from Luke 1:26-38
There is a longing for home within each of us. Try as we might to fill that longing with promises of this world, with relationships, with achievement, or any other number of things in which we seek to find meaning and identity, there is only one place we are meant to be “at home.”
In the season of Advent we celebrate that God did not leave us to wander alone looking for home, instead, in Jesus He came to find us that we might find our home in Him.
This week we consider the hopeful truth that with God there is no such thing as impossibility! What if instead of simply writing off God’s ability to answer a prayer we are praying, or doubting whether or not God can really use us in His unfolding plan, we allowed ourselves to lean in…to be curious enough to believe that with God all things are possible?
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 1:5-25
There is a longing for home within each of us. Try as we might to fill that longing with promises of this world, with relationships, with achievement, or any other number of things in which we seek to find meaning and identity, there is only one place we are meant to be “at home.”
In the season of Advent we celebrate that God did not leave us to wander alone looking for home, instead, in Jesus He came to find us that we might find our home in Him.
This week we consider what Good News that is in the face of darkness and in the midst of impossible circumstances.
w/ Ed Glaize
from Luke 17:11-19
We live in a world that is beset with an attitude of entitlement. What if instead of focusing on what is owed us, we chose to be grateful for all we have been given? What if gratitude and thanksgiving became our native tongue in this Kingdom which we are invited into through Christ?
w/ Vern Collins
from 2 Corinthians 8:1-5
In Biblical writings, the heart is not understood as something that is connected to emotion in the way that we think of the heart. Rather the heart is the driving force behind our hopes and dreams; behind our drive and determination. Where the heart is bent, so goes one’s life. For these 6 weeks we are going to examine the heart and consider not only how it informs our understanding of Stewardship, but more importantly, how it informs who we are in Christ.
A transformed heart ought to look like something in our lives…the question is, do we know what this ought to be, or are we to determine that on our own. In our passage from 2 Corinthians, Paul highlights a group of Christ followers who might just make clear what that outward expression of a transformed heart ought to look like: Joy and Generosity.
w/ Vern Collins
from Luke 19:1-10
In Biblical writings, the heart is not understood as something that is connected to emotion in the way that we think of the heart. Rather the heart is the driving force behind our hopes and dreams; behind our drive and determination. Where the heart is bent, so goes one’s life. For these 6 weeks we are going to examine the heart and consider not only how it informs our understanding of Stewardship, but more importantly, how it informs who we are in Christ.
A transformed heart ought to have tangible implications in the way we live our lives in relation to those around us. What are the ways that God might be calling you to reflect His generosity in the lives of those around you? Who is God calling you to stop…pay attention to…and offer a generous heart?
w/ Vern Collins
from Matthew 11:28-30
In Biblical writings, the heart is not understood as something that is connected to emotion in the way that we think of the heart. Rather the heart is the driving force behind our hopes and dreams; behind our drive and determination. Where the heart is bent, so goes one’s life. For these 6 weeks we are going to examine the heart and consider not only how it informs our understanding of Stewardship, but more importantly, how it informs who we are in Christ.
We begin this week by looking at the heart of Jesus. In order for us to understand and be honest about the condition of our own hearts, we may just want to listen to the invitation of the One Whose heart is, “Gentle and Humble.”
w/ Vern Collins
from Philippians 4:4-7
Anxiety and worry have become so deeply woven into the fabric of our culture and our daily lives, and we often try to do little more than keep those feelings at bay in order to be able to function…yet, there is a promise in Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi that invites us to live and operate, not from a place of trying to stay of anxiety in order to function, rather to live in the promise of God’s peace and presence with us regardless our circumstances.
w/ Vern Collins
from 1 Peter 1:3-9
In our seven week series, “All Things Made New,” we consider the work that Jesus is doing in this world…a work that we don’t have to wait until time has reached its fulfillment to experience, but that we can experience and be a part of now!
As we conclude our series, we are faced with the question, “In what or who do you anchor your hope?” So often we find ourselves let down or disappointed by people or things of this world, and while we were made for relationship and we were made with this longing for that which is NEW, we were meant to find the fullness of both, not in people or earthly pursuits, but in Jesus-the One Who makes possible for us a hope that is enduring and unchangeable!
w/ Vern Collins
from Lamentations 3:22-24
In our seven week series, “All Things Made New,” we consider the work that Jesus is doing in this world…a work that we don’t have to wait until time has reached its fulfillment to experience, but that we can experience and be a part of now!
When trying to live into the new life that God has made possible in Christ…when trying to bring His New Kingdom to bear on this earth, what happens when the troubles and trials of life seem too much to bear?
We look to each day as a gift…and each rising of the sun as a tangible example of God’s mercy and faithfulness.
w/ Ed Glaize
from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 and Matthew 9:9-13
In our seven week series, “All Things Made New,” we consider the work that Jesus is doing in this world…a work that we don’t have to wait until time has reached its fulfillment to experience, but that we can experience and be a part of now!
Once we have found in Christ, freedom from our own pursuits or the pursuit of trying to earn our salvation or relationship with Christ, what exactly are we freed into? Is into pursuing the life we want knowing that we have a hope and a future, or is it living life in such a way that those around us begin to know and are invited into the source of our hope?
w/ Vern Collins
from Romans 4:4-6
In our seven week series, “All Things Made New,” we consider the work that Jesus is doing in this world…a work that we don’t have to wait until time has reached its fulfillment to experience, but that we can experience and be a part of now!
When we’ve said “yes” to the new work that Jesus wants to do in us and is doing in this world, but the “novelty” feels like it begins to wear off because the worries of this life begin to crowd in, or we find ourselves slipping back into old pursuits, we must lose heart…instead we find hope in the fact that we have been welcomed by Jesus, empowered by His Holy Spirit, and set free to pursue all that God has for us to be and do.
w/ Vern Collins
from Revelation 21:1-5
In our seven week series, “All Things Made New,” we consider the work that Jesus is doing in this world…a work that we don’t have to wait until time has reached its fulfillment to experience, but that we can experience and be a part of now!
Jesus proclaims in John’s Revelation that He is making all things new. Where God is at work…where the Holy Spirit is present…there is newness breaking in. What is hindering you from experiencing it? What is hindering you from being a part of it?
w/ Ed Glaize
from Psalm 139
Perhaps deeper than our need to be loved is our need to be known…in fact, wrapped up in our need to be loved is the longing to be loved for who we truly are…and to be loved for who we truly are is the reality that we are KNOWN!
There is One Who not only knows you…TRULY knows you, but One Who is present with you…always.
Imagine how your view of life might begin to change if you lived in the reality of the truth of God’s love for you and presence with you.
w/ Vern Collins
from Acts 2:42-47
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 all being formed by someone or some thing…the question is: Who or what are you allowing to form you? Imagine a life ordered toward following Jesus, being loved by Him, learning from Him, and modeling your life after His…when we choose to do that we find that the thing we are growing into is Christ. And everything changes as a result.
w/ Vern Collins
*Including invitation to Communion
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
