Garden City Church

The Presidential election was this past Tuesday. It's true the election of Donald Trump as President for the second time will shape the context in which individual Christians and the church are to live out Jesus' mission in meaningful, tangible ways. Yet, the church's mission remains the same. The person who wields Presidential power doesn't have power over Jesus or the work Jesus' people do. This...

This week, Dennis Allan talks through the ways Jesus' "city on a hill" language has been co-opted by American political leaders, both Democrats and Republicans, to ascribe to America a divinely mandated role in the world similar to Old Testament Israel. But, Jesus wasn't talking about Israel, and he certainly wasn't talking about any modern nation-state, including America. He was talking to His cl...

This week Julia Allan walks us through why, as citizens of the Kingdom, we are to develop and hold a consistent ethic of life. This means we're invited by Jesus to value life at every moment and in every context. And it's a reminder that the value we place on every human life is too big, too robust, and too expansive to be contained within a political party or represented by a political leader. It...

This week, Pastor Shaq Hager talks through the story of God's people beginning in Genesis, through the prophets, and into the New Testament to chart a biblical theology of seeing, caring for, and uplifting the vulnerable. To be people of the Kingdom, we must take the work of justice seriously, especially for the marginalized and oppressed. American society, more often than not, exploits the vulner...

We're not supposed to be lovers of money, and we are supposed to be generous. Oftentimes, this is where teaching on what financial stewardship means for citizens of the Kingdom. But, as Benjamin Chua talks through this week, Jesus has much more in mind in Luke 16. Jesus says people of the Kingdom can't serve God and Mamon. If Jesus was simply saying we can't be lovers of both God and money, He'd h...

This week, Dennis Allan continued our series by exploring what it means for followers of Jesus and the church to cultivate a prophetic voice in today's culture. In the Hebrerw Scriptures prophets functioned as God's spokespeople, speaking God's words and communicating God's will to God's people. In the Gospels we see Jesus function in a prophetic role by speaking God's words, living as God's Word,...

Today, we celebrated as one, extended family dedicated four children and seven people were baptized. Which is why this week's conversation, lead by Dennis Allan, is more a sermonette focused on baptism as the Christian's pledge of allegiance. Baptism is a choice we make where we are naturalized into a new way of living and being, and where we pledge ultimate allegiance to King Jesus. When we're ba...

We are supposed to be political, just not in the ways we think. We tend to think the primary vehicle for our political expression are political parties and elections. But, if we're citizens of the Kingdom living in America as exiles, then shouldn't the church by our primary vechicle for our political expression? The New Testament authors used the word "ekklesia" to describe the church, a word that...

Benjamin Chua continues our series, "People of the Kingdom." If we are first and foremost citizens of the Kingdom of God, then the country we find ourselves in is not our true home. As citizens of the Kingdom we live in America as exiles, not dissimilar from the Israelites who were exiles in Babylon or how the early church identified as exiles within the Roman Empire. We are foreigners and strange...

This week, we start a new series titled, "People of the Kingdom." Over the next eight weeks we'll explore the idea that the church in America's first political task is to become the church Jesus intended. And that starts by recovering our true citizenship. As the people of God we are citizens of the Kingdom, first and foremost. Only secondarily are we citizens of the country we live in. Our first...

This week Pastor Shaq Hager introduces us to Junia, an apostle, who helped lead and build the early church. Junia's status as an apostle, however, has been questioned. From approximately the 13th centurty until about 1980 Bible translators added an "s" to Junia's name, making it Junias, which was a male name. Yet, early Christian writers like John Chrysostom make it clear Junia is a woman, and Ori...

This week, Carrie Bucker walks through Priscilla's story. Paul identifies Priscilla as a co-laborer in the ministry of proclaiming and living out the Gospel. He even identifies her and her husband, Aquila, as having protected his life and saving the early church, ensuring it was able to thrive and flourish. There's even a story about Priscilla taking aside a young, charismatic, and gifted teacher...

This week we start a three week series focused on women leaders in the early church, and what their lives and ministries can teach the church today about following Jesus. Phoebe was entrusted by Paul with carrying, arguably, Paul's most theologically substantive letter. Not only was she expected to deliver Paul's letter to the Romans, but she was also expected to teach and discuss it with the chur...

