Damascus Road Community Church

There is nothing like riding your bike into a valley and feeling the air get suddenly cooler, or smelling a patch of honeysuckles; hearing a water fall before you see it; or seeing a bear lumbering through the woods with nothing between you and him. Freedom! Life didn't start out the way anyone would've hoped or planned. The baby couldn't have been born under worse conditions… Nobody wanted him, A...

We conclude our journey of seeking, discovering, and finding our lost lines by looking at how Scripture exhorts us to live our lost lines within the context of a community (as promised, I will talk a little about the myth of the American cowboy!). The theme of a deep sense of love and community is at the heart of the ensemble Jesus put in place for the world to find and live their lost lines. In a...

Over the last three weekends, we have been journeying through this idea that a lot of people in our country and our world are living a different story from the ones they were meant to live. We have considered the claims of Christ against that of many others. And we looked at how God is broadcasting our lost lines in a nonstop global simulcast. This weekend, we will look at how do we actually go ab...

We continue this weekend in our series on discovering and living our lost lines. Our lost lines have not changed. The Line-Giver has not changed. And what is amazing about our Line-Giver is that He is so extravagantly generous. He will not withhold the lost lines from someone who has been hard-hearted and rejected Him. He will not turn away anyone who may have adopted a wrong set of lines. He keep...

Last weekend, we learned how each of us is living a story. And for many of us, the story we are living may not be the story we were meant to live. So we live fractured lives. The good news is that there is a Line-Giver. The Line-Giver had grand plans for the first humans, for us. He had these awesome lines for them, for us. But the first humans decided to abandon God’s script and adopt their own—o...

We are starting a brand new series this weekend, Lost Lines. Everyone is following a script. Each one of us in our town, in our nation, in our world, is living a story. And that story has been shaped and molded and fashioned by many things. I care very deeply about whether we are living the right story. A lot of people in our country and our world are following a different script, a different stor...

It is perhaps the most famous chapter in Scripture, rivaling Genesis 1 (Creation), Luke 2 (Christmas), and Matthew 5 (Christ’s Sermon on the Mount). At a wedding, you will or have read this chapter of the Bible sitting alongside people without faith or with a different faith. How do we explain it? How do we understand it? How are we to live by it?

Mark 1:40-45 Almost before he knew what had hit him, he had lost everything... his family, his job, all his friends. The final straw was when his church community turned their back on him and pronounced him untouchable. By law he had to stay at least 50 feet away from any other human being and to violate that law meant instant death. Can you imagine the shame and loneliness that became this man's...

Happy Fathers Day! This week we will talk about what a good father is and what a good father does. While we have all have had different experiences with our earthly fathers – some of us have been scarred and some of us have been sustained – we are all children of the same heavenly father. No matter where we’ve been and no matter what we’ve done, our heavenly father sees us from far away and comes...

“Whatever you do, whether through your words or your actions, do it ALL IN the name of the LORD Jesus Christ.” Colossians 3:17… That verse sums up the secret to joyful Christianity: ALL IN. It captures the essence of Jesus’ call: Follow Me. Truth is, if you have a seasoned guide leading you up a mountain or across a desert, and part of the time you follow, while part of the time you wander off—qui...

Okay, truth in advertising. Our current series (Straight Talk about Us) is really talking the three basic questions of philosophy—basic because they just keep being wrestled with by people all over the world, in every age. We are applying those three questions to our life together as a community: Where did I come from? [Origins: for us = What beliefs created and define this community?] Where am I...

Memorial Day weekend is a time many people scatter to the hills, but if at all possible, make one of the worship services at DRCC—especially if this is your church home. It will be a heart-to-heart from me to you. I’ll begin vision-casting about expanding our role in this community, why that matters so much and what our future plans are for impacting our region and our mission with the Gospel. Thi...

First, thanks so much to everybody who sent encouragement or shared stories in response to the message about those struggling with chronic or acute mental health issues. We are becoming more and more a community we can run to--not from--in our struggles. This weekend we're having a birthday party! We are celebrating the second most important birthday in history--the birth of Christ's church at Pen...

Have you ever found yourself in a place you don’t want to be, receiving a call you don’t want to answer or taking a risk you don’t want to take? In our lives, we often find that one of these applies to us if not all of them. This week we will take a journey through the book of Esther and see how Esther responded to make her mission impossible a mission accomplished and discover how we might do the...

Did you know that approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experience mental illness in a given year? And statistics show that 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 experience a severe mental disorder at some point during their life? Depression and anxiety are crippling lives and robbing us of the joy and peace God plans for us. But there is hope! Join us this weekend as Richard Fredericks...

God’s idea of marriage and deep love shatters our idealized western individualistic way of thinking. We often walk into marriage with high expectations that are difficult or even impossible for the other person to meet. So when challenges come, we resort to finger-pointing. But the Bible offers a definition of a meaningful marriage rooted in the idea of oneness, an idea created by Him. Join us thi...

Work is the largest time commitment in the average adult lifespan, an even bigger slice of life than sleep for at least a forty-year stretch. A recent Gallup Poll found out that 77% of full time workers said they mildly disliked to intensely hated their job. 77%! Yet the average work week is expanding towards 50 hours per week. The Bible = work: 800 times, more than worship, praise, prayer combine...

We continue our series this weekend with Parenting Sensibly, Turning Messes into Successes. We took that title from a book written by Lynda Satre. For the first part of the message, I will be interviewing her on her book, which I read with great personal benefit. It is not just for parents but for anyone who has any influence over the life of a child. Don’t miss it. And it is a great weekend to in...

Ever feel like your spiritual life is disconnected from your everyday life? The good news is that it doesn’t have to be if Jesus is Lord. We may be in different stages of life and our knowledge of God, but what matters is how we stay in unity, grow and support each other. Join us this weekend as we engage in some Straight Talk on tuning in to God’s presence in our everyday life, seeing how ordinar...

On Friday, hope seemed lost, dreams were broken, Jesus was dead, the disciples were scattered and there were doubts, fears, and confusion. But that was Friday. Then came Sunday! On Sunday, the stone was rolled away, the tomb was emptied, the angels came announcing, the prophecies were fulfilled, darkness was ended, sin lost the war, guilt lost its power, death lost its sting and Jesus rose from th...

This weekend we begin Holy Week and John 12 begins with these words: “Six days before the Passover.” Jesus is fully aware of what the week we now term “Holy Week”—holds for Him by way of hostility, betrayal, false accusations and condemnation…and death. He knows what will happen and why it must happen. And now He pulls out all the stops and begins to make clear and unavoidable His claim to be God’...

The entire life of Jesus was a prelude to the events and teachings during His final week, especially His death and resurrection. One half of all four Gospels focus on the final week of Jesus' ministry, slowing way down and absorbing us in the details - especially from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. These events are the key to understanding everything about Jesus' mission.

This weekend we begin our Journey to the Cross by focusing on one word that Jesus used so often in speaking of His death: “MUST”—as in an irrevocable requirement. “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it MUST happen in this way?” Repeatedly Jesus tells His disciple...

New Fresh Original Unique Distinctive We come to the end of our journey with Ruth and marvel at the conclusion of this beautiful story. We hunger for such an ending to our story and wonder if God can do something new and fresh with our lives. The Scriptures insist that there is this mysterious, divine, remarkable transformation that happens for anyone who is in Christ. Our job is to be like clay i...