RLCSAC Sermon Podcast · Lead Pastor: Dean Deguara

North Cap Sectional Gathering | August 2024 | Pastors Scott and Karen Hagan

·53 min·3 clips
'The reason it has worked for us is not because we think alike. It's because we think together.'
Pastors Scott and Karen step into the gathering with warmth, humor, and an easy connection to the room. They start by talking about their background, including Bethany Bible College, youth ministry, and years of church assignments and leadership. The tone stays conversational. They sound like people who know ministry from the inside and marriage from daily life. From there, the message turns toward the shape of a whole life. The first season is framed as a time of adrenaline and anticipation. The next season is longer, quieter, and much more repetitive. It is the stretch where the same spouse, the same children, the same habits, and the same pressures can make life feel ordinary, even while it is still doing important work. That middle ground gets the most attention. They name how routine can settle in, how patterns can go stale, and how family life can carry both stability and strain. They also name the losses that can come with it. Children grow up. Parents pass away. The house changes. Relationships are tested by distance, emptiness, and the shifting weight of responsibility. The message keeps returning to the idea that these seasons matter because they are where character gets formed. The talk does not treat repetition as wasted time. It treats it as the place where faithfulness gets practiced. The ordinary years are not second-rate years. They are the main field. The speakers then widen the frame again to include the later years, when decisions, limits, and endings become harder to ignore. They speak about the reality of last houses, last cars, and last vacations with a directness that keeps the point grounded. The humor helps. So do the small family stories and the easy back-and-forth between husband and wife. Throughout the message, they keep pressing toward application. The point is not just to understand life stages. The point is to live them well. Marriage, family, ministry, and personal faith all need to be shaped by patience, presence, and obedience in the middle years as much as in the exciting ones. The sermon stays with that idea. By the end, the message settles into prayer. They ask for encouragement, strength, and a fresh sign of God's presence over couples, ministries, and the people listening. The close is pastoral and direct. It leaves the room with blessing rather than abstraction. This episode has the feel of a lived-in sermon from two people who have seen the full arc of ministry and family life. It is not flashy. It is steady, grounded, and meant to be taken home.

As heard by us

A plainspoken message about marriage, ministry, and staying steady through changing seasons.

Scott and Karen Hagen keep the focus on a life that moves from early momentum into the long middle of repetition, then into the harder work of letting go. Their church background, marriage jokes, and plainspoken perspective give the piece a lived-in feel, not a packaged one.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a sermon that names the middle years without flinching.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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