This summer at Ardmore Baptist Church, we will step into a journey of listening. The book of Revelation opens with the risen Christ speaking tenderly—and sometimes sharply—to seven real churches facing real pressures. Each message ends the same way: “Let anyone who has ears listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” That invitation becomes the heart of our summer series, Ears to Hear. We are not approaching Revelation as a puzzle to decode or a timetable to map out the future. Instead, we are learning how to discern the living voice of Christ speaking to his people today.
These ancient congregations were not unlike our own. Some were faithful but weary, others active but distracted. Some were enduring suffering, while others were quietly drifting into compromise or complacency. Christ sees each one with perfect clarity. He does not flatter, but he does not abandon. He speaks truthfully and always with a purpose: to call his church back into deeper life with him. As we move week by week through these seven letters, we will ask honest questions of our own life together: Where have we lost our first love? Where have we become self-sufficient? Where are we asleep, divided, or simply going through the motions?
The hope of this series is not correction for its own sake, but renewal. Jesus’ words to these churches consistently hold both truth and grace together. Even his hardest warnings are invitations to return, to wake up, to hold fast, to open the door. And woven through every letter is a promise: those who listen and respond will find life with him—real, deep, sustaining life.
As we begin this journey, we are asking God to give us attentive hearts. To slow us down enough to hear again. To help us recognize his voice beneath the noise of our lives and our culture. And to form us into a people who not only hear—but respond. Because in the end, the question is not whether Christ is speaking. The question is whether we have ears to hear.
And here will be our summer preaching schedule:
June 14 – Ephesus: A Forgetful Church (Revelation 2:1-7)
June 21 – Smyrna: A Suffering Church (Revelation 2:8-11)
June 28 – Pergamum: A Divided Church (Revelation 2:12-17)
July 5 – Thyatira: A Weak Church (Revelation 2:18-29)
July 12 – Janee Angel (Encourager Church Partner) preaching
July 19 – Sardis: A Sleeping Church (Revelation 3:1-6)
July 26 – Lorna Fowler (CBF Summer Intern) preaching
August 2 – Philadelphia: A Faithful Church (Revelation 3:7-13)
August 9 – Laodicea: A Lukewarm Church (Revelation 3:14-22)
Grace and peace,
Rev. Dr. Tyler Tankersley
