from Ephesians 3:14-21
Prayer can serve as the greatest catalyst for our growth in relationship with God and at the same time be one of the greatest frustrations in that same relationship.
We are taught to ask, we are taught to be bold in seeking the things we want God to do in our lives and in the lives of others…there are times we might even be desperate in the ways we seek God in prayer…and yet we might feel like those prayers are falling on deaf ears or going unanswered in the way we had hoped for.
In Ephesians 3, we find a prayer of Paul’s that might just serve as a starting place for all of our other prayers…to pray this prayer over ourselves and those around us might just reframe how we begin to understand everything else that we desire to see happen.
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 20:20-28
What is your ambition in life? That thing, or those things that you so desire to see happen, that you are willing to work diligently toward making it a reality…
In that pursuit, do you find that your ambition in competition with the ambition of those around you?
What if the lens through which you saw those around you led you not to think, “I need to be better than that person,” but instead led you to have the ambition of serving them in a way that reflects Jesus?
w/ Vern Collins
from 2 Corinthians 5:11-21
Whether you are a follower of Jesus or not, your life is telling a story TOWARD SOMETHING. Another way of saying that is that all of us are evangelists for something…
If you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, then whether you realize it or not, you are an evangelist for Christ. The question is, what kind of story are you telling about the Gospel? How are you representing Jesus for the world?
Are you willing actively proclaim the story of Jesus to those who need to hear it, or are you content to live your life and hope that somehow the Gospel will rub off on those around you?
What if you were willing to share the story of Who Jesus is to you? What if someone’s life could be transformed through that?
w/ Vern Collins
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Our Ambitious Prayer for the church (adapted from Jonathan Leeman’s “18 Things to Pray for Your Church”)
Heavenly Father, as we seek to be a church that reflects the hope of Your Son, Jesus in this world, our prayer for this church is…
That it would grow in being distinct from the world in love and holiness, even as it engages outsiders.
That faithful elders would use Scripture to train members to do the work of ministry.
That a hunger for studying the Gospel would form among members so that they can guide and guard one another in it.
That a culture of discipling would form in which making disciples is viewed as an ordinary part of the Christian life.
That adult members work to disciple children and teenagers and not just leave the journey of discipleship to programming.
That the church’s songs would teach members to biblically confess, lament, and praise.
That we would unity amid diversity-loving those with whom we have nothing in common but the Gospel.
That transparent, meaningful relationships would become normal, while remaining anonymous would be out of character for who we are.
That members would share the Gospel this week-and see more conversions!
That more members would use their careers to take the Gospel places it’s never been.
It is with the help of the Holy Spirit and in the Name of Jesus we ask these things, Amen.
from Colossians 3:1-15
While we were created for relationship…first with God, and then with one another- in the hopes that those relationships would be a reflection of the fullness of Who God is…while this is part of the means by which we experience the full life that Jesus promises us…the reality is that relationships can be the source of some of our greatest challenges and deepest hurt in life.
In Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae, we get a window in to how we might just be able to live in to having healthier and more Christ-reflecting relationships.
w/ Vern Collins
from Psalm 96
What is worship? Is it just singing? Is there a right way to worship? Does our worship truly matter? Does it accomplish anything?
What if worship became more than what we participated in, or what we try to stir up within us…what if worship became our response to God’s faithfulness…to God’s goodness?
Not only do we find throughout Scripture that worship is simply not optional, we begin to see that its true power if found when it happens in the context of community.
w/ Vern Collins
*Try reading Psalm 103 each morning this week, focusing on God’s faithfulness and the grace offered you each day, and see how worship might begin to come as a response.
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Our Ambitious Prayer for the church (adapted from Jonathan Leeman’s “18 Things to Pray for Your Church”)
Heavenly Father, as we seek to be a church that reflects the hope of Your Son, Jesus in this world, our prayer for this church is…
That it would grow in being distinct from the world in love and holiness, even as it engages outsiders.
That faithful elders would use Scripture to train members to do the work of ministry.
That a hunger for studying the Gospel would form among members so that they can guide and guard one another in it.
That a culture of discipling would form in which making disciples is viewed as an ordinary part of the Christian life.
That adult members work to disciple children and teenagers and not just leave the journey of discipleship to programming.
That the church’s songs would teach members to biblically confess, lament, and praise.
It is with the help of the Holy Spirit and in the Name of Jesus we ask these things, Amen.
from Colossians 3:16-17, Acts 2:42-47
While the word “disciple” appears over 260 times in the New Testament, the word “discipleship” does not appear once.
Is discipleship meant to describe the process of your own journey in following Jesus or is it meant to describe the work of making disciples? Well, simply put-the answer is-YES.
Throughout the New Testament…even throughout all of Scripture we learn that the act of following God’s leading in our lives is not a straight line…today we would say that it is not a “program” that one follows…but we can say that it is a PROCESS.
