Damascus Road Community Church

Welcome to week 4 in our Immerse series. I cannot wait to be together this weekend as we will look together at how we as Christians can have joy by living life as a living sacrifice, lived out in surprising ways! We will find all of this in the letters of the Apostle Paul, especially Romans (particularly Romans 12), written to the early church. Letters that were written to the first ever Christian...

You are invited to the feast! The king carefully prepared his guest list, making certain that all the right people were invited. No expense was spared; this was going to be a wedding celebration that would be talked about for a long, long time. The responses began to trickle in… “Sorry, can't make it, we have tickets to the game that day”… “Wish we could, but my daughter has a cheerleading competi...

We continue our journey immersed in the New Testament this weekend with a very special guest. I have invited a longtime and dear friend, Dr Joseph Modica to come and minister to us. He is a New Testament scholar, author, and has served as professor at Eastern University for decades. I will be interviewing him and we will glean insights from him about the New Testament and how we are to live with J...

This weekend, we will dive into the New Testament story and read it together in a fresh way. As you have likely heard by now, we will go through a new Bible experience called Immerse (Messiah). The Immerse Bible is designed to help communities experience the Bible together in a unique and powerful way. We will read it each week, listen to the sermons, and gather in book club style discussion time...

Headlines have named the past 2+ years many things, including The Great Resignation, The Great Reshuffle and the Great Reset. We were all forced to scale back, reassess and re-prioritize in response to a rapidly changing context. Naturally, this has also applied to our life together as a community. While our mission remains unchanged, our methods must adapt to an ever-changing world.   Don’t miss...

Our mission is to proclaim Christ and present everyone mature in Him (Colossians 2:28-29). Damascus Road is not just a church with a location. We are an unstoppable movement of God’s people on mission, part of Jesus’ plan to bring transformation and healing to our communities. Healing in us. Healing through us. Healed people heal people. Our leaders have spent many months praying and discussing on...

Uncertainty. Unprecedented. Unpredictable. All of these words have been (over)used to describe this current season of our lives. We struggle to find meaning in the ordinary, peace in the busyness, and the fullness of life when life itself seems to have been upended. While we can all learn from the past, Scripture insists our destiny in Christ is to display God’s workmanship in us. It happens when...

Join us for a special weekend led by some of our elders, trustees, staff, and other leaders for a weekend of worship, scripture readings, and prayer. The Bible tells us God’s house shall be called a house of prayer (Isaiah 56:7), we are to pray continually (1 Thess 5:17), where two or three are gathered, there Jesus is (Matt 18:20), if we ask anything according to God’s will, He hears us (1 John 5...

Over the last several months, our elders have been reading through NT Wright’s book, The Day the Revolution Began. Last week, we discussed chapter 12 where we dug into how God wants us to be fully functioning, God-reflecting human beings, and that Jesus came to bring us back into and be part of the new creation not just as beneficiaries, but as active participants. One way we do this is through ou...

A 18 year old girl named Valery from Tegucigalpa Honduras joined our mission Honduras team this summer. After 4 days with our team she said to me “A few years ago I read a book that talked about a time when some teenagers were Christians. But I thought they were extinct! The love and grace I have experienced has shown me that teenage Christians still exist! And that Jesus is not extinct!” This is...

We wrap up our series on Summer at the Movies this week. Join our church community in one of our Sunday worship services where we will look at the movie and discover the greater truth of God’s Kingdom coming in our midst. We’ve been looking at how movies give us a way to discerningly use terms and stories of our age to talk about God and the greater truth of His Story. The movie echoes the spiritu...

Fred Rogers was for decades an American cultural icon, with his children's television show, "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood". An ordained minister, his Christian faith was the driving force of his life and "way of being." He viewed his television show as a ministry and both in his talks to children as well as his many relationships with a wide variety of people, always strived to treat everyone of every...

