99 CHURCH

At the core of every human being is the longing to be fully known and fully loved. In the garden of Eden, humanity was naked and unashamed before God and before one another. But because of sin, we often find ourselves hiding and afraid from community. This week, we explore how the Johari Window could be a powerful tool in helping us reclaim our humanity in community, allowing ourselves to be fully...

We live in time where we're simultaneously vigilant about accountability, yet so turned off by it. We’re proactive in holding people accountable in the court of public opinion, yet absolutely turned off by the idea of anyone holding us accountable. Scripture calls us to sharpen one another, to help each other become all that God has created us to be. This week, we explore the final practice of bel...

Throughout Scripture, we see many maternal and motherly metaphors used to describe God's nature, specifically toward us as His children. Unfortunately, the church in recent history has steered away from using feminine imagery for God. But it wasn't always this way. Church fathers and mothers throughout history used language about God that was quite fluid in regards to gender. What does it look lik...

Sociologists have observed a steep decline of empathy in our world today. And this has big implications on our journey of belonging. Thankfully, empathy is a skill that can be developed. As we look to Jesus, we see a God who embodies empathy in the way He sees and knows us. This week, we explore the fourth practice of belonging: empathy.

Like Adam and Eve, you could be tailor-made for the place of ultimate communion, and yet forgo connection due to fear. We experience profound loneliness with the very people we belong to because we hide, afraid of being seen as we are. Vulnerability is coming out of hiding and exposing our wounds so that we can be accepted as we are—not as we want to be. It's confessing our brokenness, our weaknes...

Our world is full of division and hostility. There always seems to be walls of separation between groups, whether it’s because of race, gender, sexuality, class, politics, or faith. But the Gospel calls us to have an open posture of love towards everyone, even those who aren't easy for us to get along with. This week, we talk about the second practice of belonging: Chemistry. Is it okay to priorit...

We live in a world where we’re constantly distracted, busy, and pulled in a million different directions every single day. It makes it hard to discern what to prioritize. Belonging is impossible to cultivate if we aren't willing to make it a priority. We only have so much time, which beckons us to ask ourselves: How should we spend our time? And more importantly, who should we spend our time with?...

In recent years, America declared loneliness a public health epidemic. We all know what it's like to feel unseen, unknown, and unloved. But this isn't the way God created us to live. We were made to belong. We all want to find belonging, but most of us don't know. This week, we begin a journey of exploring key practices that can help us cultivate belonging in a lonely world.

Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people come alive. Jesus didn't die on the cross for us to merely exist. He died on the cross so that we can have life to the full. Easter reminds us that Jesus is alive and He is making all things new.

Anywhere you go in the world, you will almost always find some dude on a horse. There's always some conqueror on top of a warhorse memorialized as a statue. Yet, the image of Jesus we remember on Palm Sunday is Him riding on a donkey. In doing so, Jesus was making a statement about the kind of King He was: a humble and meek King, turning the ways of the world upside-down.

There’s a kind of fatigue that attacks the body, but there’s another kind of fatigue that attacks the soul. Many of us are tired. But it’s not just our bodies that are tired, our souls are weary. Yet, we follow a Savior who meets us in the middle of tiredness. We believe in a God who’s powerful enough to give us strength, yet human enough to be tired with us. What does it look like for Jesus to me...

We live in a world where millions of people go hungry every day, while millions more have so much food that they don't know what to do with it. Throughout history, we find that fasting is one of the main practices followers of Jesus have adopted to move in love toward the hungry and the poor. This week, we explore fasting, not just as a practice for personal transformation, but as a means for gene...

All throughout Scripture, we see fasting and prayer go together. You can pray without fasting, and fast without praying, but there's something special that happens when the two are combined. Fasting is a practice that both amplifies God's voice to us and our voice to God. This week, we explore the power of fasting to help us hear God more clearly, and release His power and breakthrough in our live...

"Living The Dream"

We want to live comfortable life’s. The idea of self-denial or delayed gratification seems so foreign to our culture. Yet, Jesus once said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves.” Fasting is one of the best ways to cultivate a heart of self-denial. We find that as we fast, we’re able to tap into the Spirit’s power that purifies us and transforms our whole selves. This week, we cont...

Fasting is one of the most misunderstood and least practiced spiritual disciplines in the Church today. Simply put, we just don't fast anymore. But that wasn't always the case. For over a thousand years, fasting was a core practice in the life of the average follower of Jesus. What might we recapture if we began fasting again? What beauty and breakthrough awaits us in this ancient practice? This w...

We all carry longings and unmet desires in this life -- and for the singles longing for marriage, that's one demographic the church often shies away from. Is singleness just a "waiting room" we are forced to pass the time in? Or is there an inner transformation in our hearts and minds that God invites us to experience? This week, join us as we study the power of perseverance at work in our deepest...

“A Prayer Against Desensitization”

Culture has a lot to say about love and marriage. The movies we watch, the music we listen to, the stories we learn, all shape our understanding of what marriage is. But is everything we've learned about marriage good and true? This week we explore common myths associated relationships, and ask what God has to say about the matter.

When we are truly present with people, we begin to see them as God sees them. We come to discover that people are not problems to be solved. They are mysteries to be explored. This week, we explore the story of Barnabas and how God calls us to draw out the best in one another.

“A Prayer For The Brokenhearted”

If we were to be completely honest with ourselves, most of us struggle being fully present with others, especially those who are most important to us. We struggle being present with our friends, our family members, our partners, our kids, our co-workers, our neighbors. But a life attentive to God always leads to a life attentive to others. What if we could learn how to be like Jesus, and be fully...

How many times in our lives have we missed out on something truly beautiful because we weren't present enough to notice it? How many life-changing interactions, miracles, and God moments do we pass by on a daily basis? The practice of mindfulness is one way we could discipline ourselves to be more present. Mindfulness is the art of holy noticing, a sacred way of noticing God and what He's doing in...