from John 4:27-30, 39-42 and John 9:24-25
Psalm 85:6 reads, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”
This longing undergirds our series and this season of revival we are asking God to bring. What is hindering your rejoicing? What is getting in the way of you living completely surrendered to the love and presence of God in your life? Where do you need revival?
We are naturally wired to share good news, and yet the BEST NEWS is one of the things we have the most difficult time sharing with others.
What has Jesus done in YOUR life? How are you telling other people about it? Inviting them to experience the joy that you have experienced in encountering and knowing Jesus…
w/ Vern Collins
from 1 Kings 18:16-39
Psalm 85:6 reads, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”
This longing undergirds our series and this season of revival we are asking God to bring. What is hindering your rejoicing? What is getting in the way of you living completely surrendered to the love and presence of God in your life? Where do you need revival?
Are you living a divided loyalty? Is your allegience torn between God and between some thing in this world that you hope will help provide meaning and fulfillment and identity and purpose? All too often, we place our hope in things that are never meant to fulfill and provide…perhaps it is time to rebuild that altar of our lives and create a space for God to move, being willing to lay down those things that are simply not of Him.
w/ Vern Collins
from Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 85:6 reads, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”
This longing undergirds our series and this season of revival we are asking God to bring. What is hindering your rejoicing? What is getting in the way of you living completely surrendered to the love and presence of God in your life? Where do you need revival?
As we open this series, we are invited to consider two things: 1) that even in the most seemingly impossible situations, God has the power to revive; to restore life; to make new, and 2) God isn’t after only the form or appearance of life, rather God longs to send His Holy Spirit that we may KNOW and EXPERIENCE life!
Where are the dry bones in your life? Where is the valley of death in which you need the Holy Spirit to come?
w Vern Collins
from Acts 2:1-21
What might be possible in your life and in the life of the church is you saw the gift of the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost as vital today as it was to those on whom the Spirit fell when the church came into existence?
w/ Vern Collins
from Acts 1:6-11 and Isaiah 43:18-19
In Isaiah 43:18-19a we read, “Forget the former things do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” In Revelation 21:5, we hear the words of Jesus captured by John, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” Since the beginning, God has been in the business and the process of taking that which is broken, and rebuilding it…making it new!
How many times over the past 14 months have we heard or uttered some version of the statement, “I can’t wait until things go back to normal…until they go back to the way they were?”
Is it possible that our longing for what is familiar is hindering our ability to see the possibility of God doing something new?
w/ Vern Collins
from Isaiah 58
In Isaiah 43:18-19a we read, “Forget the former things do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” In Revelation 21:5, we hear the words of Jesus captured by John, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” Since the beginning, God has been in the business and the process of taking that which is broken, and rebuilding it…making it new!
As we consider God’s work of rebuilding both in our own lives and in the church, one of the questions we must be willing to wrestle with becomes, “who or what is forming us, and into what are we being formed?” There are any number of things in this world that we allow to speak into our formation…there are even a number of facets of our faith that God can use to form us. This week we look at the work of worship as a key part of the ways God longs to form us into the image of His Son Jesus for the world.
w/ Vern Collins
from Nehemiah 1:1-4, 2:1-5, 4:12-20, 8:1-10
In Isaiah 43:18-19a we read, “Forget the former things do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” In Revelation 21:5, we hear the words of Jesus captured by John, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” Since the beginning, God has been in the business and the process of taking that which is broken, and rebuilding it…making it new!
While there is pain in what is lost, in what we have to be willing to let go of or what is stripped away from us, it is absolutely possible to find and experience God’s goodness in the healing that takes place when we begin to allow God to rebuild!
w/ Vern Collins
from Lamentations 3:13-26 and Colossians 1:15-23, 2:6-7
In Isaiah 43:18-19a we read, “Forget the former things do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” In Revelation 21:5, we hear the words of Jesus captured by John, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” Since the beginning, God has been in the business and the process of taking that which is broken, and rebuilding it…making it new!
