Ethos Church

The Kingdom of Heaven Among Us It is not up to us to build the kingdom, but we can build for the kingdom. As resurrection people who know that heaven and earth overlap, we can become agents of God’s beauty in a world that needs a song, a beautiful painting, a new dance, or a heart-touching poem. We can also stand for justice in a world where injustice seems to have a vise grip on so many people. T...

Paradise, Heaven, Resurrection, & Rapture Heaven will not be a boring place, off in distant space, where we play harps, sit on clouds, and sing the same stanza of the same song forever. Heaven is God’s space, filled with peace, justice, and beauty. Heaven and earth are overlapping realities, and the resurrection of Jesus has connected these two spheres more closely than we know. If we pay clos...

Christians have a hope that enables us to face anything. There’s an “unsinkableness” about us. There’s a stubborn buoyancy about us. You sink a Christian and they keep coming back up. No matter how much of the world seems to be on top of them. This is not the same as optimism. As a matter of fact, Christians have a hope that enables them to stop denying how much life stinks. There’s a tremendous a...

As we read Colossians 4, we are encouraged to embrace the power of prayer and to live in Christ-centered community. We are reminded to devote ourselves to prayer, and through prayer, we can experience God's guidance and strength in our lives. Paul also emphasizes the importance of wisdom in our interactions with those who we interact with every day, making the most of every opportunity to shar...

Following Jesus in a Post-Roe World Within the beauty of humanity, the image and likeness of Christ is stamped on every single one of us. Regardless of where we may differ, may we remember Christ’s unwavering love, compassion, and grace; striving to emulate and to live like the One who is our ultimate example of justice and sacrifice. In seeking to live out the image of God we become vessels of Hi...

Teaching. Maturity. Spiritual Circumcision The apostle Paul writes in Colossians 1:28, “So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ.” Paul establishes that his goal for preaching and teaching is to “present everyone perfect in Christ.” The Greek idea of perfectio...

The Awe and Supremacy of Jesus Christ In Colossians 1, we read how Christ is the image of God. And we are called to recognize Jesus as not only the Lord of Creation but also the head of the Church who is guiding us in our journey of faith. We are reminded of Jesus’ sacrifice of dying on the cross for us and how this is a beautiful act of reconciliation and an act of bringing peace between us and G...

Church: A Countercultural Community The church has often pursued relevance at the expense of reverence. However, the church was meant to be a counterculture, where “life to the full” is visible and welcomed to all. The church’s countercultural identity can be further categorized in several ways: Countercultural Presence Countercultural United Family Countercultural Change Countercultural Mission A...

God’s goal for every church is that the Holy Spirit would be the animating force behind all that we do; that every Christian community would be characterized by dependance upon the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. Taking our cues from 1 Thessalonians 1:4-10, we see that a Spirit-filled community should be characterized by: 1)   Supernatural Power 2)   Abiding Love 3)   Evangelistic Urgen...

Barriers and Bridges to True Community Expectations, Self-Protection, and Masks are barriers that become silent killers to true community.   “A spiritual community, a church, is full of broken people who turn their chairs toward each other because they know they cannot make it alone. These broken people journey together with their wounds and worries and washouts visible, but are able to see beyond...

Why Go to Church? At some point along the way, we have trained Christians to be demanding consumers, not disciples. Do we really just go to church for our own benefits? Doesn’t doing so merely perpetuate the consumerist culture that has caused so many to abandon church? There must be far more beautiful and deeply meaningful rationale for going to church beyond what we can get. Right? Within the pr...

Not As Easy As We Hope. More Important Than We Thought We desperately need to recapture the communal aspect of historic Christianity. There is an entire generation deconstructing their beliefs not because those beliefs are wrong but because they never saw those beliefs actually done in a loving community of commitment and sacrifice. What we believe is not our witness to the world, it’s how we live...

When the Holy Spirit Invades the Hearts of His People Have you ever noticed that the greatest demonstration of the Spirit of God which was also the moment that launched the Christian church, happened not while someone was preaching, but while people were praying? What does it say about the church today that the Spirit came, and that God birthed the church in a prayer meeting, and prayer meetings t...