We are looking at how movies give us a way to discerningly use terms and stories of our age to talk about God and the greater truth of His Story. The apostle Paul did something similar in Acts 17 when he used terms and a story line that were familiar to the people in Athens so that he could help them understand the bigger God story and the good news of Jesus.

Join us for week one of Summer at the Movies. We will look at how popular stories in our culture help us better understand God’s Big Story. We will do so with movie clips, theme, and inspiring messages. Invite someone to come with you and watch How to Train Your Dragon on our lawn this Saturday at 7:30 pm (movie is free with snacks available for purchase). And then join the community in one of our...

Imagine you are destitute, hungry, abandoned, ostracized, and cast out of the town you live in right now. Then imagine circumstances worsen! There is a famine, you are starving, a foreign power invades your city, and you enter into what looks and feels like a scene out of a dystopian movie. Things look hopeless, but then an extraordinary thing happens. You stumble across a pile of extremely valuab...

We will wrap up our series this week on the parables by looking at the short, but powerful story of The Midnight Visitor. It is also one of the most misunderstood parables of Jesus and has often been interpreted in a way that profoundly distorts our view of God. This Sunday, we will sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to this story afresh and rekindle our vision and passion for the one thing you a...

Over the last several weeks we have examined parables from the greatest storyteller this world has ever seen. Jesus used these parables to help us understand God and his kingdom better.   This week we will be examining the short, yet profound parable of The Lost Sheep - a story that so beautifully encapsulates The Good Shepherd’s pursuit after his lost sheep.   God’s willingness to risk it all by...

What do you do when you read a passage of scripture that confuses (or worse yet, disturbs) you? Traditionally there are three options: 1. Ignore the passage all together and focus on others  2. Try to qualify or contextualize the passage to soften it or make it more palatable OR 3. Dig in deep and try to figure out what it’s really saying and why    This week we will be tackling the Parable of the...

Come join us this Sunday as we celebrate Father’s Day, Kids Camp, and dive into the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). As He often did, Jesus used this parable to challenge the religious establishment of His own day. However, it’s also a challenge to all of us today, calling us to examine our own hearts and homes, and to reflect on the extravagant love of God. God is on the move at DRCC...

We have many questions. The disciples had many questions too. Jesus has answers. Often in the form of parables - stories with intent. Is your life filled with worry? Jesus tells a story which poses the question, “which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life” (Luke 12:25-31)? But he doesn’t stop there. Do current events have you stressed out? Do you wonder what’s going to happen next...

Jesus told a lot of stories - parables - to illustrate and illuminate the reality of the Kingdom of God. A new reality was breaking in and he chose not flowery or philosophical descriptions of this new reality, but stories - kings, servants, fathers, children, widows, rich, poor - characters from all walks of life. And these characters bring to life the character of this new kingdom. This week sta...

Dear Family and Friends, In talking to other pastor friends, it struck us just how many conflicts we have all had to sift through in these last three years. To be sure, disagreements and conflicts are a staple of any relationship or community, but the pace, frequency, and sheer number of things people debated over (and divided over) accelerated in this season. We often think of the early church as...

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” ~1 Peter 4:10 God gave you your gifts and talents for a reason and He delights in seeing you use them. In most sports, there is that feeling you get… like when you “barrel up” and hit a baseball on the sweet spot of your bat, and the ball soars over the fence, and you...

We are launching a three-week series this Sunday, looking at some revolutionary ideas Jesus unleashed that were game changers. This weekend, I will look at one of the most remarkable passages in the book of Acts. It documents how the church was formed, how it functioned, and what it was known for in its earliest days. This passage is crucial if we are to catch the vision for us as a church and as...

Every woman, whether a biological mother or not, has influence in the lives of those around her. God has uniquely created each of us to be nurturers, caregivers, and mentors. The message will focus on the real-life version of motherhood that includes joy and fulfillment as well as struggles and trials. We all know this journey isn’t a fairy tale, but Jesus provides comfort, rest, hope and encourag...