Fully Alive in Christ

"Joy to the world, the Lord has come!" When Christmas time rolls around, this familiar refrain is heard with regularity. It's a classic line from Isaac Watts hymn, which was first published in 1719! As soon as we read the lyric "joy to the world...", it's difficult not to hum the rest of the song in our heads and hearts. You're probably doing it right now! While we know the lyrics, and they have b...

As we gather this coming Sunday, we are in our second week of Advent and celebrating that Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Who He is and what His presence brings is Peace! This Sunday we are going to talk about the Prince of Peace and the truth that God is with us, even in the midst of what seems crazy, busy, and at times completely chaotic.

Thousands of years have passed since that first sin in the Garden of Eden, and with it the first of HUNDREDS of prophecies in the Old Testament was given promising the coming of the Messiah. As time has passed the history of God’s people, and the world surrounding them, time and time again have demonstrated the reach, the potency, and the devastating impact sin had on humanity. Over time, each pro...

"Our world is filled with grief, uncertainty, and confusion. It can feel like we are being blown about the storms; like the light has gone out and the sun will never rise again. It can feel like we are chasing the sun, but it’s always just out of reach…someone told me, we have to stop chasing the light, turn around and walk through the night, and catch the sun on its way back up – that’s what lame...

We have invited Angie Richey, President of Life Pacific University in San Dimas, California, to speak this year at our women's conference but will also be speaking to us this Sunday. Angie currently serves as a member of the Foursquare Board of Directors and serves on the NextGen Sub-Committee of the National Church Committee. Angie with her husband founded the Gathering, a simple church network o...

This week, we are honored to have Bo Stern-Brady. Bo is a friend of ours in ministry from way back. We have been loved and encouraged by her over the years, and we can’t wait for you to meet her! Bo is a pastor, speaker, and author (newlywed, mom, and grandma!) She has written three excellent books, “Ruthless,” “When Holidays Hurt,” and “Beautiful Battlefields.” “Beautiful Battlefields” is a great...

Lament is exercising our ability to feel sadness and grieve by giving time, space, voice and expression to our deep sorrow over pain, loss, and disappointment. Lamenting is admitting that there are parts of ourselves and our lives that are undone, feeling them, and inviting God into them - because when God is with us in it, being undone does not mean we are unsafe or unprotected! Everything that w...

Lament is exercising our ability to feel sadness and grieve by giving time, space, voice and expression to our deep sorrow over pain, loss, and disappointment. Lamenting is admitting that there are parts of ourselves and our lives that are undone, feeling them, and inviting God into them - because when God is with us in it, being undone does not mean we are unsafe or unprotected! We believe it's o...

In Acts 15, the early church was experiencing division from both Jews and Gentiles. Both groups were being challenged to step out of their familiar culture and change to meet together and build something new. The Jews were being asked to come out of their past “religious culture” and relinquish their demands and expectations on others to follow the Law and be circumcised. The Gentiles were being a...

Despite continued trials, despite a variety of changing settings and situations, regions and people, despite opposition in the places they were, and opposition following them from the places they’d been – the Gospel flourished and the church grew. During Paul and Barnabas missionary journey, they ministered to a multitude of people with diverse nationalities and backgrounds, cities with different...

Throughout the Book of Acts, there is a constant invitation to repent. Not the turn-or-burn coercion to believe, but a beautiful exhortation to return to the truth of who God says we are through the finished work of the Cross and reminds us what has been made right.

It is interesting how we can read a passage of scripture throughout our lives, but when reading it, it feels new and fresh and sometimes feels like something we are reading for the first time. This happened to me as I was reading Acts 12 and prepping my message for this past Sunday. Peter is the leader of the disciples, the chief spokesman for them in a very exciting but scary time of life. The go...

This week's message was from Acts 10 and 11. It was the moment the gospel, and full inclusion into the Kingdom of God was given to the Gentiles. Cornelius and his family were the first ushered in, a shift that all of us reap the benefit of. But what we often forget is that this gift of inclusion to the Gentiles was promised by God, first to Abram (Abraham) well over 2000 years ago. There was a lot...

I have been hearing stories pop up everywhere of God inviting families, couples, single friends into sudden shifts in their life- and these shifts may be physically challenging but the YES to follow Jesus into the unknown is bringing them so much joy! There is a grace to experience sudden shifts in your mentality, your daily life.

As we are walking through the book of Acts, what we see is that Jesus ascended into heaven and the promised Holy Spirit fell upon all those waiting for the gift that the Father promised them. We read this in Acts 2. The Gospel of Jesus was being shared and people were following “The Way”, which meant they were giving their lives to Jesus and being filled with God’s spirit. Thousands of people were...

Saul was an angry man. We can say that he was a terrorist - He is persecuting the church and people are afraid. Christians know about him. They know what He is doing and can you imagine how hopeless and how scared they must have felt in that moment. Their lives were in danger because of their beliefs and because of who they were following. So he is on this mission and the absolute impossible happe...

Even in the most difficult circumstances, God is at work. What we are going through may not be ideal, but we can trust that God is holding, comforting, and strengthening us.

As we continue our Community of Transformation Series from the book of Acts, there are key lessons we can learn from Stephen as we navigate our time today as a follower of Jesus. Join us for chapter 7 of Acts.

Join us as we continue our series on Communities of Transformation.

Can a church model health and God's solutions where culture is struggling with racial, ethnic/national or political division? Acts is showing us a way to reclaim our places of influence in order to show the world what healthy community, connection and especially disagreement can look like. As we walk in the Spirit and tear down our own walls that want to divide us and keep us from becoming a a tru...

The gifts are for today just as much as they were for those written about in the Bible. Gifts like, prophecy, words of knowledge, gift of wisdom, gift of healing, gift of tongues - these gifts are given to us by Holy Spirit and partnered with Him in seeing the Supernatural take place in and around our lives! As we continue in Acts 5 - we are going to talk about the apostles that said yes to believ...

Watch this short encouragement from Ryan and be empowered as you go about during our "Church Out" Sunday. When we have a “Church Out” Sunday, it isn’t a Sunday without something, it’s a Sunday with unlimited opportunity to engage God in a new and unique way! Read more about Church Out Sunday at our website.

Watch Drew kick us back into our series, “Community of Transformation.” Here, he challenges us to represent Jesus well not just in our words, but also in our affection and our actions towards people we might not agree with.

Within our STORIES lies the power we need to overcome. Some of us struggle to recognize the overcoming power in our own story, as so many of them still hold loose ends, moments of intense loss, or perhaps unanswered questions. Paul so beautifully reminds us that it is “in our weakness” that Jesus is seen and made strong – and therefore we can boast in our weakness! It is often our own stories of b...

ACTS is a call out of our individuality & independence, and dare I say sometimes “isolation” - to come together around Jesus, the one who is GREATER than anything that DIVIDES US. The quality & sustainability of our current REFORMATION in the “church” will be determined by what we REFORM around and I pray it is only Jesus.