Covenant Life Church

When we say that a follower of Jesus has to live a life of surrender, it may be difficult to think of a person we admire who was also completely surrendered. Often, we look up to the rebels, the mavericks and the ones who bucked the system to lead people to a better place. We build statues to the courageous and bold — not those who were fully surrendered. A few weeks ago, we started the Surrender...

We started a new series a couple of weeks ago called the Surrender Series. These messages bring together different things that the Lord has been sharing with Pastor John about the new year, and what ties them all together is the need to surrender. We have already talked about surrender in the life of Joseph, and last week, we explored the importance of getting out of the boat. This week, we’re div...

Pastor John’s messages in the latter half of 2023 carried a tremendous weight each week. We spent much of last year digging through the ways that we’re hurting, grieving and suffering. We spent a lot of time looking in the spiritual mirror, and the Lord laid out some tools and processes we can use to find the healing that we need. If last year was about getting honest with ourselves about our need...

This week, we’re starting a new series called “Surrender,” and for the first message in this new series, we’re going back to the Christmas account to look at Joseph’s role in the birth of Jesus. In Matthew 1, we see Joseph intuitively demonstrating an understanding about who he was supposed to be that we need to learn and apply in our walk with Jesus. This is the first message of the new year. Thi...

To capture monkeys in Africa, people set out cages equipped with bait sticks to lure them inside. The monkeys are too smart to go into the cages, so they reach through the bars to grab the sticks. However, this traps them because sticks are too large to fit through the bars, and the monkeys refuse to let go of the sticks. A similar thing is happening in countless churches around the world. The dev...

John 1:1 and John 1:14 are not typically considered Christmas scriptures, but together, they lay the foundation for the whole thing. Additionally, it also describes the main difference between Christianity and all the other religions. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, the One through Whom everything was made stepped out of heaven and came to earth. He didn’t come to reveal Himself in...

This week, we're wrapping up our Know-vember Series. Over the past four weeks, we have been trying to provide answers to questions that people within our congregation have wanted to know, and one of the big questions was about Israel. We started by discussing current events before looking ahead to the future fulfillment of prophecy. So far, we have talked about the rapture of the church, the tribu...

We are continuing our Know-vember Series, providing answers to questions that people within our congregation have wanted to know. Our first question was about how to know that you are hearing from God, which we addressed three weeks ago. For the last couple of weeks, we have been answering questions about Israel — not only what’s going on there now but also the things that are prophetically foreto...

We’re continuing our Know-vember series, which is a collection of messages designed to answer some of the questions on the minds of people within our church or that were submitted via our online form. Last week, we talked about the current situation in Israel, and now, we’re exploring the future of Israel and the wider world in which we live. This is an important topic for us to discuss because co...

We’re continuing the Know-vember series by exploring subjects that are on people’s minds, and this week and next week, we are going to explore the subject of Israel. Many of the questions submitted for this series were about this subject, and it’s important to explore it biblically. We are going to start by talking about the war they’re in with Hamas and maybe Hezbollah in the near future, and nex...

This week, we’re starting a new series called Know-vember, a short series of messages based on questions that were submitted by people within our church. Our first question is about hearing from God. The person who submitted it asked, “How exactly are we supposed to hear God and follow Him?” This is an important question in the life of any believer who wants to have a personal and intimated relati...

There are no degrees of dead. A person who died 10 seconds ago is just as dead as one who died 10 years ago. A person with all their skin and muscles intact is just as dead as a dismembered skeleton. Clinically speaking, if your heart isn’t beating and you aren’t breathing, you’re dead. Breath is the difference between living and dying. When Ezekiel prophesied over the valley of dead, dry bones, t...

In Genesis 2 and 3, we see that shame was the first manifestation of spiritual death. Sin brought shame to Adam and Eve, which brought separation from God, and since God is the source of life, anything that separates you from Him is death. What kills your soul will dry your bones, and just as much as church hurt, man-made lies and hateful words, shame is drying out our bones. The glass divider tha...

