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Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Weekly sermons from our Central Lutheran Church preaching team plus quick reflections from Pastor Ryan Braley.
Real talk, ancient wisdom, and honest questions — all designed to help you learn, grow, and find encouragement when you need it most.
At Central, our mission is simple: FOLLOW Jesus together, be a community where you BELONG, and LOVE our neighbors across the street and around the world.
Think deeper. Live freer. Share an episode with a friend and visit us in person anytime — you’re always welcome here in Elk River, MN.
Episodes
319 episodes
What in the World is Happening? with Sonja Knutson
Daniel starts with stories that feel familiar: pressure at school, pressure at work, pressure to fit in, and the quiet strength it takes to stay faithful. Then Daniel 7 through 12 hits like a genre change. Suddenly we are staring at beasts, hor...
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#148 - Old Testament Violence {Reflections Re-Release}
Some Bible passages don’t just confuse us, they unsettle us. If you’ve ever read Old Testament laws about severe punishment and thought, “How does this belong in the same Bible as Jesus?”, you’re not alone. We hear that exact question from a li...
#147 - Life is Hard {Reflections Re-Release}
Life is hard. We usually try to soften that truth, especially for kids, but what if naming it is one of the most loving things a community can do? Pastor Ryan explores the ancient idea of rites of passage and why so many cultures intentionally ...
Stories Change The World with Kaycee Stanley
100,000 kids in the United States are waiting to be adopted, and there are about 300,000 churches. When you hear those numbers side by side, the problem starts to look less like an impossibility and more like a calling we can actually answer. W...
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#146 - Unpacking Dreams {Reflections Re-Release}
A five minute nap on a plane turns into a dream that won’t leave Ryan alone and it starts with a strange detail: he’s reading Carl Jung’s “Man and His Symbols” right before he falls asleep. When he wakes up, the dream feels less like random bra...
Mirrors and Anchors with Pastor Ben Carruthers
A death sentence gets signed because a king likes being flattered, and a faithful old man refuses to let a new law rewrite his prayer life. We dig into Daniel 6, the Daniel in the lions’ den story many of us think we already know, and we slow d...
#145 - Two Pieces of Paper {Reflections Re-Release}
Two sentences can save your day, but only if you carry both. We keep reaching for a single story about ourselves, either “I’m the center of everything” or “I don’t matter at all.” Ryan offers an old rabbinic practice that refuses both extremes:...
Writing On The Wall with Sonja Knutson
A party is roaring inside Babylon while an army waits outside the walls, and the king acts like nothing can touch him. Then a hand appears and writes a message no one can explain. We walk through Daniel 5 and the moment “the writing on the wall...
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#144 - Should Christians Drink? Exploring Faith's Gray Areas {Reflections Re-Release}
“Should Christians drink alcohol?” is the question that sparks this conversation, but it doesn’t stay in rule-land for long. We start with what Scripture actually highlights, not a list of modern do’s and don’ts, but repeated warnings about dru...
Lift Your Eyes with Pastor Ben Carruthers
Pride is sneaky because it can look like success. One minute we’re standing on the roof of our own “Babylon,” taking credit for what we’ve built, and the next minute we’re wondering why our inner life feels fragile, reactive, or out of control....
#143 - Why There's No Flag in the Sanctuary {Reflections Re-Release}
The question sounds simple until you sit with it: why would a church choose not to hang an American flag in the sanctuary? With Independence Day nearby, we revisit a conversation that gets honest about gratitude for country while also drawing a...
I Knew It with Pastor Lorraine Daley
The most dangerous words we say might be the most casual: “I knew it.” They can sound like wisdom, but they often reveal something else, the moment we stop listening because we think we already understand how the story ends. We start with worsh...
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#142 - You Mad Bro? (Part 2) {Reflections Re-Release}
Your emotions are real, but they’re also unreliable drivers. When you’re hungry, tired, lonely, stressed, or simply overstimulated by life, your mood can swing fast and your reactions can get loud. We’ve all had that moment where we want to wal...
But If Not with Sonja Knutson
A king demands worship, the music plays, and an entire empire bows on cue, but three teenagers stay standing. Sonja Knutson walks us through Daniel 3 and the fiery furnace with a focus on the words that expose the difference between cultural Ch...
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#141 - You Mad Bro? (Part 1) {Reflections Re-Release}
“I’m fine” can sound polite, but it can also be the fastest way to stay stuck. We kick off with a funny “You mad, bro?” moment and end up somewhere surprisingly practical: if you can’t name your feelings, they’ll end up naming you through your ...
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Eye of the Beholder with Pastor Ben Carruthers
A terrifying dream wakes up the most powerful king on earth, and his response is pure panic: “Tell me the dream and its interpretation or you die.” That pressure lands on Daniel, a teenager in exile with no leverage except faith. What happens n...
#140 - Two Questions for Life {Reflections Re-Release}
Two questions can expose how much of your life is choice and how much is drift: “Who are you?” and “What are you doing here?” We celebrate a milestone episode by telling a story about a rabbi who gets lost in thought, runs into a Roman garrison...
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Who Is In Control? with Pastor Ben Carruthers
Babylon doesn’t only invade with armies. It invades with stories, habits, and names. As we kick off a summer series in the book of Daniel, we dig into Daniel chapter 1 and the theme Pattern to Promise: the repeating cycle of God’s people being ...
#139 - You’re Somebody Now {Reflections}
“One day I’m gonna be somebody.” That sentence sounds ambitious, but it can also be a quiet apology for taking up space. We kick off with an Instagram reel where Gary Vee stops a young woman mid-thank-you and tells her to look at him: “You’re s...
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Life That is Full of Life with Pastor Ryan Braley
What if the most life-giving thing you could do this week is stop? Not “check out” or “treat yourself,” but actually cease, long enough to wake up to your own life again. Before heading into a three-month sabbatical, we share a message built ar...
#138 - Go First {Reflections}
Most of us don’t need more information, we need a simple move that breaks the gridlock of hesitation. Today we’re leaning on a two-word rule for life that hits with surprising force: go first. Inspired by Gabrielle Reece (and the training-for-l...
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To The Lord with Sonja Knutson
“To the Lord” sounds like a toast, but it can also be a way of living. We take the final stretch of Colossians and bring it down to street level: how Jesus reshapes what we do with our relationships, our work, our words, and our time when nobod...
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#137 - There Is Nothing New Under the Sun {Reflections}
A stand-up comedian delivers the punchline of the year: modern pastors trying to solve modern problems with an ancient book, like a husband leaving for an AI TikTok dancer while the pastor scrambles for a Bible verse. We start there because the...
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Out with the Old, In with the New with Pastor Ryan Braley
You can’t staple Jesus onto an already busy life and call it transformation. Colossians 3 forces a sharper question: if you’ve been raised with Christ, what has to die so the real you can finally live? We walk through Paul’s pattern step by ste...
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