GARDEN CHURCH Podcast

Pastor Darren was convicted to share about the importance of giving. We as Garden Church value generosity and living a generous life. Generosity is not just surrounding money, but being generous in all avenues of life. This is apart of being a follower of Jesus and it is important to push into this against a culture that is focused on self. Listen to hear Pastor Darren's heart and his hope for how...

We had our friend Francis Chan come and continue our Advent series. As we are rethinking this Christmas season, we wanted to refocus and rethink how we prepare for Christmas day. Instead of going with the rhythms of culture, and even the culture of the church, we want to go with the rhythms of Jesus' heart. God was and is extravagantly generous, and we want to become people where generosity flows...

We had our friend Francis Chan come and continue our Advent series. As we are rethinking this Christmas season, we wanted to refocus and rethink how we prepare for Christmas day. Instead of going with the rhythms of culture, and even the culture of the church, we want to go with the rhythms of Jesus' heart. God was and is extravagantly generous, and we want to become people where generosity flows...

During this Advent season, we are trying to intentionally slow down and refocus our lives on Jesus. This week Pastor Darren talks about this weeks focus, being present, and how we can operate in a counter-cultural way this season.

Pastor Darren closed out our series, the Empowering Presence, by talking about how the Holy Spirit influences worship. We all worship in different ways and most times our worship is not directed towards God. We are meant to worship, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, we are able to become people that worship regularly and powerfully. Listen to learn how we can become a church that is marked by...

We are a church that wants to be marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Our sermon series, the Empowering Presence, has focused on all different parts on the theology of the Holy Spirit. This week, Pastor Bill wanted to talk about the less controversial topic, yet still confusing prophecy. Bill takes some intentional time to unpack and address how we view prophecy, and how we want to be vessel...

Our series, the Empowering Presence, has kept its focus on the Holy Spirit and the misconceptions around the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit have also had some confusion around them, especially the gift of tongues. We had our friend John Mark Comer come and attempt to unpack the mystery around speaking in tongues, and why it is important to have a clear understanding of it.

The Holy Spirit is the primary vehicle where God's power is seen throughout the world. His Spirit empowers us to be with Jesus, to become like Jesus, and to do what Jesus did. Healing was seen all throughout Jesus' ministry through the Spirit, and that ministry continues in the book of Acts. It is Jesus' disciples that carry out his mission and continue doing the things that Jesus did, including h...

Our current series, the Empowering Presence, is focused on the Holy Spirit. One of our primary goals was to clear up misconceptions about the Holy Spirit. It seems like most Christian traditions bring some unclear pictures and ideas about the Holy Spirit. We would like to invite you to listen to Pastor Darren, as he takes an intentional approach to revert some lies that we might believe about the...

"Here as in Heaven." For more information visit : garden.church

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Yet, we all tend to have narratives that we believe and perceive about ourselves and others that say otherwise. These narratives model what Paul writes in Romans about the polarizing life that we live as Christians. We have to live either by the Spirit or by the flesh. We have to choose life or death. The only way to live this free life i...

The Holy Spirit doesn't come to just be a marker of salvation. He comes in order to reorient our identities to the truth that we are in Christ. Through the Spirit, our whole lives are reconstructed, started with our identities. It is out of our identities that we live out of. When we live out of our proper identities in Christ, we then truly live out of the abundant inheritance that the kingdom of...

Francis Chan referred to the Holy Spirit as the "forgotten God." As we continue through our series, the Empowering Presence, we wanted to do a survey of the Holy Spirit in order to introduce ourselves to the fullness of this person of God. Pastor Bill took us through the Old and New Testament to get an overarching idea of what role the Holy Spirit plays. This summary allows us to take our first st...

Who is the Holy Spirit? What does he do? Why do we need him? There is a lot of mystery around God, but even more so when it comes to the Holy Spirit. We started a new series that is all about the Holy Spirit. Listen as Pastor Darren lays out the vision of what it would look like for us to be a churched fully filled, driven, and influenced by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus shows us how to love. As we wrap up our series on Emotional Healthy Spirituality, Pastor Bill urges us to lean into Jesus model in love. Christians are called to look like little Christ's and part of that is shaping the way that we interact with ourselves and each other. Jesus shows us the risk and the weight of truly loving one another. Jesus' words were, "by this everyone will know that yo...

Gief and loss are normal in a broken world. We cannot expect to travel through our lives without experiencing hurt. Jesus acknowledges that, and even teaches us how to handle the emotions when dealing with grief and loss. Listen as Bill Dogterom helps us address our emotions, and how to give them to Jesus in order to live fully transformed lives.

"Here as in Heaven." For more information visit : garden.church

There is a heaviness in the air at Garden Church, and it has been felt in our relationships, workplaces, and our homes. Pastor Darren took a break from our Emotionally Healthy Church series to address the spiritual warfare that our church has been feeling. There is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to the spiritual battles that we are constantly facing, and we are thankful for our Pastor equippin...

What happens when we believe that we can transform lives, renew cities, preach the gospel, bring forth the kingdom, reign in heaven on earth on our own? Disaster. When left to our own devices humanity can and will run itself into the ground. It is because on our own we aren't enough. You are not enough, but Jesus is. How can we learn to root our identities in Christ, so that we may bring life? Lis...

"Here as in Heaven." For more information visit : garden.church

No one is perfect. While most people believe that, we still put on a perfect version of ourselves out into the world so that people can't see our flaws. However, just because we avoid our brokenness doesn't mean it stops existing. It is our brokenness that will corrupt us from the inside out unless it's brought to light so that it may be exposed. Pastor Bill continues our Emotionally Healthy Spiri...

Pastor Bill continues our series "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality" by talking about "generational sins." It doesn't matter if we come from a healthy or a dysfunctional family, but we adopt sins from our families. Jesus gives a model on how to be emotionally healthy apart from our family of origin, but it doesn't come from ignoring our upbringing, but allowing God to redeem it.

We are not just a body, nor are we just a spirit. We are souls, a product of both spirit and body. Each soul is made of five parts: spiritual, social, intellectual, physical, and emotional. This is a core understanding as Pastor Bill begins our newest series, Practicing the Way of Jesus: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, which focuses on the emotional aspect of being truly human. As he pulls from...

How does it look like for disciples of Jesus to live in the 21st century? We can easily burn out trying to keep up with the Joneses and lose our identities as children of God in the midst of it. Guest Speaker, Dave Lomas, teaches us how we can match our hearts and minds to Jesus by just leaning back. This is a key journey for us to take so that we can take the essential steps to be with Jesus, to...

t is getting more and more difficult to be a follower of Jesus in our current culture. The system that we are currently living in is designed for disciples to fail. If left unchecked, we can easily get overwhelmed and discouraged to even continue down the path to holiness, spiritual maturity, and purity. Listen as Pastor Darren gives us a call to respond to this time by praying and fasting.