Wesley Foundation at MSU

Keep it simple, keep it real, and keep it up.  That's pretty good advice about how to pray.

We all have our go-to set of answers to the question “how are you doing?” One answer that we like a lot: “busy.”  How are you doing? Busy.  We are doing busy? Is that even a sentence? Apparently it is. But God calls us to something different: stillness. Tonight, we’re looking at Psalm 46. 10 and asking this question: what kind of stillness do you need? Hope you’ll join us for a moment of...

"Our hope isn't necessarily that good will eventually come, but that good is already happening.  Our hope isn't that God will one day work in our lives, but that he is already working." 

Hugh wraps up our "Worship" series on a teaching from 1 Peter!

This week at Worship, Katie teaches the beauty of worship through singing.

When it comes to worship, we have two basic options: Attend worship or embody worship. Guess which one Romans 12.1-2 cheers us on to choose!?!

This week at Worship, Hugh speaks on what grace upon grace means from John 1:16.

The faith-and-action of four friends was the catalyst for Jesus’ miracle of healing and forgiving a paralyzed man. The faith-and-action of the four friends challenges us to live a thriving life that bridges the distance between a broken world and the ongoing miracle of Jesus’ healing and forgiveness. It’s time for us to thrive like that!

When life crowds in with all its pressures, there is still room for us to creep up behind Jesus — if that’s all we feel we can do — and reach out to touch him, in that odd mixture of fear and faith, believing that his presence will change us. Sometimes Jesus brings a miracle and other times he meets a need always leaving us with a deeper peace than when he found us.

Two deaths…two socially un-distanced touches…two miracles…two lives restored…and an invitation to you to leave death behind and to live like God made you to live. This week at Thrive -- How Jesus' death-to-life miracles can change the way you live and die.

Jesus wouldn’t have been very good at social distancing in a pandemic! Isolation and separation would’ve hit him hard. Physical distancing would not have come easily to Jesus. The story of Jesus is the story of a man who was with people – sometimes in crowds, sometimes with small groups. Jesus frequently touched people. And there was power in his touch! In many of his miracles, Jesus broke all the...

You’ve probably heard or said some of these sayings before, often within tragedy and hardship as a way of grasping for meaning behind suffering. Sayings like: “Everything happens for a reason…” “God is in control…” “It was God’s timing…” “Lord willing” or “it must have been God’s will…” But what if some of your suffering wasn’t God’s will? This week at Thrive, we’re wrapping up our “God’s Will and...

Decisions.  Doesn't it sometimes feel like college life is just one decision after another... Summer plans, major change, class scheduling, a new involvement on campus, relationships, where to live next year, Jimmy Johns or Chick-Fil-A, grad school or get a job...which job...what if I can't find a job???  God's will.  How can I be confident that my decisions are synced&nbs...

What do I want to do with my life?  Or maybe the better question is, What does my life want to do with me?  This week at Thrive, we're starting a three-week series on God's will by talking about God's will and our calling.  Because God has a will, it’s not all up to me alone to figure out what to do with my life.  Our Creator has helpful input and good intentions for what...

In the Bible, a lack of awareness is often compared to blindness. And blindness is often portrayed as a central obstacle to intimacy with God and others. So how does God help us with our blindness? Two ways: 1/ God utilizes other people to help us see. 2/ God helps us with our blindness is by showing it to us. How we respond once we’ve become aware has the ability to grow us closer to one another...

Would intimacy be a word you would use to describe your relationships?  What about with God?  One way to summarize the Bible’s story is this: It is the story of God’s hunger for intimacy; his pain at its loss; his determination to recapture it; and his fierce joy at its redemption. This week at Thrive, Katie’s teaching on intimacy with God and how God’s presence and God’s listening means...

Living loved is one continuous experience that starts with being loved by God.  Then living loved trusts the love that sent Jesus to solve our estrangement and our eternity issues. And then lives out the loved you receive. 

The Gospel of John makes an amazing claim about Jesus: “His LIFE brings LIGHT to everyone.” [Jn1.3] How’d you like for your life to be warmed and brightened by the light of Jesus? That’s the truth we find in 1 John 1.5 – 3.10 in Week 2 of our Bible study series on 1 John.

This week at Thrive, Hugh kicks off our series in 1 John. He speaks on how Jesus is life breaking it down into four parts: 1). Jesus is the Word of life, 2). Jesus defines life, 3). Jesus existed before the beginning, and 4). Jesus is eternal life. Sin disrupts life, but fellowship is restored because the blood of Jesus forgives and cleanses us bringing life to our life.

This week at Thrive, our good friend and Wesley alumnus, Pat Ward, teaches on finding freedom in our groaning. Pat says, “Being free and living free are two different things.”  Pat dissects Paul’s words from Romans 8:21 about “glorious freedom,” and he walks us down the road from groaning to freedom, offering wisdom on how we find this “glorious freedom.”

We all carry the baggage of being broken.  We’re broken people living in a broken world making broken decisions and responding to our brokenness with brokenness.  So there’s a lot of potential for life to bring along the way deep disappointment, hurt, and pain, which often becomes baggage that we carry.  So, what do we do with all of this brokenness?

One thing the Spirit is saying ”ugh” about is racial injustice and our world’s need for racial reconciliation. Could we join the Spirit of God with an “ugh” of our own? This week at Thrive! Join us!

Groaning...It's our gut-level response when our reality isn't what we're longing for.  Maybe you're groaning about Bulldog football or the presidential election. A big cultural problem like racisim deserves our groaning. Or maybe you're groaning about your own brokenness or because of some hurt you experienced along the way. The really good news we find in Romans 8 is that we never groan alon...

Would power be a word you would use to describe your spiritual life...Powerful? Jesus says in Acts 1:8 that “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you...” The life and power of Christ are made accessible through the in dwelling person of the Holy Spirit. One of the reasons for not using the word “powerful” to describe our spiritual life may be because we don’t fully know the Holy...

This week at Thrive, we’re talking community. What if community “as you know it to be” is not actually what God designed “community” to be? Today we’re connected digitally more than ever, yet disconnected physically more than ever. We’ve traded commitment-based communities for temporary human interactions that are based on personal preference. We’ve idolized individualism to the extreme. We’ve bee...