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
from John 21:1-17
Have you ever stopped to consider how our entertainment, experience, pursuit-of-satisfaction driven culture affects our expectations of what encountering the Lord ought to look like…ought to feel like?
While there are certainly times when an encounter with God evokes a physical and emotional response…while there are times when those encounters are fantastical…what about those times seeks to encounter us in the ordinary…in the familiar?
What if you began to look for God in the familiar? In the every day? Imagine how things might begin to be different…how different following Jesus might begin to look.
w/ Vern Collins
from John 20:24-29
Have you ever considered what the “locked doors” in your life might be when it comes to encountering Jesus? What are those things (either of your own making or as a result of your circumstances) that feel like a barrier between you and God? Those things that keep you from experiencing the power of the resurrection?
Have you ever considered that Jesus is willing to walk right in to that space…right in to your fear and your doubt and your disappointment…and once again, offer all of Who He is to you?
What if that were true? What if there was no amount of hiding that could keep Jesus away? Imagine the possibility.
w/ Vern Collins
from Numbers 22:22-35
On a special one-off Sunday (which serves as a perfect insert in our “Encounters With Jesus” series), we recognize that as a school year wraps up, as people are preparing for transition, as one chapter ends and a new one begins, the question often asked is, “what is God’s plan for my life?”
From Creation, to the Heavens, to God’s Spirit, God is speaking…drawing us in…revealing Who He is to us. The question is, can we hear Him? Are we able to recognize God’s voice when it comes?
w/ Lory Beth Huffman
from Luke 24:13-35
Without encounters with the Risen Christ, the empty tomb would be nothing more than the place where Jesus WAS…instead, as Luke and the other Gospel writers attest and as the early church bore witness to…the reality was Jesus was on the loose!
Does it feel that way in your life? Is Jesus on the loose, free to shake things up, free to redirect, free to reorient, and inspire, and challenge, and love, and meet you where you are…? Or has Jesus simply gone missing?
As we begin our new series, “Encountering Jesus,” we invite you open yourself up to the places that Jesus might just be showing up in your life…the place where He might already be at work.
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 24:1-12
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
So often we think of what the Cross of Christ means we are saved FROM, but how often do you consider the empty tomb of Christ and ask the question, “what am I saved FOR?”
Why do we look for life in dead places? What if the resurrection isn’t just something that happened 2,000 years ago…what if the resurrection can happen in your life NOW?
w/ Vern Collins
from Mark 11:1-10
We spend a great deal of energy in our lives managing our expectations of the people around us. Whether your spouse, your children, a roommate, a significant other, or co-worker, or someone in leadership…there are expectations we place on people. Consider what happens, though, when those expectations aren’t met…we are left to adjust…to manage what we thought ought to be expected.
Have you ever considered that perhaps you do the same thing with God? There might be things you want from God, or things you expect God should do on your behalf? What happens when God doesn’t answer prayer the way you want, or when it feels like God isn’t coming through the way you hoped? What if the problem isn’t so much in Who God is, but who you expect God to be for you?
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 12:13-21
We have a tendency to equate things like security, peace, worth, and identity with the accumulation of money or possessions. Or even more simply, maybe there’s just this one thing you feel like you have to have, and if you can somehow have that thing…
The question you must wrestle with is: While more wealth or more square footage or more possessions might change your circumstances, will they transform your heart?
We have from the beginning felt the tension of feeling like we need more…but what is it we really need more OF?
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 21:25-36
If you knew how something would end, would it change the way you give yourself to being a part of it?
While, we might tend to think of such a question as it relates to a business opportunity, saying yes to a relationship, or a financial decision and the potential risks or rewards associated with any of the above…what if instead of decisions that are made based on how we think life should go, we make those decisions based on how the story of God at work in this world ends?
One of the ways we see sin create brokenness in our lives is in the way we view and use time. We worry that there isn’t enough. We waste the time we have. We don’t honor the time of others.
What if we stopped being so short-sighted and started taking a long view of the way we see God’s time and timing? What if that could change the way we live right now with the time we have?
w/ Luke Edwards
from Ephesians 2:11-22
By nature we have a tendency to form teams. We gravitate to or surround ourselves with people who share things like our ideals, our values, and our view of morality. While this is not inherently wrong, what happens when our forming teams becomes choosing sides and choosing sides sets us at odds with those who aren’t like us or don’t agree with us…those who are outside of our circle? When this happens in the church, how does the way we treat those who are “outside” have any hope of looking like the Gospel?
What if God is calling you into relationship with those not like you so that God can work in you…and God can work in those relationships?
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 5:21-26
We are meant to be a reflection of God for the world around us. One of the things that is true about God is the relationship in which God exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, why are relationships one of the most difficult places for us to reflect Who God is? What if we began to allow God to bring healing to the brokenness that exists in our relationships with those around us?
w/ Vern Collins