Where is Jesus calling you to take YOUR next step in the journey of following Him? Is it in your own relationship with Him? Is it in the work of inviting others into life with Jesus? Ask Him…
w/ Vern Collins
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Our Ambitious Prayer for the church (adapted from Jonathan Leeman’s “18 Things to Pray for Your Church”)
Heavenly Father, as we seek to be a church that reflects the hope of Your Son, Jesus in this world, our prayer for this church is…
That it would grow in being distinct from the world in love and holiness, even as it engages outsiders.
That faithful elders would use Scripture to train members to do the work of ministry.
That a hunger for studying the Gospel would form among members so that they can guide and guard one another in it.
That a culture of discipling would form in which making disciples is viewed as an ordinary part of the Christian life.
That adult members work to disciple children and teenagers and not just leave the journey of discipleship to programming.
It is with the help of the Holy Spirit and in the Name of Jesus we ask these things, Amen.
from 2 Timothy 3:14-17 and James 1:21-23
Our relationship with Scripture can tend to be difficult to define depending on the season of life we are in, or depending on how we feel like we have been treated “in the name of the Bible.”
What if we no longer approached Scripture asking what it can do FOR us, but instead began to approach Scripture asking what it can do IN us?
What if you were willing to open it, to interact with it, to rest, to listen, to seek…in a brand new way? Imagine what might change.
w/ Vern Collins
from Acts 8:26-39
“Come and see,” seems like a simple enough invitation doesn’t it? Even Philip’s following the call to “go” is a simple enough response…
The thing we must wrestle with, the question we must be willing to hold the mirror up to our lives on is critical. It not only creates the space in which God is able to work, but it serves as the catalyst for being one who tells the story of Who God is, and that is quite simply:
Are you willing?
w/ Vern Collins
Testimony from Piper Collins
from John 4:1-42
Have you ever considered the possibility that there is something you have in common with every other person in this world? Sure we could talk about our biological make-up, or the fact that we all call this planet home, but have you ever thought of your wounds as being the common ground you share with all other people?
What if the fact that you have been wounded, that perhaps you even still bear some woundedness…what if that were not only your point of connection with people around, but became a catalyst for the story you have to tell of Who God is in the way He has met you in those wounds and the way He has brought healing and wholeness to the places where you needed it most?
w/ Vern Collins
Testimony by Johnny Carson
from John 1:35-42
When we hear the word “testimony,” we often associate that with the legal arena. The problem with that is that a testimony is often given either from a place of attack or from a place of defense. Too often, it seems, the church has adopted and operated from this understanding of the word.
What if testimony became something that is inviting. What if we took an active role, if we became involved in the work that God is doing in this world to draw people to Himself?
What if the story of Christ in your life simply became an invitation to others to, “come and see?”
w/ Vern Collins
from Revelation 3:14-21
In the final week of our “Letters to the Church” series, we look at Jesus’ letter to the church in Laodicea. While it is the harshest in its assessment of the church, it is also one of the most hopeful.
How might your life begin to look different if every desire and passion you had was ordered by an overriding passion for Jesus? How might the church begin to look different?
w/ Vern Collins
*We regret that technical difficulties prevented us from capturing the entire message. We pray that you are still blessed by what is available.
from Revelation 2:8-11
w/ Jeff McClain
from Revelation 2:1-7
As we begin a new series through the letters to the churches in Revelation, we are invited to consider-both in the life of the church, and in your life as an individual…what might Jesus be pleased with? If you are a Christ follower, what are those things that are reflective of the life you have found in Him?
What might Jesus offer as a challenge?
Has your faith become little more than doing and saying the “right things?” What if you found yourself caught up in the love of God and love for God that is meant to be both the source and the driving force of who we are before Him and who we are for the world?
w/ Vern Collins
from Acts 2
We tend to land in one of two places when it comes to the Holy Spirit…either you crave the “signs and wonders,” above other expressions of the move of God, or the idea of a Holy Spirit that is present and active just plain makes you nervous.
Acts 2 offers us, perhaps a new understanding of just what the role and work of the Spirit of God is in this world, and how we might be a part of that work by creating space for the Holy Spirit to move.
w/ Vern Collins
from 1 Samuel 16:1-13
As we celebrate the end of one journey and the life-changing beginning of another for a group of young people in our church…we are all invited to consider the journey that we are on with God.
How does God see us? Are the things that we spend so much time and energy pursuing, the things that are really important to God or does God look deeper than our polished exterior? If that is the case, what is God willing to do in order to bring His best out of us…in order for us to experience Him more deeply?
w/ Lory Beth Huffman
from Acts 9:1-20
The final resurrection encounter we look at as we wrap up this series is perhaps one of the most well known in all of the New Testament. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the world has been impacted with the Gospel over thousands of years in large part of the encounter that this one man had with Jesus.
Not only is this encounter so well known, but it challenges us in ways that many of us need to be challenged…it forces us to wrestle with the question in our own lives: “Am I living life WITH God…or am I living life FOR God?”
w/ Vern Collins