Experiencing the Grace & Gifts of the Holy Spirit There’s a crucial principle we need to understand from the outset: Spiritual gifts are not God bestowing to his people something external to himself. They are not some tangible “stuff” or “substance” separable from God. Spiritual gifts are nothing less than God himself in us, energizing our souls, imparting revelation to our minds, infusing pow...

What stands in Our Way of More? How did Jesus do everything that Jesus did? There are two dominant theories that exist to answer that question, neither are entirely inaccurate, but one of them is most clear: by the power of the Holy Spirit. Before the Holy Spirit rested upon Jesus after His water baptism, Jesus did not do much. However, after he was anointed with the Holy Spirit, He was teaching w...

Clearing The Path for Pentecost “He is not enthusiasm. He is not courage. He is not energy. He is not the personification of all good qualities, like Jack Frost is the personification of cold weather. Actually, the Holy Spirit is not the personification of anything. He is a person, the same as you are a person, but not material substance. He has individuality. He is one being and not another, He h...

The Limit of Powerlessness, the Gift of Turbulence Following Jesus sounds great in theory, but obedience is scary. We only discover how we’re going to do what Jesus calls us to do after stepping out in obedience. That seems backwards. But when we focus on Jesus – the one calling us to obey – it gets easier because we learn to take comfort in Him. Matthew 14:28-29 (NIV) - “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter...

Ethos is a life-giving community committed to keeping Jesus at its Center. We are on a mission to love all people in Jesus' name so that we may all Know God, Find Freedom, Discover Purpose, & Make a Difference. EthosOH.com Small Groups: EthosOH.com/Community ServeColumbus.org

Ethos is a life-giving community committed to keeping Jesus at its Center. We are on a mission to love all people in Jesus' name so that we may all Know God, Find Freedom, Discover Purpose, & Make a Difference. EthosOH.com Small Groups: EthosOH.com/Community ServeColumbus.org

The Limit of Fear, the Gift of Faith It is safe to say that we all experience emotional fears that grip us, and that have the ability to limit our yes to God. Fear is not an uncommon or an unnatural emotion in life, and God knew that we would feel it. He tells his people, us, throughout the Bible, “Do not be afraid.” He already knew that we would feel this emotion, and He promised to come alongsid...

Outline of the Gospel Most people miss the voice of God not because it’s too strange but because it’s so familiar. “Why is it,” comedian Lily Tomlin asks, “that when we speak to God, we are said to be praying but when God speaks to us, we are said to be schizophrenic?” Dallas Willard wrote, “Such a response from ourselves or others to someone’s claim to have heard from God is especially likely tod...

The Limit of Time, the Gift of No. If you want to build margin in your life so that you can do the work God meant for you to do, you have to remember that you are only human. You have limits. Psalm 119:96 says, “I have learned that everything has limits” (GNT). God is the author of your limitations. He put them there for your good—because he loves you. So rather than fighting your limits, you need...

The Limit of a Man, the Gift of a Father Ethos is a life-giving community committed to keeping Jesus at its Center. We are on a mission to love all people in Jesus' name so that we may all Know God, Find Freedom, Discover Purpose, & Make a Difference. EthosOH.com Small Groups: EthosOH.com/Community ServeColumbus.org

The Limit of Self Knowledge, the Gift of the Bible If you’re going to have a personal relationship with Jesus, if your religion is personal, you have to be utterly obedient to Him. Jesus says that it’s in obedience where we find freedom … Not freedom to do what we feel, or freedom from the pain of the world, but freedom to experience life as it were meant to be lived … with Jesus. The reason we’re...

The Limit of Autonomy. The Gift of Freedom    Freedom is not the ability to do anything you want – it is the ability to accept your limits, to say no to that which robs you of what you most deeply desire. Almost everyone agrees (Christians and non-Christians) freedom is the fulfillment that comes from doing what you most deeply desire. The Bible says that only happens when you are willing to be co...