Garden City Church

How can we hold onto hope amidst darkness? When the angel appears to Joseph and tells him that the child Mary is carrying, who he is supposed to name Jesus, has been conceived by the Holy Spirit and will forgive people their sins, the world is already being turned upside down. The long-promised Messiah is coming for his people, and in his arrival all the prophetic visions of the Kingdom of God sta...

This week, Dennis Allan concluded our 12-week series on The Sermon on the Mount, focusing on on two verses that describe the crowd's reaction to Jesus' teaching. Matthew reports the crowds were "amazed" because of the "authority" of Jesus' teaching. But, who is Jesus that He can teach such a radical, counter-cultural, and demanding sermon with the expectation that His followers will listen and do...

We all long for lives that can withstand the inevitable storms. We want our relationships to hold under pressure, our faith to stand strong when tested, and convictions to remain when circumstances shift beneath us. But what if the difference between a life that stands and one that collapses has nothing to do with how impressive we appear on the outside, and everything to do with whether we've don...

This week, Carrie Buckner explores Jesus' teaching about the narrow path of discipleship and the danger of false teachers (Matthew 7:13-23 NIV). Drawing on the challenging imagery of wolves in sheep's clothing and trees bearing good or bad fruit, he examines what it means to pursue whole-person righteousness—not just external behavior, but internal transformation of heart and mind. The narrow path...

This week, Pastor Shaq Hager walks through Matthew 6:19-24, a portion of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus warns His disciples not to store up treasures for themselves. Because, where our treasure is, our hearts follow. Jesus challenges us to examine what we truly value—what we love, pursue, and depend upon. He warns that the pursuit of wealth can distort our vision and divide our loyalties. Kin...

This week, Julia Allan walks through Matthew 6:25–34, where Jesus commands His disciples, “Do not worry.” These words aren't a shallow call to ignore anxiety or poverty, but an invitation to freedom from the illusion that our worth or security depends on what we produce, earn, or control. The roots of our anxiety can be traced back to Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve first doubted God’s suffi...

This week, Dr. Rafael Rodriguez, Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, talked about the way Jesus's instructions to Ask, Seek, and Knock through prayer can feel really challenging. We can ask, we can seek, and we can knock, yet it oftentimes feels like God isn't hearing or just isn't responding. So, what do we do while we ask and wait? Well, Jesus says that we should go an...

Jesus' command to love your enemies has fallen into disfavor. Christians who align with progressive political ideals and Christians who identify with conservative political goals have come, in many cases, to hate their political opponents and consider that hatred righteous. After all, if we view our political opponents as responsible for the denigration and degradation of people's dignity, harming...

This week, Pastor Dennis Allan focuses on what it means for Jesus' people to be t non-violent people who tell the truth. In Matthew 5:33-37 Jesus outlines why His people shouldn't make "oaths," but instead simply allow their "yes" to mean "yes" and their "no" to mean "no." Citizens of the Kingdom should be truth-tellers, people who can be counted on in their families, workplaces, relationship...

This week, Carrie Buckner explores Jesus' words on murder and lust in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21-30 NIV). While it can seem like Jesus might be talking about two separate moral issues, He's actually describing one: the way we view, think about, and value other people. It's a low bar for Jesus' people to not kill other people or to commit adultery. Because, Jesus isn't only interested in...

What did Jesus mean when He said, "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven"? (Matthew 5:20 NIV). Does this really mean we have to keep all the laws the Pharisees implemented in order to ensure Jewish righteousness before God? Or, that we're supposed to become legalists? This week,...

This week, Pastor Shaq Hager continues our series on the Sermon on the Mount by focusing on the way in which Jesus informs His disciples that they're salt and light in the world. The implication for the disciples is clear. Their lives are to be distinct from the prevailing culture. They're not to take on the ethics or values of the Roman Empire, but the Kingdom of God. Their lives are to be marker...

This week, we started a new twelve week series on the Sermon on the Mount. Dennis Allan talked through Matthew 4:23-5:12 (NIV), describing the way Jesus' sermon is an announcement of the Gospel, the good news that a new King is being enthroned and a new Kingdom is being inaugurated. Jesus' teaching isn't a set of lofty ideals to aspire to, but a specific guide to how He expects His people to live...

