from Philippians 3:1-14
While seasons of struggle are challenging for a number of reasons, perhaps the thing that makes them most uncomfortable, most unnerving…the thing that makes us want to be on the other side of those challenges, is that they challenge our understanding of who we are in ways that we are often unprepared for.
What if instead of fearing what is revealed about our identity in those difficult seasons, we saw it as an opportunity to examine that upon which we have built our lives? What if we saw it as an opportunity to consider that the fullness of life can only truly be found in Jesus?
w/ Vern Collins and Jeff McClain
from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Isaiah 43:1-3, 18-19, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
How might you walk through seasons of challenge differently if you knew that you were not alone? How might you do so if you knew that God was with you? What if the challenge of this season is not meant for discouragement, but for hope…hope that God is not done with you…hope that God is doing a new thing?!
May you fix your eyes in Him in this season of challenge.
w/ Lory Beth Huffman and Laura Byrch
from 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 and 1 Corinthians 9:34-27
While we have this tendency to try to avoid struggle…to avoid suffering at all costs, one of the things that we see consistently in Scripture is that God not only meets us in our place of struggle, but God is able to use our struggle to not only do amazing things IN us, but also amazing things THROUGH us.
As we begin this 6 week series between Easter and Lent, consider we invite you to imagine what God might be able to do if you are willing to be honest about your weakness and create space for Him to meet you there.
w/ Vern Collins and Jeff McClain
from Matthew 28:1-10
The story of Jesus’ resurrection is familiar to so many, but if we allow the story to become to familiar, we run the risk of no longer expecting that we can be surprised by Jesus…we run the risk of losing sight of the fact that Jesus might just be showing up right where we are.
May the hope of the resurrection meet you in a very real way this Easter season.
w/ Lory Beth Huffman and Vern Collins
from Matthew’s Gospel account of the final week of Jesus’ life as well as a look at Matthew 26:36-46
For Palm Sunday we listen to the last week of Jesus’ life told from beginning to end and close with a brief message looking at Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. What might we learn from Jesus’ vulnerability? What might it tell us about Jesus? How might it draw us in to Holy Week?
w/ Vern Collins (message) and Lory Beth Huffman, Jeff McClain, Laura Byrch, and Ben Fitzgerald (readers)
from Matthew 4:1-11
In a time of testing, what is the way you choose to cope…to be comfortable…to get through to the other side of the testing? Is it the path that seems easier, or is it the way God would have you walk in order that you might experience more of Who He is in your life?
w/ Vern Collins and Lory Beth Huffman
from Psalm 89:38-52 and Jeremiah 29:1-14
There is a difference between seeking to discern God’s voice in your life, and feeling like God has gone silent.
Silence from God, if we’re not careful, can affect our relationship with God in incredibly difficult ways. We might begin to question God’s love for us, we might begin to question God’s faithfulness, or whether or not God even cares what we are walking through. Too often, these feelings or questions, left un death with, can lead us to no longer seeking God…
And yet, what we find in our passages from Psalm 89 and Jeremiah 29, are both the permission to be honest with God about how His silence hits us, and direction from God in the midst of those seasons of unknown.
May we approach Him with boldness, and dig in deeply in the place where He has us.
w/ Vern Collins, Jeff McClain, and Ben Fitzgerald
from Exodus 19:1-8, 32:1-14, 19-20
As we continue our series on trusting God, we see God’s grace and sovereignty in inviting us to consider what it truly means to trust God in the midst of such a time of Global and national unrest as we navigate a season of new normal with the onset of COVID-19.
Not only in this trying time, but even in your own every day life, what does it mean to trust God’s leading? What does it look like to trust that God is still good when things around us don’t seem to be? What does it look like to trust that God is not only with us, but that God is still leading us?
w/ Lory Beth Huffman, Laura Byrch, and Ben Fitzgerald
from Genesis 22:1-19
Sometimes it seems that one of the most difficult areas in which to trust God, is in whether or not we will be provided for. If I surrender my life to him, will I truly have all I need? Will I have the kind of income I want, the kind of house I want…what about relationship? So often, when we think of provision, we find our thoughts wrapped up in material possessions, but what if what God promises to provide goes deeper than the material?
