SELAH Commonwealth

Who is Jesus, according to Jesus? We will answer that question by exploring seven scandalous claims he makes in the Gospel of John, known as the "I AM" statements. In John 15, Jesus declares, "I am the true vine." Often, we focus primarily on His command to "abide." We rightly understand that this passage holds a profound truth about our need to be rooted in Him as our ultimate source of rest and...

In this interview, we hear from Erin Popova who is the Dean of Students of EnterMission. EnterMission is a guided gap year program that seeks to help students navigate life, faith, service, and their future. They partner with domestic and international partners to help their student discover how to live missionally wherever God takes them. If you would like to contribute financially to the work th...

Who is Jesus, according to Jesus? We will answer that question by exploring seven scandalous claims he makes in the Gospel of John, known as the "I AM" statements. In John 8, Jesus declares, "I am the light of the world." Interestingly, this is the only "I AM" statement he also attributes to his followers (Matt. 5:14). We are called to be the light of the world as we walk alongside the ultimate Li...

Who is Jesus, according to Jesus? We are going to answer that question by exploring seven scandalous claims that Jesus makes in the Gospel of John. These are known as the "I AM" statements. In John 10, Jesus declares: " I am the good shepherd ". We live in a culture that prizes self-determination and independence, yet we often find ourselves exhausted, anxious, and aimless. Jesus reveals that we c...

Every year, as we enter into the lenten season, we are invited to reflect upon our brokenness, our mortality, and our deep need for Jesus and His resurrection.  This exercise of writing your own epitaph will encourage you to consider your life - as it has been, as it is, and as it could be. What matters most? How do you want to be remembered? What does it look like to live life to the fullest? As...

Who is Jesus, according to Jesus? We are going to answer that question by exploring seven scandalous claims that Jesus makes in the Gospel of John. These are known as the "I AM" statements. In John 6, Jesus declares: " I am the bread of life ". We all have this tendency to seek fulfillment in things that will never truly satisfy, leaving us perpetually disappointed. Jesus reveals that we cannot fi...

Why does God allow pain and suffering? It’s one of the most frequently asked questions about God and one that keeps many from choosing to follow Him. Unfortunately, the Bible doesn’t offer clear and concise answers to every question we have about suffering. Suffering is unpredictable, messy, and deeply personal. The good news is that Scripture offers us stories of real people who live through suff...

What do we do when we are overcome with the brokenness in the world around us? Often, Christians respond in one of two ways: we separate or we assimilate. We remove ourselves from the culture so that we are not affected by the brokenness; or we assimilate so that we are not bothered by it. Both of these responses prevent us from being able to have any meaningful impact on the world around us. Inst...

In this episode with have a conversation with Larry McCrary, missionary and founder of The Upstream Collective. Larry and the Upstream team train marketplace missionaries to go abroad and engage their context through their vocation. They partner with churches to send well and support people during their time overseas. Larry shares a helpful tool for assessing the unique rhythms of your neighborhoo...

Acts 13:1-4

As the early church continued to grow, more and more people outside of the Jewish community began to follow Jesus. This created questions regarding the relevance of the law for the Jesus community. In Acts 11, the leaders of the church are wrestling with some of these questions when Peter shares a vision that he received from God. The vision revealed that though the law was a good thing, it was no...

In Acts 9, we read about the radical transformation of Paul after his encounter with Jesus. He goes from being a ruthless persecutor of early Church to being persecuted for declaring that Jesus is the resurrected Son of God.  What we learn through Paul's transformation is that we can think we are following God's will but be completely missing what he is actually doing. We need to see the world wit...

Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God. Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or story on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we continue our series of workshops on spiritual formation a...

In Acts 8, we see a shift in the spread of the Jesus movement. The persecution, culminating in the martyrdom of Stephen, caused the Church to scatter, and the message to spread to surrounding nations and people groups. This is all because a small group of people listened to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and did what he asked them to do.  This is particularly on display in the life of Philip, wh...

One thing that is made very clear in the book of Acts: when you follow after Jesus, suffering is unavoidable . Jesus invites us to join him in his mission, but in doing so, we also join him in his suffering.  This reality is on full display in Acts 7, as Stephen becomes the first Christian martyr. In his final moments, Stephen reflects the story and the heart of Jesus to the world and to his murde...

Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God. Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or story on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we continue our series of workshops on spiritual formation a...

For centuries, the church has been a community that unites people across social, economic, racial, and cultural barriers. Jesus has called his people to unite on him and him alone. Unfortunately, we tend to drift back into our old identities and affinities - prioritizing those who are like us and overlooking or neglecting those who are different. This tendency causes deep hurt and insurmountable f...

Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God. Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or story on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we continue our series of workshops on spiritual formation a...

In the early pages of the book of Acts, things are going well for Jesus' church. The Spirit of God has filled the community and empowered them to fulfill the mission of Jesus in the world. But things take a disturbing turn in Acts 5, when a couple people in the community introduce something that could be the undoing of this faith family.  In this passage, we learn about the importance of trust and...

At the end of Acts 2, we get a beautiful portrait of the shared life of the early church community. It is something that Christians have aspired to imitate ever since.  But we miss the point if we treat this passage primarily as a model on how to do church. Instead, this is a picture of God's character embodied by God's people. It is a display of what God had been calling his people to do from the...

Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God. Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or story on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we continue our series of workshops on spiritual formation a...

As we come to Acts 2, the small community of Jesus' disciples are in Jerusalem waiting for a promise to be fulfilled. Jesus left them saying that he would send the Holy Spirit who would fill and empower them to engage in the mission that he set before them.  In this passage, we learn that the Church must first wait on the Spirit, be filled by the Spirit, and then be propelled into the mission by t...

Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God. Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or interview on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we introduce a new series of workshops on spiritual form...

Two thousand years ago, Jesus didn't give his followers the Church, he gave them a mission: "Be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth." (Acts 1:8)  In the books of Acts, we see that the Church ends up being a natural product of a group of people living out that mission together. The problem is when we lose sight of the mission, we end up losing the Churc...

What makes the Church the Church? Throughout history, many have boiled the Church down to three essential rhythms - worship, community, and mission. Though these rhythms can take a wide variety of forms, almost every community of Jesus-followers across generations and traditions have incorporated these into the life of their community. Therefore, we use this as a framework for thinking about the l...