Whether you call them homilies, sermons, or talks, there’s a lot you can learn from the spiritual leaders in our community. While in a perfect world, you’d have time to listen to everyone, that simply isn’t possible for most with limited time to spare. To help, we’ve surfaced and summarized the teachings from the audio sermons of some of the most influential priests and pastors from around town and in the Christian sphere.
You can skip to a specific section by clicking the links below.
Jump to:
- Fr. Mike Schmitz
- Buckhead Church
- Cathedral of Christ the King
- Passion City Church
- Trinity Anglican Church
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Fr. Mike Schmitz
Fr. Mike Schmitz’s homily, “The god of Our Generation,” explores the detrimental effects of modern society’s obsession with convenience and comfort. Citing the book The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter, he argues that the constant pursuit of ease has paradoxically made people weaker, less resilient, and unfulfilled. Fr. Mike introduces the concept of a Masogi—a purification ritual, often an extreme challenge, that involves enduring distress to bring about change. This concept highlights a necessary truth: willingly facing challenges, even small ones like a digital detox or a cold shower, is essential for growth. The author’s thesis underscores that our captivity to comfort is fundamentally hurting us.
This modern obsession with comfort has numerous negative consequences. Fr. Mike points to issues like constant climate control reducing our body’s adaptability, easy access to hyper-processed foods, and the rise of automated movement, which together contribute to record obesity and chronic illness. He also emphasizes the “death of boredom” since the advent of the smartphone. Because we fill every moment with scrolling and noise, we are robbed of the self-reflection, creativity, and problem-solving that boredom fosters. A lack of childhood risk-taking has even been linked to increased adult anxiety. All of these symptoms point to the core problem: “comfort is the god of our generation.”
Fr. Mike connects this modern idol to biblical themes, noting that the desire for extreme comfort is not new, as seen in the prophet Amos’s description of the complacent people of Zion “lying upon beds of ivory.” He explains that comfort itself is a good thing intended by God (like leisure), but it becomes an idol when we take this good thing and make it the ultimate thing we serve or love the most. This devotion to comfort leads to complacency, which prevents us from noticing or loving our neighbor. He illustrates this with the Gospel story of the rich man who, captive to his comfort, doesn’t even see Lazarus suffering right outside his door. This is why the prayer in Proverbs 30 asks for neither poverty (leading to desperation) nor riches (leading to complacency), but only for daily bread.
The solution, therefore, is not to pursue discomfort for its own sake, but to “compete well for the faith” and intentionally put the idol of comfort to death. Fr. Mike encourages the practice of mortification—the spiritual discipline of choosing to sacrifice something. This can be done through active mortifications, such as a chosen fast from media or a cold shower, or through passive mortifications, which involve simply accepting the minor inconveniences that come our way without complaint. By choosing these small acts, we pursue God’s will and demonstrate that the fear of discomfort has no place in our lives, because ultimately, love always involves sacrifice. The invitation is to pursue God’s will without fear of difficulty.
Listen to the full version here.
Cathedral of Christ The King
Deacon Sam Fraundorf’s homily centers on the Gospel of the Rich Man and Lazarus, exploring the profound danger of the sin of omission—the failure to see and respond to the suffering in our midst. He notes that the rich man was condemned not for a sin of commission, such as theft or murder, but for his colossal sin of simply ignoring the poor man Lazarus who lay afflicted right outside his luxurious gate. The Deacon emphasizes that this inability to look upon or acknowledge the poor made the rich man unable to love. He warns that our ultimate judgment rests not just on the wrong we actively do, but on the good we have the power to do but fail to perform.
The homily draws a sharp parallel between the rich man’s oblivious opulence and the wealth of modern society. Deacon Fraundorf challenges the congregation to recognize their own Lazarus figures: the homeless holding signs at intersections or the destitute people they intentionally avoid making eye contact with at the doors of grocery stores. He explains that overcoming this spiritual blindness and indifference requires conscious effort, as true compassion is not a passive state but a developed spiritual muscle. The common impulse to “keep our heads down” when encountering suffering is precisely the sin of omission the homily calls us to combat.
The solution to this spiritual complacency is found in St. Paul’s instruction to Timothy in the Second Reading: “Compete well for the faith” or “fight the good fight.” The Deacon interprets this as a command for serious spiritual training and exercise. He uses the analogy of training for an earthly event, like a marathon, arguing that if people commit to intense physical exercise for a temporary prize (like a t-shirt or a crown), they must be far more willing to train their spirits for an immortal soul. Holiness, he stresses, is not a passive gift but an active, daily discipline that determines the difference between the eternal destinies of Lazarus and the rich man.
To guide this spiritual training, the Deacon offers two practical applications inspired by the refrain “Love with your eyes” and “Love with your mind.” Loving with our eyes means actively training ourselves to see the needy, urging the faithful to be ready with a kind phrase or a gift card to bridge the social distance. Loving with our mind involves practicing the daily Ignatian Examination of Conscience (the Examine), which consists of three simple questions: Where did I see God today? Where did I come up short today? And who needs my prayers today? By faithfully practicing these spiritual exercises, the faithful train themselves to see and to know, ensuring their work is truly for their eternal “forever.”
