Alliance Church

Is it ever okay to get even with someone who hurt you? Most of us would say no out loud, and then feel something very different the moment it actually happens to us. Someone wrongs you, and a voice inside says they have it coming. In this message from Romans 12:17 through 21, Pastor Brandon Hilstad starts with a question that sounds like a trick: how much evil is it okay for a Christian to do to a...

How do you forgive someone who hurt you? Not in theory, but the person whose name still tightens your stomach. Maybe you want to confront them, maybe you want to pretend it never happened, and maybe you just want the hurt to stop. In this message, Pastor Brian walks through one of the most quoted and most misunderstood things Jesus ever said: "Do not judge." People use that line to shut...

Why do I believe in God but nothing in my life ever changes? You feel something when you hear a message, maybe even a tug in your chest, and then Monday shows up and your schedule, priorities, and budget look exactly like last week. If that sounds familiar, this teaching from the book of James is for you. Pastor Brian opens with a sobering stat: the average American adult spends about two hours a...

What does the Bible say about immigration? It is one of the most heated questions of our time, and most of us walk in with strong opinions before we ask what God thinks. And if you have ever sat in church and felt like a stranger who did not belong, this message is for you too. In this sermon, Pastor Brian stays out of the political weeds and goes straight for the heart. He starts in Isaiah 58, wh...

Is it a sin to hoard money? Most of us would say no. Saving is responsible, and helping the poor is a nice thing to do when the budget allows. But what the Bible says about generosity is heavier than that, and in this sermon Pastor Brian walks straight into it. It starts with a Saturday trip to Menards and a question from Pastor Brian's son Elias, who is seven. It becomes a bigger one: who is...

What does God actually think about Christians who worship vibrantly on Sunday but ignore the vulnerable the rest of the week? It is one of the most jarring questions in Scripture, and Pastor Brian walks the church into it head on. Full seats. Hands raised. Tithes up. Prayer and fasting strong. And God, says Isaiah, cannot stand it. This sermon kicks off a new teaching series at Alliance Church on...

Why does more money never actually feel like enough? You get the raise, the house, the promotion, the number in the account, and then the goalpost quietly moves again. Pastor Josiah takes on that exhausting cycle head on, using one of Jesus's sharpest parables. And the man Jesus calls a fool in it looks, on paper, like someone we would celebrate. This sermon continues an Alliance Church teachi...

How much should a Christian actually give? It is one of the most quietly awkward questions in Christian life, and Dr. Dennis Episcopo answers it with a framework that will keep you thinking all week. There are four levels of giving in the Bible. Most Christians never make it past level one. This sermon continues an Alliance Church teaching series on money and generosity. Dr. Episcopo opens with a...

What does the Bible actually say about money? It is one of the most searched, most anxiously carried topics in modern life, and Pastor Brian steps into it with unusual honesty. 63% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Money is the number two reason for divorce. And Jesus talked about it more than almost anything else. This sermon kicks off a new teaching series at Alliance Church on what...

How do you actually discipline your kids without yelling? It is one of the most exhausting, quietly discouraging challenges of parenting, and Pastor Brandon says almost every Christian parent lands in one of two ditches. He walks the church through the third way that Scripture actually teaches, and it will change how you show up in your own home this week. This sermon comes from a Broadcast Sunday...

What do you actually have to believe to be saved by God? It is one of the most anxious questions a Christian can quietly carry, and Pastor Brian gives one of the clearest answers we have ever heard him offer. The bar is small enough for a child. And a dying criminal on a cross next to Jesus already cleared it. This sermon wraps up an August teaching series at Alliance Church on how to read the Bib...

What does the book of Ruth actually mean? For centuries it has been read as a beautiful love story, and it is one, but Pastor Brian says almost every Christian misses that Ruth is really a story about Jesus hiding in plain sight. If you have ever felt bitter, forgotten, or written off by God, this teaching will meet you exactly where you are. This sermon continues an August teaching series at Alli...

How do you read the Bible when two verses seem to contradict each other? It's the question that has quietly divided churches, families, and friendships for centuries, and most Christians have never been given honest tools to work through it. Pastor Brian walks Alliance Church through a crash course on hermeneutics, the study of how we get from what the Bible says to what it means. He opens with a...

