This is The Slow Apprenticeship — a four-week series for the Sundays of July, recorded with our parish in Hamilton.

Over these four weeks we sit with the kingdom parables of Matthew 13, paired with the unfolding story of Jacob in Genesis. We're listening for what it means to apprentice to Jesus over a lifetime — slowly, patiently, in a culture that has lost the patience for slow things.

Our anchor for the series is a sentence from the French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: "Above all, trust in the slow work of God." That trust is what we're learning to walk in.

The kingdom begins not with performance but with a quiet yes to Jesus. We open the series in Matthew 11, where Jesus offers the most counter-cultural invitation of his ministry: come and learn from me. Three Greek words — yoke, easy, rest — unpack what apprenticeship to Jesus actually looks like, when we're done trying to impress him.

What does greatness look like? Usually it’s titles, status and being noticed. This Sunday we take our place at the table on the night before the cross and watch a King get down on his knees with a towel. In week two of A Different Kind of King this message connects Joshua’s challenge to serve God with Jesus’ example of loving others. Before asking us to serve, Jesus invites us to receive his love. We explore how that love changes our choices and how to be a church that helps care for people in simple, practical ways every day.

A Different Kind of King, Tony explores Colossians 1 and Jesus’ invitation to make him the center rather than just a part. We look at what surrender really means, why it isn’t passive resignation, and how to trust a King who holds all things together.