Arbor Church

Are we missing the point of prayer? Guest speaker Neely McQueen speaks about not just how to talk to God but how to listen to Him.

It’s one of the most enduring questions Christians wrestle with: Why does God allow so much pain – in the world, and in our own lives? What’s the point?

Guest speaker Nate Hettinga continues our What’s the Point series, and today we’re asking what the point of church is. To get some answers, Nate turns to the place where it all started.

Is the point of our life to be happy? Maybe there’s something more than just that. How do we discover our specific purpose in life? A good place to start is by listening to this podcast.

Even though Jesus foretold his own resurrection, it caught everyone off guard: nobody expected no body . Jesus chose to reveal the best news in the history of the world to … a woman who couldn’t even legally testify in court? Today we visit the old story through new eyes: hers .

On Sunday we will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, but this Good Friday, we must first walk with Him through the final days before His death on a cross.

There are few people in Scripture who were put through a more difficult trial than Job, from whom was taken almost everything that can be taken. Job’s story, full of suffering that seems senseless, reminds us of Who is in control, and helps unravel the age-old mystery: how do we reconcile a loving God with a world full of pain?

Guest speaker Mike Howerton continues the series with a reminder that God is with us in our tests… and that He will bring us through them, just as He did for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendego in the fiery furnace.

If you’ve ever failed a test, you’ll relate to this message about The Rich Young Ruler and his encounter with Jesus. Tests reveal the contents of our heart, and in this case, there was more love for wealth than for Jesus. Listen and imagine what your response might’ve been.

Our new sermon series looks at people in the Bible who were tested, starting with Jesus himself – a man who endured a trial directly from the enemy himself. What can we learn from how Jesus handled his trials, and from the shapes and patterns they took in His life?

Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter.) – John 1:42. But Simon’s name change wasn’t so simple; like ours, his story is messy, full of ups and downs and slips back to his old identity, ready to defend Jesus to the death one day and denying him the next. Scott outlines the four basic phases he went through (and we go through) as...

In Saul’s story, we see a name change become a LIFE change. This story speaks so much hope to those of us who feel we’re too far gone for God to love us or have a purpose for. If He could do it for Saul, He can do it for us.

Just like Jacob, we struggle to surrender our future and identity to God. In this message, Pastor Garrett shares how to rest, not wrestle, in who God says we are.

In our new series, we’re studying some people in Scripture who were so wholly transformed by God that that He commemorated the occasion by giving them new names. Abram (or, as he’s now more commonly known, Abraham ) was the first of these, a man of faith whose new identity as a father of nations must have seemed, at first, a cruel joke…

Most of us don’t think of ourselves as greedy people, but we all struggle with it to some degree – and perhaps more than we realize. What exactly is greed? Why is it wrong? And how in the world can we undo it?

We’ve all heard the saying “Pride comes before the fall.” Perhaps that’s why the scriptures have so much to say about pride… because God doesn’t want us to experience the pain associated with falling. This week Garrett walks us through a story Jesus told that highlights how spiritual pride can get in the way of us experiencing the fullness of life that God intends for us.

If you were in the church scene in the 90’s, you can’t have missed the WWJD bracelets everyone was wearing – What Would Jesus Do? . In our new series, we’re turning that question on its head: What would Jesus undo ? And this week, it’s that spiritual meh , the “enough Jesus to get me by” doldrums we’ve all walked through at one time or another. Jake shares one simple thing you can do to undo spiri...

What does it take to help someone find and follow Jesus? Do you have what it takes? You might not feel like it, but as a follower of Jesus – you do. Scott analyzes find and follow , and unearths the old flannel-graph story of Zacchaeus.

If you’ve been to Arbor, you’ve seen our enormous Making Disciples … Together sign. It’s not just a slogan: it’s one of the things that makes Arbor what it is. In this new series, we’re going to explore what we mean by this simple phrase, and what it practically looks like to make disciples today.

You’ve probably got some expectations about what’s going to happen when you walk into church – or play this podcast. Today, though, is a little different. We’re going to break some of those expectations and talk about the expectations we have for ourselves, for our church, and for God Himself.

The Good Book tells us that we should pitch our tents in the land of hope ( Acts 2:25-28 ), but how are we supposed to do that when it feels like God’s left us to suffer alone? Dave Swenson offers three tent pegs.

In this special Christmas Eve message, Jake closes out our series on hope with a message about … Simeon. “Who’s that?” He only gets a passing mention in the Christmas story, but if there’s one character in the drama who knew something about hope, it may well be this man, who spent most of his life waiting for God’s promised Messiah.

We’re continuing our series on Hope with Joseph’s story. The Bible doesn’t say much about Jesus’ earthly father, but what we do know paints a picture of a man who had hope when things weren’t looking so good in Bethleham.

Ever felt disqualified because of something in your past? Because of where you’re from? Think your family’s just too messed up to be worth anything? Well, today we’re looking at that long genealogy in Matthew that you’ve probably skipped over once or twice to take a look at Jesus’ family tree. And if you think your family is a train wreck, wait until you hear about His!

Sometimes the most overwhelming part of the holidays is just the people around us. What is it about those close to us at holidays that can make us feel as though we can’t take another minute? Bob Lee digs into Philippians 2 to help us understand why we so often feel that way – and what we can do about it.