In the third week of our series we are invited to consider the integrity of the foundation on which we are seeking to build our lives, and even on which we are seeking to be about building God’s church. Following our time considering what it might look like to clear the way for God to build something new, when those things that we don’t need or that God doesn’t want for us are stripped away, we are brought face to face with the steadfastness or the integrity of our foundation.
What if the foundation on which you were building your life and on which we are seeking to build God’s church became the firm foundation of God’s faithfulness instead of the shifting sands of what this world prioritizes.
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 9:1-6
In Isaiah 43:18-19a we read, “Forget the former things do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” In Revelation 21:5, we hear the words of Jesus captured by John, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” Since the beginning, God has been in the business and the process of taking that which is broken, and rebuilding it…making it new!
In week two of our series, we look at Jesus’ instruction in Luke’s Gospel for the disciples to enter into the work He has set the example for…but he instructs them not to take anything extra with them. Where might God be inviting you to clear the way for the new thing God longs to do?
w/ Jeff McClain
Here is the poem used in our Benediction:
Fear – a poem by Khalil Gibran.
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
from Luke 24:13-35
In Isaiah 43:18-19a we read, “Forget the former things do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” In Revelation 21:5, we hear the words of Jesus captured by John, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!'” Since the beginning, God has been in the business and the process of taking that which is broken, and rebuilding it…making it new!
As we begin our new series, “Rebuild,” we are invited this week to consider that part of recognizing the need for God’s ability to make new is to come to terms with that which we have lost. As you consider this past year; as you consider your life-what has been lost? Where have you experienced loss? As you think about the church, where has there been loss? How might that loss open the door for possibility?
w/ Vern Collins
from John 20:1-18
Are those things in this life in which you have placed your hope able to bear up under the weight that you place on them to hold you up when you face life’s challenges?
There is One Who will not only always bear up under the weight, but will bear you up when the weight is too great!
Jesus Is Alive!
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 21:1-11
The season of Lent is a time of reflection. It is an opportunity to examine our lives before God and invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to us those things that are hindering our relationship with God and with those around us…and it is an opportunity to invite God to go to work in our lives…the hope which makes all of this possible is the Cross of Jesus toward which we are journeying.
But what if Lent wasn’t just about seeking forgiveness for and repentance from our sin…what if God was able to take our mess and redeem it? What if it’s not just about doing away with something, but about God taking our lives and turning them into something beautiful for His Glory?
On this Palm Sunday, we are brought face to face with the very clear statement Jesus makes about the king of King He came to be. For the people of Jerusalem…for many of us…the kind of King Jesus came to be is not the kind of King we WANT Him to be, but if we are willing to humble ourselves before Him, we find that Jesus is exactly the kind of King we NEED Him to be.
w/ Vern Collins
from 1 John 1:5-10 and Psalm 32:1-7
The season of Lent is a time of reflection. It is an opportunity to examine our lives before God and invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to us those things that are hindering our relationship with God and with those around us…and it is an opportunity to invite God to go to work in our lives…the hope which makes all of this possible is the Cross of Jesus toward which we are journeying.
But what if Lent wasn’t just about seeking forgiveness for and repentance from our sin…what if God was able to take our mess and redeem it? What if it’s not just about doing away with something, but about God taking our lives and turning them into something beautiful for His Glory?
For the 5th Sunday of Lent, we find ourselves wrestling with what it is that allows us to step out from under the weight and guilt and shame and into the freedom that Jesus makes possible. It’s simple really…and yet, so many of us have such a difficult time doing it. Truth Telling. Being honest about our sin and the dark places within us. While the world conditions us to find and live by our truth, there is an invitation to allow another truth to invade our lives. The question is, are we willing to receive it and to respond honestly about our deep need?
w/ Vern Collins
from 2 Samuel 12:1-10, 13; Psalm 51:1-4, 10-12; John 8:1-11
The season of Lent is a time of reflection. It is an opportunity to examine our lives before God and invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to us those things that are hindering our relationship with God and with those around us…and it is an opportunity to invite God to go to work in our lives…the hope which makes all of this possible is the Cross of Jesus toward which we are journeying.