Listen to the full version here.
Passion City Church
Louie Giglio’s sermon, “Our Dilemma of Spiritual Dehydration,” addresses the innate human thirst for God, rooted in the idea that humans were created by and for Him. He introduces the metaphor of spiritual dehydration, noting that many people are thirsty but don’t know what they’re thirsty for, leading them to “chug everything they can get their hands on” without finding satisfaction. Giglio references Psalm 42, where the psalmist declares, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.” This desperation and longing for the living God should drive believers to seek His presence. He further argues that the communal gathering of believers for worship—the “shout,” “praise,” and “festive throng”—is a vital part of finding God, which is why Christians don’t just have to go to church, but they should want to.
Giglio explains that the enemy’s plan for humanity is to “dry you out until you become brittle and then you crack and crumble,” a plan initiated in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were banished from the garden, specifically from the Tree of Life, to prevent them from living forever in a state of spiritual separation from God. Giglio highlights the profound significance of this separation and the subsequent path to reconciliation, noting that just as Adam and Eve went out the east side of the garden, Jesus came back in the East Gate of Jerusalem for his final ride. This act fulfilled God’s plan to restore humanity to a relationship with the source of life, reconciling us to God through His sacrifice. The goal of Jesus’s mission is to get us back to the Source we were created for.
The sermon then emphasizes the need for desperation and dedicated time with God, drawing inspiration from the example of Joshua, who was Moses’s aid, and A.W. Tozer, a pastor who spent immaculate, uninterrupted hours in prayer. Giglio challenges the congregation by comparing their willingness to spend 30 to 60 minutes exercising, watching movies, or doom scrolling (which he notes often leaves people feeling “terrible,” “depressed,” and “wasteful”) to their lack of time spent alone with God. He stresses that dedicating 30 minutes to an hour of uninterrupted time with God is not extreme or unreasonable, but a necessity for anyone who truly desires to be a person after God’s own heart, proving that they are desperate for Him above all else.
Finally, Giglio offers three practical steps for spending time with God, especially for those who feel intimidated or unsure of how to begin. First, one must simply Be Still, turning off their phone and using a “distraction pad” to write down distracting thoughts so they can focus on calming their mind and heart. Second, they must Open the Word of God, not just to read it, but to “eat it,” allowing the Scriptures to become their joy and heart’s delight. Third, they should worship, which can be done quietly, by kneeling, or by meditating on the various attributes of God (e.g., righteousness, mercy) to gain a comprehensive understanding of His character. Giglio concludes that prayer is fundamentally about having constant, nonverbal communion with God, urging the listeners to carve out time to meet with the Lord as a house saying, “God, we want you.”
Listen to the full version here.
Trinity Anglican Church
The sermon focuses on the theme of money, drawing from the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), as well as supplementary readings from Amos and 1 Timothy. Pastor Adrienne Christian immediately directs the congregation’s attention away from secondary details, such as discussions of heaven and hell, to focus on Jesus’s main message: Christians are called to be generous, compassionate, and loving, placing their hope in God rather than in their possessions. Recognizing that this message may cause discomfort, she invites listeners to “just sit in the discomfort for a little bit.” This discomfort is not meant to shame or condemn, but to motivate change and encourage following Jesus. Pastor Christian notes that Jesus spoke this parable with the financially secure and “lovers of money” Pharisees in mind, challenging those who should have been the first to understand the Kingdom’s message.
Pastor Christian highlights the stark contrast between the rich man, who “lived in luxury every single day,” and Lazarus, the poor beggar laid at his gate who longed for crumbs. The rich man’s sin was not his wealth, but his response to his neighbor—he chose to “step over him, go inside his home, close the door and act as though he doesn’t exist.” She emphasizes a critical point: living as if we are superior to others acts as a barrier instead of a bridge. The rich man created a barrier, and the call for modern-day Christians is to be a bridge, helping people experience the love of Jesus. The barrier not only hurts the poor but also keeps the wealthy from experiencing the “goodness of being in relationship with people who are different than we are.”
The message then turns to how money can distract us, leading us to forget that this world is not our permanent home, to find our safety in wealth, or to seek our identity and belonging in consumption. Pastor Christian offers two practical ways to “guard against becoming too distracted by money.” The first is to examine our spaces: are all of our spaces privileged and exclusive, creating a distance from the poor? She challenges the listeners to recognize these spaces and stop unconsciously distancing themselves. The second is to be intentional about engaging with the poor, such as through volunteer work with local partners like Lazarus Health Day. This intentional action helps to “rub shoulders with people who have less,” cultivating compassion and turning us from barriers into bridges.
Finally, Pastor Christian draws attention to a powerful detail: Lazarus is the only character named in the parable, a name which means “the one God helps.” This highlights the poor man’s awareness of his need. The greatest way money distracts us is by keeping us from recognizing our own spiritual need for Jesus. In one of the wealthiest nations, she concludes, we are tempted to forget that “we are all the poor man,” all with sores that look different, and all in need of Jesus’s abundance, healing, and forgiveness. The ultimate call is to put our full hope in the Lord and allow Him to soften our hearts toward others who are also in need.
Listen to the full version here.
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