
How are we going to live together?
When thoughtful people withdraw from that conversation, we leave it to the loudest voices in the room.
We won’t agree on everything. We never have. We have different experiences, convictions, priorities, and ideas about what makes a community flourish. Disagreement is inevitable.
But I’m increasingly concerned that we’ve allowed the way we disagree about how to live together to destroy our ability to actually live together.
And I’m not sure any of us are immune.
Our political climate constantly invites us to sort people into categories:
Republican or Democrat. Conservative or liberal. Us or them.
Then fear takes over.
What happens if those people win?
“They” are coming for something you value. “They” are destroying the country. “They” are threatening your family, your freedom, your future, or your way of life.
But here’s the problem:
The “they” we’ve reduced to a political label are our neighbors.
The people beside us. The people down the street. The people at school pickup. The people we work with. The people sitting across the table at Thanksgiving.
I’m not cool with reducing any human being to a label.
Once I begin to see my neighbor primarily as a threat, it becomes easier to dismiss them, mock them, distrust them, and eventually justify contempt for them.
That’s not just a political problem.
For followers of Jesus, that’s a discipleship problem.
Jesus said, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.”
It’s right there in those red letters. We usually call it the Golden Rule.
It sounds simple.
But what if Jesus actually meant it?
What if it applies not only to people who think like us, vote like us, worship like us, or see the world like us?
What if it applies to them, too?
Beginning this Sunday, October 4, we’re starting a six-week series called Do Unto Others. Together, we’ll wrestle with what it means to follow Jesus in a culture increasingly shaped by division, distrust, fear, and contempt.
This isn’t a series about telling you how to vote.
It’s about asking something much deeper:
Can Jesus create a community stronger than the forces trying to divide it?
I believe he can.
And I believe a church filled with people who don’t agree about everything, but refuse to stop loving one another and our neighbors, might be exactly the witness our community needs right now.
I hope you’ll make these six Sundays a priority.
Bring your story. Bring your questions. Bring your perspective.
And maybe bring someone who has been wrestling with some of these same questions.
This is an important conversation.
Because politics asks us: How are we going to live together?
Jesus asks us: How are we going to love one another while we do?
🙏 Sunday Worship Service
📍 Ten Oaks Middle School
150 Revolutionary War Way
📅 Sundays, October 4, 11, 18, and November 1, 8, and 15
🕰 10:00 AM
With a Relentless Hope,
Pastor Tyler
🔗 to read more of Pastor Tyler's E-Note in comments below ⬇