This week we take a look back across sixty-three sermons and our study of the book of Acts to identify major themes and what they mean for us today. In particular, the conversation focuses on the expansive and inclusive nature of the Gospel, the Kingdom of God breaking into and challenging the kingdom of man, the call to go to our neighbors, what it means to wait on the Spirit, and how everywhere...

Luke ends the book of Acts with Paul in Rome, imprisoned, meeting with a group of Jewish people. He shares the Gospel with them, proclaiming the ways the Old Testament foretold Jesus as Israel's true Messiah and prophesied that, through Jesus' death and resurrection, the Kingdom of God had been inaugurated. While some chose to believe the Gospel, most did not. Even the people most committed to fol...

What happens when things start feeling out of control and chaotic? When it feels like the ship of your life is caught in the midst of a storm? How do you respond? How do you find and remain in Jesus throughout the storm? What happens when everything feels like it's falling apart and you just want to get off the ship? This is the story of Paul in Acts 27:33-44 (NIV). Reverend Eleanor Williams walks...

Sometimes we're so convinced we're right about a particular belief, a specific way of seeing or understanding the world, or, even, a way of interprepting a particular portion of Scripture that we tell ourselves it's more Jesus-like to remove ourselves from relationship with people who think or believe differently than we do. In essence, we can believe purity of doctrine or adherence to biblical in...

This week, Julia Allan walks through Paul's story, just before he's shipwrecked on his way to Rome in Acts 27. Paul, who first heard Jesus' voice along the Damascus Road, heard from the Lord that everyone on the ship would survive the storm. Paul said to the crew, "Last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve..." Even in the midst of an incredible storm Paul could hear and disc...

This week, Pastor Shaq walks through Acts 25:1-12. Paul is now on trial for the third time, now before Festus. The Jewish leaders ask a "favor" of Festus - they want Paul transferred from Caesarea to Jerusalem because they've designed a plot to kill Paul. Festus, newly appointed to his role, wants to do a "favor" for the Jewish leaders. He asks Paul if he'll go to Jerusalem to stand trial. Paul re...

The legal system exists to maintain the status quo; it almost always has. It is often controlled by self-serving, powerful, rich individuals and corporate interests who like how things are and want to keep them that way. When prophets come who point out flaws in the system, it feels threatened, and the system seeks to stamp out critique and dissent with extreme force and a thin veneer of legality....

This week Carrie Buckner continues our series on Acts, talking through Acts 23:12-22. It's the story of a plan concoted by a group of Jewish religious zealots (or, Jewish nationalists) that reached to the highest levels of the Jewish religious system. The people to whom God entrusted His law and now openly planning to break it. How do people, especially people who claim to love, follow, and repres...

Jesus instructed His disciples to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. In Acts 22:22-29 (NIV) the apostle Paul is living these words. He was lynched in the Temple and then arrested and at no point did he fight back or physically defend himself. He was gentle. And now, he's about to be tortured by the Roman state when he asks a soldier, "Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn't ev...

Paul knows the Gospel crosses every boundary and eradicates racial and ethnic hatred. He's given his life to proclaiming a Gospel that knits Jews and Gentiles into a new "family" rooted in Jesus. And yet, in Acts 21:37-22:22, when Paul tells a crowd of Jews who are zealous for the law that God sent him to proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles they shout, "Rid the earth of him! He's not fit to live!"...

This week, Pastor Dennis walks through Acts 21:26-36. Paul is in Jerusalem, trying to prove to the Jewish Christians who are "zealous for the law" that he isn't trying to abolish the law. In fact, while Paul is actively observing and upholding the law he's captured and beaten in the temple by a crowd of "law-observing" Jews. We see in this passage what can happen when people believe their politica...

This week Benjamin Chua walked through the story of Paul's return to Jerusalem in Acts 21:17-25. Almost immediately after entering Jerusalem, Paul learns the church there is fiercely enthusiastic for the law, not Jesus. For the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem their belief wasn't rooted in the foundational story of God's covenant family culminating in Jesus and looking ahead to the fullness of His k...