What does Romans 8:28 actually mean? A lot of Christians quote it in the middle of pain, but not many of us have stopped to ask if we are using it the way it was actually meant to be used. In the aftermath of the EF3 tornado that hit the Fox Valley, Pastor Brandon takes on what may be the most commonly misapplied verse in the Bible and walks the church through what it really says. This sermon kick...

What do you do when everything you built is taken from you in a single storm? Almost no one thinks that question will ever land on them personally, and then one day it does. Pastor Brian preached this message to a congregation whose city had just been devastated by an EF3 tornado, and the answer he gave is one every person is going to need at some point. In this sermon, Pastor Brian opens with a h...

Why do good people quietly go bad? Almost everyone has watched it happen. Someone who used to be genuinely humble, generous, and grounded starts succeeding, and slowly, in a way nobody can quite name, they become someone their friends and family barely recognize. Pastor Trevor unpacks a 2,800 year old story that names the pattern perfectly. In this sermon, Pastor Trevor walks through the life of K...

Why are you so tired all the time even when you sleep? A lot of us have been trying to sleep off, vacation off, or scroll off an exhaustion that no bed can actually fix. It is not physical. It is soul deep. And Pastor Brian says most of us are carrying a weight we were never built to carry. In this sermon, Pastor Brian opens the story of King Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 25. The Bible describes Amaziah...

How do you pass on your faith to the next generation? You can spend a lifetime building something good, a family, a career, a walk with God, and still watch it unravel in a single generation. If you have ever wondered why kids walk away from faith, or why the things that matter most to you do not seem to stick with the people you love, this message is for you. In this teaching, Pastor Brian opens...

Why does your faith get weaker when your life gets better? Most of us have felt it and never said it out loud. When things fall apart, we cling to God. When things fall together, we quietly forget him. And nobody warns you about the second one. In this sermon, Pastor Josiah opens up one of the most sobering stories in the Bible, King Solomon, to teach us why starting strong is nothing like finishi...

Why does God allow suffering when he's supposed to be in control? Most of us have asked it quietly, especially when we hear about Christians around the world losing everything just for following Jesus. The answer is something nobody can give you better than someone who has lived through it. In this sermon, Pastor Job from Burkina Faso (the president of the Burkina Faso Alliance and a partner o...

In this Fire Away Q&A service, Pastor Brian and Dr. Dennis Episcopo sit on stage together (it just so happens to be Father's Day, and Dr. Dennis is Pastor Brian's actual dad) and answer the questions our congregation texts in live. No script, no preselected questions, no editing. Just real pastoral answers to the things people are actually wrestling with. Pastor Brian and Dr. Dennis Ep...

Why does your spiritual life feel stuck right now? You know you are supposed to love God with everything you've got, but it feels more like an obligation than a fire. You sing the songs. You show up. You try to want it. And still, something feels distant. In this sermon, Dr. Mark Harris opens our brand new series Counterfeit Kings by walking us through the only person in the entire Bible of wh...

Why do you feel so alone right now? Most of us, even on our most ordinary day, carry around a quiet fear that we are facing what we are facing by ourselves. And the answer the Bible gives to that fear is one of the most surprising things in all of scripture. In this sermon, Dr. Dennis Episcopo opens our brand new series Counterfeit Kings with the story of a scared, lonely king named Ahaz, three en...

How do you stop caring so much what other people think of you? It is one of the quietest, heaviest weights most of us carry, and the Bible has a surprising answer for it. The answer starts with a kind of fear most of us have never actually been taught. In this sermon, Pastor Brian opens up one of the most confusing tensions in all of scripture. On one hand, the Bible tells us over and over not to...

What is God really like when you actually stop and ask the question? Not the version of God you grew up with, not the one shaped by your worst memory of church, but the God who actually exists. That is the question this sermon walks straight into. Pastor Paul opens with something most of us never stop to do. He asks you to picture God in your mind. Is he a man? Does he have a beard? Is he disappoi...