Cultivate NJ

God is not silent forever and his silence is NEVER a measure of his faithfulness or love. Even when we can’t hear Him, God hears us. Sees us. Knows us. Christmas itself begins in the silence. Hope begins in the silence. Be still today knowing that those who silently suffer never suffer alone. The Lord has come.

We are sent ones, invited by Jesus into Kingdom mission under his lordship. It's a mission that is punctuated with the posture of weakness, dependency & mutuality.

Though we have been trained to constantly question our belonging and work to secure it, which only serves to leave us anxious, fearful and full of shame… In our baptism, God frees us from the oppression of needing to define our own identity by giving us a new identity as beloved children of God who belong to one another as one new family in Christ.

In Christ, God is always present and at work in our REAL LIVES, drawing us into the very life of the Father. Being a disciple is not about being smarter or sinning less but about becoming ONE with God.

(Recorded in Brunch Church - Some background noise) IN JESUS, God has given us everything we need to live in moment-by-moment communion with him. The teachings of Jesus aren't bummers or burdens, they're words of liberty and life. As we put them into practice they open the way for us to receive the life we most deeply long for: To participate in the very life of God.

This is how God’s love works among us - it recognizes, redistributes, and redefines power in relationships and communities, upending the unjust and divisive reign of ungodly power & reconfiguring everyone & everything inside the power of God’s love.

God cares about all of it, even more than we do. You need not go another minute living under the pressure that it's all up to you, and you need not care less just to make it through. God is ready to work in unexpected ways as you learn to consent to his care today.

Jesus actually meets us in reality. God is so real he most fully meets us right where we really are. Not in OUGHT’s or COULDA, WOULDA SHOULDA’s, or MAYBE SOME DAY’s. But in the RIGHT-HERE RIGHT-NOW because that-is-all-we-have reality.

God is just like Jesus, yesterday, today, & forever… in the cross Jesus shows us the fullness of who God has always been and always will be. Not a despot who uses his status to his own advantage, but a Father who pours himself out for us. Not a tyrant who comes to dominate us, but a servant who humbles himself & dies for his enemies. Jesus is the true & final picture of who God is &amp...

Though we are often blind to it, God our Father is always present with us and working for our good in every circumstance of our life.

The gift, the grounding, the goal of life is LOVE. It’s union WITH Christ in God. This love is full of grace & truth. It’s the SOLUTION to our greatest problem and is known by being filled with all the fullness of God.

God is love. Full Stop. Love originates in God himself, is shown perfectly through his Son, but is made COMPLETE in his people. In you, in me, in us. We are empowered & invited to participate in this love, receiving & giving, which brings God's love to perfect completeness… And drives out every trace of fear.

The bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the dawn of New Creation. What has happened to Him will happen to us. Therefore your body isn't a prison from which your soul needs to be set free. You are an embodied soul. And New Creation is full of spiritual bodies, moved and animated by God's Spirit. And that Spirit is available to you today to train you for the life you’ll always have in eter...

Christ is Risen! The old order has passed away and the new is come. So come out, come out wherever you are. The Risen Jesus is ready to meet you where you are because Resurrection Life IS at work among us. Every road and every table is an opportunity for God to rewrite your story and give you eyes to see.

We take time to recap and reflect on all that we've learned in our origin story from Genesis 1-11.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. His kingdom does not run on fear and scarcity, but on love, generosity, inclusion. Diversity is a gift that displays the beauty of God and the protects the value of all people.

God doesn’t just withhold punishment we deserve. God offers the healing that we desperately need! When our minds and hearts only know how to grasp for what we need through evil methods that destroy and bring chaos, God himself becomes what He wants us to be: Self-emptying for the sake of empowering love.

The Creator is the Deliverer. We are not left to navigate the turmoil of life along. God is mindful of our troubles. He is not planning our downfall but actively working for our deliverance through his faithful son, Jesus Christ.

Our God is not a God of violence. God is love. Full stop. One manifestation of that love is that He is a God holds a mirror up to show us OUR violence & what it does to us, each other, and the whole world. He GRIEVES and REGRETS all that we’ve become. Jesus, the perfect mirror of God, longs to gather you into his presence to heal you.

God has eyes to see ALL the ways that power is used against the oppressed. He hears their cries. He fights to liberate everyone held captive by those who seek to oppress thru superstitions and ideologies. And He gives his people creative ways of resisting, subverting & even scandalizing the foolish, unjust wisdom of their day, dismantling strongholds with the wisdom of God.

Even in our worst moments, when the consequences of our sin seem too much to bear, God comes to us to help us make sense of our reality. He invites us to reckon with our wrongdoing. He enables us to see how our mistrust motivates us to harm others. And he puts an end to our cycles of violence by repaying violence with mercy.

God has not abandoned us, but rather, He comes to us in whatever condition we find ourselves. He covers our shame. He limits the damage of our bad choices and sin. And He gives us access to the New Tree of Life, the Cross of his son, Jesus Christ.

Our sin does not provoke God’s anger. Our sin evokes God’s COMPASSION & MERCY. He moves TOWARDS us to rescue us, heal us and restore us to communion with himself and each other, creating humanity anew in Christ. God has ALWAYS been responding to our sin this way… And He will continue to do so until he has reconciled all things to himself in Christ.

It is not good for us to be alone because we were made for co-creation and communion. In Christ, the church is now one body who lives and works together, male and female, married and single. One body in Christ.

God made us to be "a little lower than the angels." We are icons of eternity. Made for majesty. Our lives and our work is good and sacred. And Jesus has come to reclaim and redeem the image of God in us.