Element Christian Church of Santa Maria

The church is the BRIDE of Christ: HE takes time for us. He speaks what He means - He is not vague and doesn’t beat around the bush. He knows our perceptions cloud the truth, which is why He LEADS us into all truth. BUT HE DOES LISTEN, any and every time we speak. And His Spirit feeds back our perceptions verses His reality. http://vimeo.com/27677304 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourelement/6040937...

The Cinema. Today's modern day pulpit... telling today's story through the digital story form. We'll watch these popular movies and follow up with an expository exploration of the narrative themes and spiritual parallels of these movies.

God loves us and has acted in history to express that love. What does that look like? It looks like Jesus. Jesus is God coming to us in love. Sheer unadulterated, unfiltered love.

God is creator and creative, and when we are spending time with Him we will grow in our creativity, our spontaneity, and our LOVE for each other. Our love for each other comes because He first loved us...so our first priority is LOVING Him.

The Cinema. Today's modern day pulpit... telling today's story through the digital story form. We'll watch these popular movies and follow up with an expository exploration of the narrative themes and spiritual parallels of these movies.

God’s primary purpose of sex is to arouse and satisfy a hunger for intimacy and union as something that should be continually repeated. Sex satisfies that desire, but it also creates a hunger for more—not only more sex, but also for a taste of the ultimate union, the final reconciliation with God. God’s plan is for us to pursue Him and know Him in and through the sexual intimacy that we have with...

We should be excited about God and his relationship with us, that He forgives sin, that welcomes us home. That excitement must transform into commitment and into a deep commitment with Christ. Just like newly weds are excited to be married, their excitement must transform into commitment or else the relationship won’t thrive, like a marriage should.

The Cinema. Today's modern day pulpit... telling today's story through the digital story form. We'll watch these popular movies and follow up with an expository exploration of the narrative themes and spiritual parallels of these movies.

She says “My beloved is mine, and I am his” - He gave himself first to me. She says “My beloved is mine”, which means he went first, and then she says “and I am his”. She gives her whole self to him because he went first; that is biblical marriage.

SOS 2:7: I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. - Don’t rush in; allow God His time to work...let dodh come when it should, after marriage when you have a lifetime to explore it in the safety and sanctity of that covenant.

The Cinema. Today's modern day pulpit... telling today's story through the digital story form. We'll watch these popular movies and follow up with an expository exploration of the narrative themes and spiritual parallels of these movies.

True friends help to reconcile their friends’ marriages, not encourage the fight that keeps them apart.

As a father, I will love my children no matter the circumstance. I will balance my toughness with my compassion. I will delight in them, creating a fun and happy home. I will be pure in heart and deed, and remain loyal to them. I will lead them as I teach, counsel, and pastor them about God and his gospel. I will actually be there, in their lives, and remain available to them emotionally and pract...

A very strong case from scripture can be made that human marriage is an earthly institution designed to teach us about our intended eternal destiny. We are made for union with God; we are made for love. We may corrupt the vehicle (marriage), even destroy its intrinsic value, and its eschatological worth, but that speaks of our sin, not of God’s intent.

In Acts 2 the people were reminded that story of Sinai was still alive – God’s Spirit continues to move and we are to live on HIS MISSION.

As a believer you have the all embracing inner life of God • There is no reason to fear, do not be troubled, do not be afraid • You are to walk in Truth (John 17 Jesus says God’s word is truth) • Spirit gives us strength to walk in God’s decrees

The scriptures call us to honor our parents and take care of those in our community (including widows, single mothers, and families dealing with illness). On the cross, Jesus looks down and takes care of His earthly mother’s immediate and future needs. He honors and respects Mary because she has been a such blessing in His life.

Christians confidently affirm the existence of one God, who exists eternally in three persons. The Father and the Son are the most familiar to most Christians. But the Bible’s teaching about the Holy Spirit is deeper than most people comprehend. While the focus of our faith is rightly on Jesus, our Savior, it is freeing to understand the wonderful works of the Spirit, who brings us all the benefit...

WHY DO WE GATHER? Because in lifting up Christ together it is good on regular basis to be reminded about how, in Christ, we enter in and God steps over the threshold, into the common place of the human heart.

You may suffer...but our God IS GOOD. He remembers, He pays attention, and He sees. He is the God of covenant faithfulness, steadfast love...and because of Him we will live forever.

When you lose something and profound change takes place, we must SPEAK OF IT. LOSS is change and Change is LOSS…even if the change is good and necessary.

Lamentations is a book that is like funeral sorrow let loose on the world. It is pain and grief and sorrow for 5 chapters. It is questioning God and hoping someone stops to hear and help. Lamentations in Hebrew is EKAH (HOW).

The most amazing thing about the cacophony of voices in laminations is that it is something God Himself experienced. The messiness of what life really is. And yet in the darkest place…“there is yet hope.” That is the beauty of the gospel…it calls to us in the most brutal and raw of situations and says “God can bring redemption.”

Three things about healing: 1) There is a relationship between the healing we need and the willingness to step boldly into the presence of God as recipients of that healing 2) There is a relationship between the healing we long for and the community we belong to. 3) There is a relationship between the healing that we long for and our honesty before God.

Lamentation is a gift God gives people for healing. 2/3’s of the book of Psalms are psalms of lament. God made his people with the ability to speak. The key to easing suffering is not offering warped views of God, it is giving them a place to mourn and ultimately pointing them to Jesus.