A renewed self means that we look and act more and more like Jesus. This week, we we talked about how Jesus compels us to be people who show up. What does that look like? We’ll explore that together. Listen here.
We continued our series on renewal this Sunday. This week we talked about incarnational living and how that involves listening, stopping and emptying.
In the second week of this series, we look at Matthew 9:9-13. “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Jesus tells the religious leaders to go and learn what this means. It’s a phrase they had memorized from the book of Hosea, but were they living it out? Where in our lives do we show mercy? Do we embrace those who are different than us or do we ignore them? Listen here as we look to Jesus as our example of a shockingly gracious and generous host.
What does it look like to join God’s work of renewal in the world? Listen here for the first sermon in a new series on renewal. And join us on Sunday mornings at 9:30 for the next few weeks as we continue to talk about renewal.
It was our great pleasure to worship with the congregation of Comunidad Cristiana de Grand Rapids this Sunday. Chris (Branch Pastor) and Rodrigo (CCGR Pastor), with the aid of a very talented translator, brought us the sermon together. Listen here as they taught us about judgement, Romans 2:1-4.
Our series on Forgotten Stories of the Bible continued this week as Sarah Lundberg taught us about Mary Magdalene. Listen here for some details that we don’t often here about this woman’s story.
This week, Jeff Verkaik helped us learn from the short and often forgotten story of Philemon. What can we learn from this man and his relationships with Paul and Onesimus? Paul’s letter to Philemon used words that bring unity and not division. Listen here and learn how he did that and how we might learn to do the same in our lives and in our time.
What can we learn from Priscilla’s story? There is so much to learn from her brief appearance in the Bible. Listen here as we discover the relationships Priscilla fostered and how she invested in her priorities. And if we’re willing to dig just a little deeper, we find that Priscilla’s story is like so many others in the Bible…a story of God using those who were not valued by society, and using them in big ways. There is much to be learned from this story that is often overlooked, or even forgotten.
Psalm 104 and Psalm 8 remind of that God’s glory can be seen in all of creation. We are reflections of God’s glory, a picture of God’s creativity!
This week, in our Psalms series, we looked at Psalm 77. The Psalmist wasn’t afraid to ask hard questions, but he also was able to look back to remember a specific time when God was faithful. The Psalms remind us to look back at what God’s done, so that we can claim that God will be faithful again in the future.
The Psalms invite us into a life that is truthful and transparent with God. This can make us feel uneasy – can we say these things? Won’t God get mad? Are we being unfaithful if we do? Listen here for week 2 of our series on The Psalms.
We started a new sermon series this week, The Psalms. We will speak, sing and practice many of the Psalms and hopefully let them permeate our hearts and lives, as they certainly influenced Jesus’ life, identity and ministry.
Each week, we’ll be given suggested Psalms to read, pray & meditate on. Here are this week’s Psalms:
Monday: Psalm 1
Tuesday: Psalm 19
Wednesday: Psalm 100
Thursday: Psalm 34
Friday: Psalm 63
A simple way to read and reflect on a Psalm (or any Scripture) is to read it slowly 3-4 times. Pause in between each reading, asking God to open your heard and mind. As you read, be open to a word or phrase that begins to stand out. Be curious about that word or phrase. How might it encourage or challenge or instruct you? What does it tell you about God? About you? About the world? Does it call you to respond in any way? Confession? Action? Service? Song? A final step could be to re-write the Psalm, or a portion of it, in your own words.
To wrap up our Inhabit series, we invited 2 couples to share stories about life in their neighborhoods, how they’ve built relationships, and how they’ve influenced the flavor of their neighborhood.
What can the taste of honey teach us about our neighborhoods? And how does that help shape how we can live incarnationally in our places? Listen here.
We all long for security. But all of our efforts don’t seem to be producing the security we long for. Listen to this week’s podcast as we see how Pentecost leads us to true security.
It’s not enough to just see beauty around us. We are also invited to experience that beauty by entering in to the places where God is already at work. Where is their beauty in my neighborhood? What would it look like for me to enter into and experience that beauty? How might God want to re-ignite my imagination?
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau
What do we see? How easy is it for us to see the less important things? How common, in our context, to become hyper-fixed on what is wrong, broken, dysfunctional? (is this easier? easier to keep our distance through complaint and hopelessness). AND, how easy it is to be distracted or anesthetized? What if we regained our sight for those things that are already beautiful? What if we had eyes to see the mundane, even the broken, as aspects of God’s work among us?
When we regain our sight, it leads to remembering that God is good, which leads to trust, hope and truth.
We learned some Greek this week during the sermon! Sounds a little intimidating, but it’s actually very helpful to understand what Paul was trying to say in Romans 14. What are we doing when we judge someone else? Does that lead to building each other up or to division?
We continue our study of Romans 14, learning how God calls us to navigate conflict. What is our posture? Do we value being right over being in relationship? Is everything we do out of a desire to honor God? Listen here for a sermon that challenges us to think differently about our posture as we find ourselves in places of conflict.
This week we started a new series, using Romans 14 to learn how we can best navigate conflict in our lives. It’s all around us and, if handled poorly, leads to destruction and division. But there is a way to navigate conflict so that it brings people together and builds relationships up. In this first week, we ask the question “In times of conflict, what is our aim?” Is our aim to win and defend ourselves or is our aim resurrection: for harmony and building each other up?