But what if Lent wasn’t just about seeking forgiveness for and repentance from our sin…what if God was able to take our mess and redeem it? What if it’s not just about doing away with something, but about God taking our lives and turning them into something beautiful for His Glory?
In our 4th week of Lent, we consider perhaps one of our greatest obstacles to our relationship with God and with those around us…the unbearable weight of our guilt and shame. What if, in being honest about those things for which we are guilty, we could find freedom from the shame that keeps us far from God and isolated from others?
w/ Vern Collins
from Genesis 11:1-9 and Romans 8:14-17
The season of Lent is a time of reflection. It is an opportunity to examine our lives before God and invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to us those things that are hindering our relationship with God and with those around us…and it is an opportunity to invite God to go to work in our lives…the hope which makes all of this possible is the Cross of Jesus toward which we are journeying.
But what if Lent wasn’t just about seeking forgiveness for and repentance from our sin…what if God was able to take our mess and redeem it? What if it’s not just about doing away with something, but about God taking our lives and turning them into something beautiful for His Glory?
In our third week of Lent, we consider the ways our search for identity is often a catalyst for the mess in which we find ourselves in life. What does it mean to find our identity in Christ? How might God redeem our search for identity?
w/ Vern Collins
from Acts 17:16-27
The season of Lent is a time of reflection. It is an opportunity to examine our lives before God and invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to us those things that are hindering our relationship with God and with those around us…and it is an opportunity to invite God to go to work in our lives…the hope which makes all of this possible is the Cross of Jesus toward which we are journeying.
But what if Lent wasn’t just about seeking forgiveness for and repentance from our sin…what if God was able to take our mess and redeem it? What if it’s not just about doing away with something, but about God taking our lives and turning them into something beautiful for His Glory?
Following last week, the next step in our journey toward God redeeming our mess, is to begin to unpack how we got into this place to begin with.
What are the things you grasp for or cling to other than God or God’s best for you…what are those things you reach for that end up leaving the void within empty?
w/ Vern Collins
from Romans 3:22-28 and Luke 18:9-14
The season of Lent is a time of reflection. It is an opportunity to examine our lives before God and invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to us those things that are hindering our relationship with God and with those around us…and it is an opportunity to invite God to go to work in our lives…the hope which makes all of this possible is the Cross of Jesus toward which we are journeying.
But what if Lent wasn’t just about seeking forgiveness for and repentance from our sin…what if God was able to take our mess and redeem it? What if it’s not just about doing away with something, but about God taking our lives and turning them into something beautiful for His Glory?
Perhaps the place to begin is by acknowledging the Mask of Perfection that so many of us wear…and that Jesus sees right through!
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 13:44-46
While the idea of the Kingdom of God may be a familiar one, it becomes easy to get tripped up when we are faced with the evil that exists in this world. If God’s Kingdom is present, what are we to do with all that doesn’t reflect His Kingdom in this world? What is our role in the evil that is so present?
In the final week of our “The Kingdom” series, we are invited to wrestle with what our ultimate treasure in this life is, and more, we are invited to consider the hard truth that if our ultimate treasure is not Jesus and His Kingdom, then we will never know the wholeness and satisfaction for which God makes a way.
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 6:46-49
While the idea of the Kingdom of God may be a familiar one, it becomes easy to get tripped up when we are faced with the evil that exists in this world. If God’s Kingdom is present, what are we to do with all that doesn’t reflect His Kingdom in this world? What is our role in the evil that is so present?
What is the foundation upon which you have built and are living your life? It seems like an odd question, doesn’t it? A foundation is not something we generally give any thought to unless there is a problem with the foundation.
In Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish builders, He is clear that it’s not a question of if the foundation upon which your life is built will be tested…it is a question of when. What does it take to build a firm foundation?
w/ Vern Collins