This week, Jordan Weathers is helping us answer the question: How’s Your Harvest? Families are taking their fall photos. Fall decorations are up. Leaves are changing and falling and clogging our gutters. Plus, we are one month into autumn and one month away from Thanksgiving, so it’s a great topic to discuss at this time of year. Beyond the connection to autumn, it’s an important question for us t...

We are continuing our Rehydrate Series, exploring the idea that many of us are suffering from what the prophet Ezekiel called “dry bones.” For a variety of reasons, the life, strength, passion and energy that we have for life and Kingdom work have been drained out of us, and we’re now lying scattered across the valley floor separated from God and each other. This week, we’re talking about the sens...

As Pastor John has prayed about our church over the past few months, one image has repeatedly come to mind: dry bones. God has a mission, vision and purpose for us, but before we can achieve it, we have to get mended, repaired and restored from whatever it was that dried out our bones. The challenge in being restored is not just to identify the source of the drying but to figure out how to get our...

In Luke 19, we read the account of a man named Zacchaeus who worked for what was essentially the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the Roman Empire. It’s safe to assume no one liked him, but aside from his profession, the Bible only tells us one other thing about him — that he was short. Bishop Tom Madden uses the account of how Zacchaeus responded to his issue to help us confront and overcome our...

This week, we are continuing our “On Mission” series, which is focused on getting everyone who is called by God involved in the mission that Jesus gave us: to go and make disciples. We should be focused on that mission 168 hours a week, not just for the one hour a week we’re in church together. Last week, we talked about getting prepared to carry out the mission of discipleship that we’re on. We u...

The success of any military operation depends on the preparation of the soldiers involved. No matter how good the team is, there has to be a time of specialized preparation before they undertake any mission, and that preparation should take into consideration both the demands of the mission and the needs of the soldiers. A couple of weeks ago, we started a series called On Mission, which is based...

Last week, we began a series called On Mission. It’s an important series because it gets right at the heart of what Jesus called us to do. We talked about the Great Commission and the call to go and make disciples, but it begs the question: if the mission is the work, what are we working for? What is the church supposed to look like? In Ephesians 4, Paul paints a picture of the body of Christ as i...

At the end of Matthew 28, Jesus delivers the Great Commission, the marching orders for those who would follow Him. This is the mission of Covenant Life and every other Bible-believing, Jesus-following church. It’s what we are supposed to be doing as Christians: going and making disciples. This week, we’re kicking off a new series called On Mission, which could prove to be a pivotal series in our l...

When someone mentions fall, it’s easy to think about bonfires, and for most people, it doesn’t matter what gets burned — whether it’s pine, grass trimmings or old furniture — to make one. If it will burn, it belongs on the burn pile. Unfortunately, that may also be our concept of what God thinks when He looks at us. When you compare His holiness with our sinfulness, it is easy to think that he jus...

The pace at which we live makes it hard to notice what’s going on until we crash into a wall or break something. The cost of not addressing how we’re doing on the inside can include broken relationships, broken jobs, broken ministries and broken churches. As long as we’re still moving, we assume that we must be okay, but nothing could be further from the truth. On most Sunday mornings, Pastor John...

Just as the book of Ecclesiastes says, the theme for this week is that there is a time and season for everything. The best and worst part about life is that seasons change. It’s unfortunate that we can’t live on the mountaintop our entire life, but thankfully, the opposite is also true. If you have been in a season of fire walking, you can be encouraged by the fact that change is coming, and the f...

Throughout the Fire Walking Series, we have been exploring key principles from the fiery furnace experience of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego — and learning how to apply those principles in our own lives. It doesn't matter how spiritual, good-looking, wealthy, powerful, gifted or connected we are; everyone walks through seasons of fire. This week, we're exploring the Fire Freedom Principle. Nobody...