Elm City Church Podcast

This past weekend we continued in our new series, JONAH: Not Everything Is As It Seems. In Chapter 2, we see that Jonah is running away from a lot of things, but God has a plan.

We kicked off a new series called Jonah: Not Everything is as it Seems. Over the next five weeks we'll be journeying through this ancient book, looking at some surprising truths about God's mercy and grace. This deep dive into the Jonah story will mess with everything you thought you knew about Jonah if you heard this story as a kid.

In this episode, Albie shares about The Compassion of the Lord.

In this message, Albie shares about the power of Christ to keep all those who have been given to him by the Father from John 6.

In this episode, Tory Abrahamsen highlights the humanity of Jesus and how he is able to identify with us on every level, speaking to the type of God he is.

In this episode, we welcomed guest and friend Steve Aldrich to speak at Elm City. Steve shared from Micah 6:6-8, answering the important question, "What Does God Want?"  We encourage you to listen and reflect on this timely word to our church!

This week we continued in our new series, Gentle & Lowly, by looking at Jesus' heart of compassion out of Matthew 14:14. The main idea is that what Jesus claims with his word, he he proves by his actions. 

This past weekend we kicked off a brand new message series called Gentle + Lowly. To get started we looked at Matthew 11:28-30. In all of the Gospels, this is the only place where Jesus speaks of what His heart is like. This is the one place where Jesus, in his own words, says something about who He is. And Jesus says that he is “...gentle and lowly in heart...”

In this message, we look at the significance of the idea that in our mission as disciples, and as a church, Jesus is WITH us. We explored the question, "What does it mean to have a relationship WITH God and what should that relationship look like?"

This past weekend we were reminded that as Christians, actions flows from identity. Over and over, the Scriptures call people to action, but there is an appeal to identity before there is a call to action. As a church, our mission is to make disciples, to share our faith, and to go out into all the world. This directly linked to our identity. And because action flows from identity, from time to ti...

This past weekend we went back to our roots as a church to talk about God’s mission to reach people who are unreached. We looked at the hard facts and talked about ways in which we might present the Gospel with people in our sphere of influence. 

This past weekend we heard from guest speakers, Josh & Che Gardner, about the mission of God for our city and surrounding region. They challenged us to consider that if there are 70K people in Cheshire County and 3% (generous number!) are followers of Jesus, that still leaves 67,900 people who are "far" from Christ. Josh and Che encouraged and equipped us with tools for how to share...

We concluded our series through the book of Second Peter by looking at the encouragement to continue to grow spiritually. It’s really easy to get stuck or feel like we're not making progress. The reality is that we’re always being formed whether intentionally or unintentionally into someone. Peter’s prayer is that we would continue to grow in likeness of Christ.

This past Sunday we continued in chapter 3 of 2 Peter by looking at the timing of God. Specifically, we looked at the reality that God’s timing is not like ours and He operates in different ways than we do. This section was Peter’s response to the early church who were eagerly waiting for “The Day of the Lord,” a time when Jesus would return to put all things right, restore brokenness, and bring j...

This past Sunday we started chapter 3 of 2 Peter. In this section, Peter continues his call to believers to be on guard against the message of false teachers, specifically “scoffers.” He appeals to them in “remembering the basics” of the Christian faith so that they can live lives of holiness and actually follow the way of Jesus. 

This past weekend, Jeff Ebert spoke on the post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus to the two men on the Road to Emmaus. He highlighted the fact that these men were in a state of hopelessness and despair until they experienced the risen Jesus. Jeff encouraged us to not let our circumstances dictate our ultimate hope, and to respond to Jesus wherever we find ourselves on the journey.

On this special day,  we looked at the story of Mary Magdalene and how she was given an upgraded understanding of Jesus on that first Easter morning. She went to the tomb looking for the crucified Jesus and walked away encountering the Risen Lord. After Mary encountered Jesus, two important things happened... First, she immediately was compelled to worship Him, and second, she was commissioned to...

In this episode we picked back up in 2 Peter to continue exploring a biblical view of human sexuality and ethics. The big idea is that Christianity gives us a compelling and healthy sex ethic that leads to freedom, not oppression. The modern sex ethic claims to be safe, healthy, liberating and empowering, but underneath, it carries a destructive lie. As followers of Jesus, we must look to him in o...

In this episode we look at what the Bible has to say about singleness from Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church. In our passage, Paul is answering some real questions that people in the Corinthian church had about sex, marriage, divorce, and singleness. After all, the church was made up of followers of Jesus, and Jesus was single , so they wanted to know what it meant to practice the way of Jesu...

Over the past few months, we have been going through the letter of Second Peter. This was a letter written by the Apostle Peter to a group of churches in what is now modern-day Turkey. The motivating impulse for this letter came from a group of false teachers who had infiltrated those churches and were becoming popular and leading a lot of people away from the faith.  One of the main areas of teac...

On Sunday, Albie talked about the inspiring life of St. Patrick. He highlighted several things including the fact that Patrick was raised in a Christian home, was captured by pirates, sold into slavery, escaped, and eventually returned as a missionary to the Irish people. He unpacked some of the ways in which Patrick is a model for followers of Jesus when it comes to sharing our faith.

We started the second chapter of 2 Peter with a focus on false teachers. The big danger Peter was exposing about these false teachers was their denial of the Second Coming of Jesus. Now, this might not sound like a big deal, but it’s actually a core part of the Gospel message; So much so, that every single book of the New Testament looks ahead to this truth... that one day Jesus will come back, on...

The Second Coming of Jesus is not a fringe belief but one that every book of the New Testament points to. The New Testament also tells us we are living in the “last days” while we await “The Day.” This reality is a call to repentance and faithfulness. Peter asks us a pressing question in light of this: “What sort of people out we to be in lives of holiness and godliness?” Because every book of the...

Over and over the writers of Scripture place the events they are writing about within history. This is a direct contrast to how many of the myths Christianity supposedly borrowed from to create the Jesus story.  If Christianity isn’t historical or “spiritually” true, then it is not much help for us in facing the reality of living in a broken world. But, because Jesus really was God in the flesh, b...

When it comes to the theme of worship, Psalm 95 is the classic go-to text in Scripture. Throughout the centuries, Christians have looked to Psalm 95 to inform their worship. This text shares with us almost everything we need to know about it... It answers the question, “What is worship?” “Why should we worship?” and “How can we worship?”