This week, Pastor Shaq Hager concludes the Spiritual Formation series by talking through the intersection of our formation into Christlikeness and suffering. We can approach our formation thinking it's always up and to the right, that we're always moving from weakness to strength and from failure to victory. Yet, it's in those places where we experience suffering that our theology oftentimes fails...

This week, Dennis Allan talked through Jesus as the prototype for what it means to live a Christian life in the world today. We can look to Jesus and see the way He lived, the people He built relationships with, the power structures that He challenged, and the ways that He taught and see a pattern for what our lives are supposed to look like today. One of the most powerful ways we can model Jesus'...

This week, Dennis Allan talked through how we must learn Jesus' teachings if we are to become like Him and take on His character and ways. The journey of spiritual formation requires us to be reshaped and reformed until we resemble Jesus in every aspect of our lives—our thoughts, desires, choices, actions, and affections. If we're to be people whose lives point to the Kingdom while we live inside...

This week, Pastor Shaq Hager talks through how spiritual formation begins with attachment. We do not become like Jesus through willpower, performance, or isolation—we are formed through relational nearness: to Jesus, and to the people He places around us. Belonging is not about achieving acceptance but receiving it, and letting that belonging rewire our sense of identity. Christian formation happe...

This week, Dennis Allan starts our new series on Spiritual Formation by discussing the ways each and every one of us is being shaped and formed every day. We tend not to notice, or maybe even convince ourselves that we can listen to whatever we want, read whatever we want, follow whomever we want, and not have it impact us in any way. But, the truth is everything we give our attention to changes w...

In the final week of our series, Faithful Exiles, Dennis Allan walks through Jesus' words to His closest followers to go and make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching every person who places their faith, hope, and trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Jesus is able to send His followers (and us) onto this mission because all authority in heaven and earth belongs to Him, alone. It'...

This week, Julia Allan walks through Daniel 12 focusing on the promised inheritance Daniel, and each of us will receive, through our faithful perseverance. In the midst of darkness, struggle, suffering, and injustice we can look ahead to the promise we each have in Jesus—one day we will enter into an eternal rest, where we will rise and receive our place as co-rulers alongside Jesus. This hope is...

This week, Carrie Bucker walks through Daniel 9, where we see a picture of what faithful repentance can look like for exiles living in a broken world. Daniel confesses not just his own sins, but the sins of his people — acknowledging the communal and systemic nature of sin. In a culture obsessed with personal autonomy and private spirituality, this prayer reminds us that faithfulness to God requir...

This week, Dennis Allan talked through Daniel 7, the beginning of the apocalyptic section of the book. There, Daniel tells about a vision that included four beasts, ten horns, the Ancient of Days, and the Son of Man. It's a story that provided hope to the Israelites in exile under the Babylonian and then Persian empires that these evil and unjust empires would be judged and rendered powerless. It'...

Daniel 5 is a warning to every empire: God sees pride, injustice, and oppression—and He will act. This week, Pastor Shaq Hager demonstrates how Belshazzar’s downfall shows that no ruler is beyond accountability. For those in exile, this is both judgment and hope: God hasn’t forgotten. Our confidence isn’t in empire’s reform, but in God’s justice and unshakable Kingdom. Biblical hope is never naive...

What should followers of Jesus do when the government enacts laws that are unjust? In this sermon on Daniel 6, Dennis Allan explores how civil disobedience—like Daniel’s refusal to obey the king’s edict—is not rebellion for rebellion’s sake, but courageous loyalty to God and love for neighbor. Drawing insight from the Civil Rights legacy of John Lewis, we consider what faithful resistance looks li...

The story of Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace is oftentimes told as a story about God's faithfulness and His ability to rescue and save His people, and it is definitely that. It's also a story about three people who choose fidelity and allegiance to Jesus in the face of death, even if God doesn't save them. They believe God can save them, but that isn't why they refuse to bow...