MCC Podcast

Next Thursday is Thanksgiving and many of us will be getting together with family at some point. AND because the next day is Black Friday and the following Monday is Cyber Monday, we thought it was good for us to be reminded of what Paul reminded the early church. This is the official beginning of the holiday season that will take us through New Year’s Day.

This week as we begin our series, Family Feels, I want to remind us all that children are awesome. Our responsibility to them as parents (and all of us who have children within our sphere of influence) is awesome too.   Christian psychologist Gary Smalley co-wrote a book with John Trent entitled, “The Blessing.” They wrote: “ While we may say out loud that we don't care what other people thin...

This weekend we are going to conclude our Life Is Hard, God Is Good series by looking at the last 3 chapters of Job’s story. As a reminder, last week we looked at chapters 3-37 which contains the conversation that Job’s 3 friends had with Job, mostly accusing him of doing something wrong that prompted God to punish him so heinously. It also contained Job defending himself and complaining about how...

There is an organization from Europe known as BLTC Research. The company was founded in 1995 in order to promote what they call “paradise-engineering.” One of their stated goals is to deliver “genetically pre-programmed well-being.” According to their scientists - using our “super-minds” and genetic engineering - mankind can abolish both physical and mental pain altogether. They plan to create sup...

Job lived 4500 years ago. And the book of Job was probably the first book in the Bible. He predated Moses who wrote the first 5 books of the Bible.   Q: Why, you may ask, am I telling you that?  A: The first divinely inspired book written deals with humanity’s age-long mystery; why do good people suffer? Some things never change.   There comes a time in every life, just like in Job’...

If you’re one of the 115 million Americans who heads to work in a vehicle on a daily basis, odds are there are few things that frustrate you more than getting stuck at a red light. According to the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the perfect amount of time for a light to remain red is between 60 and 90 seconds. That means that, ideally, an urban driver would spend an average...

Conflict is a universal experience with all people.    It doesn't matter how well you get along, it doesn't matter how much you love each other, it doesn't matter how mature a Christian you are, there is still going to be some conflict in your life.   In fact, in any relationship with another person, no two people are going to see eye to eye on every issue. The more time you spend t...

Dr. Louann Brizendine is a neuropsychiatrist and a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She wrote the books, “The Female Brain” in 2006 and “The Male Brain” in 2010. She states that, “A woman uses about 20,000 words per day while a man uses about 7,000.” Now there is a lot that could be said with that type of statistic. But I won’t say any of them. But I...

We continue our series through the book of James which we’re calling Achilles because, regardless of how mature we are in our faith, we all have at least one, Achilles’ heel (weakness). Maybe more than one. I’m going to bet that most of us think that what James talks about next, that we have totally under control. This is not a problem for us. And big picture, maybe it’s not a problem here at MCC....

On any given weekend, I think it would be fair to say that, some of us who gather for worship come looking for answers and you know God’s Word has those answers.  I would think it is equally fair to say that the majority of us are here because, at some point, God’s Word did change our lives. And we were determined to give ourselves to Him.  And, there will be some in worship, online or i...

Achilles; Do you know who he was? Do you know what he was famous for? There is no evidence that Achilles was a real person, but he was the central character of Homer’s Iliad. You’ll understand why I want to make that disclaimer in a moment. Achilles was one of the greatest warriors and heroes in Greek Mythology. He was considered a hero because he was the most successful soldier in the Greek army...

We believe we should be a church of disciple-makers, who look for opportunities to restore the world around them in service, and who pray every day for clarity, insight, and strength as we trust that God is in control and we are doing the best we can to follow Him well. But, what does that look like as the church gathers each week? What does that look like when we serve in ministry areas? How do w...

June 27, 2022, offered a vivid reminder that Americans believe in prayer.  On that Monday, the Supreme Court’s decision in Joseph Kennedy v. Bremerton School District supported the former assistant football coach’s right to pray in public. For seven years, Kennedy took a knee on the football field after games, and as Washington Post reporter Robert Barnes stated, “From the stands, it might ha...

Paul would write this to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:7b-8) - train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.   Look at that: Physical training is of some value. We all know that.  Lifting weights, cardio, yoga, martial arts training, running, swimming, etc…all of those hav...

What we’re going to talk about for the next few weeks, let me just say that there are 3 words that strike fear in some people’s lives. If you had to guess what those 3 little words are, what would you say? Some of us, when we read those 3 words, we just…sit back and stare at them. We sweat just a little. When you buy a grill at the hardware store, those words are right there. You buy a crib for yo...

“Therefore, go,” Jesus said. We’ve all heard the verse that closes Matthew, yet too often, the nature of that commandment is lost on us. There is a depth and a historical resonance to what Jesus is telling us to do. He is telling us to make disciples. Disciples that obey. Obedience to his last command means that, by definition, we aren’t genuine disciples until we’ve made a disciple that obeys eve...

This week we had a guest speaker, Justin Gravitt, who joined us and talked about how Jesus taught relationally.    Justin is the Director of Innovation and Advancement with Navigator Church Ministries. In his role, he helps churches all over the area grow and develop disciple-making cultures.    This week he spoke about how Jesus' disciples.    The disciples of Jesus...

In Luke 19 we find the story of Zacchaeus, a tax collector who Jesus goes out of his way to step into the story of and as a result Zacchaeus walks away from the encounter changed and begins to follow the way of Jesus. Zacchaeus story doesn’t change if Jesus doesn’t step in. This is true of the people around us as well. Like Mike talked about last week we are called to be disciple makers and part o...

In our culture there are several words used to describe who we are: MCCers The Church Christians Jesus Followers The Bible word for those who followed Jesus, is disciple. And we are going to take the next several weeks to flesh out what that means to us today and why at MCC, we are using a word that seems foreign to our culture but has great meaning for how we are to live our lives.

One of the passages of scripture that we may find hard to want to say out loud is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 (NIV): Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. We should all be able to say it. But what does it mean? In real life, how do we do that? Last week we looked at what the pace of Jesus teaches us about how His example should shine through ours. This week we’ll look at t...

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at what I believe we as a culture have a hard time doing appropriately. We've been in a series we’re calling Play AND Purpose and it seems to me that we either lean too much into one or the other.  Either we can't remember the last time we were not fully absorbed in a work week or we can't remember the last time we forgot about work.  We can’t...

Continuing in our Play And Purpose series, Student Pastor Eric Craft talks about how a life of purpose is centered in Jesus.

This morning we are beginning a series called Play and Purpose.  We wanted to take a few weeks to look at these because we’re closing in on summer and I hope you will take some time to play.  And next week is graduate Sunday and we want to talk about purpose and the importance of that. As our students transition out of high school and onto the next phase of their lives - purpose is what...

I know you are well aware that our world is divided. It actually has always been divided, but that division now seems to be wider, more obvious, and more filled with hatred. However, as we prepared, we also determined that just as important as the stand we take is how we do it. Peter said (1 Peter 3:15-16): 15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyo...

“If I ran the world everything would be better.” Have you ever thought that? For most of us, it's a joke, but there is a kernel of truth there. This small belief that if everyone saw like you did the world would make sense and be better. The problem is it explains away a lot of shortcomings that we all have. The reality is we judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. We know w...