Can we truly trust that God will provide all that we need? What if the trials and the challenges in our lack, is not God ignoring our plea, what if it is God teaching us to walk in faith?
w/ Vern Collins
from Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-13, 21-24
In Psalm 16, David says to the Lord, “Your boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places,” but the reality is that many of us don’t think of boundaries in our lives as being pleasant, rather we tend to think of them as being restrictive. So in order to be able to pursue life as we feel it should be, we begin to create a truth for ourselves that is often outside of God’s Truth for us.
What if we began to see God’s Truth…the boundaries that God’s Truth creates, not as restrictive, but as gracious…as permissive…as life-giving?
w/ Vern Collins
from James 5:13-16, Psalm 103:1-5
At any given point in our lives, we feel the brokenness of this world in which we live…a brokenness that not only affects the world around us, but affects us as well. Some of our brokenness is easily seen, other wounds we keep hidden, but whatever the case, God longs to bring healing and wholeness.
What if you took your longing for healing before the Lord, and trusted His healing touch? What if you could walk in wholeness?
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 10:38-42 and Acts 2:42-47
Perhaps the greatest step we can take in this discipleship journey is the one that places us at the feet of Jesus…and yet in a world of busyness and seemingly endless demands on our time, this is the thing that tends to fall off of our list of priorities first.
What if, starting now, you made time at the feet of Jesus a priority instead of an afterthought? Imagine how it might help you to reorder your day as you begin to grow in your love for God and His Kingdom.
w/ Vern Collins
from Isaiah 58:1-12
When you think of worship or the practice of religion, what comes to mind? More importantly, what do you believe the purpose of our worship or the practice of religion is FOR?
Are we simply checking boxes, or are we placing ourselves humbly before God in hopes that we might be transformed…in hopes that we might moved beyond our self-focus in order to focus on those around us?
What if this week, you took a step toward serving someone around you? Recognizing where they might have need, and being willing to come alongside them…just as God, in Christ, has come alongside you.
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 8:4-15
Wherever you are on your journey with Christ, there is a thread that binds all who are on that journey (or even considering that journey) together. That is that not a single one of us is called to walk this journey alone.
Using Jesus’ parable of the sower, we consider the value of connecting with others in this journey of growing in Christ.
w/ Vern Collins
from Ephesians 4:1-3, 14-32
Too often we have a tendency to think of life as a Christ follower as meaning little more than behavior modification. What if we lived into the truth that Jesus did not give His life merely to modify our behavior, but He gave His life and offers us life in order to transform our nature?
Wherever you are on the journey, God longs to meet you and to draw you into deeper relationship with Him…and offers you grace in all of the ups and downs as you seek to follow.
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 3:13-17
A life of following Jesus if full of challenges. There are many times that we wonder if it is all worth it. We might have doubt, we might have fear of what is ahead, we might wrestle with guilt over feeling like we’re not doing this well.
Unlike trips we might take in life: vacations, road trips to see a friend or some exciting place…what if in life with Christ the thing that sustains us is not the destination, but what is spoken over us at the beginning?
Imagine how your perspective of following Jesus might change if you allowed it to be sustained and rooted in the truth and good news of the beginning…that you are the beloved of God, and that God has called you into life…a life He promises to walk through with you.
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 3:1-12
The call to repent is at the heart of the Gospel invitation…and yet, for so many it has left a bad taste in the mouth of those who hear it. What we stopped hearing the call to repent at the end of a pointing finger, and instead heard it as a hope-filled invitation to something new?
John’s is a simple message full of opportunity.
Perhaps you might hear it again for the first time…
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 2:1-12
Epiphany invites us to wrestle with the question, “Who is Jesus TO YOU?”
The build up through Advent to Christmas can seem immense considering how quickly it all seems to leave us…Christmas is packed away for another year…and yet if we are willing, we might just find that the Hope that has come, is present, and continues to come in Jesus…it might just mean something for us now.
w/ Vern Collins
