Mountainview Church Audio

As January comes to a close, the bills have started to roll in. Families are suddenly aware of their holiday spending; some are experiencing a little regret. The gifts, parties, and trips have now become expensive memories. January is when many people make renewed commitments that, "This year, we'll save more money!" The problem is, although saving money appears virtuous, it all dep...

There’s a new year’s trend that has become increasingly prevalent over the past decade. As people embrace the “New Year, New You” mentality, getting a new job (or just quitting their current job) has become the easiest way to get that fresh-start feeling. The quitter convinces themselves that a new job will fulfill all their hopes and dreams, but it almost never does. Instead of quitting, there’s...

We’re halfway through January. How are those New Year’s resolutions going? If you’ve already quit, you’re not alone. Research shows that only “9%” of the population “successfully keep their New Year’s resolutions”. (InsideOutMastery.com/New-Years-Resolution-Statistics) Why is that? Why are we so prone to quit? Perhaps, it's because our resolutions are based on improving ourselves. What if we...

Have you heard the phrase, “count your blessings”? Counting our blessings is a positive thing to do; acknowledging how God has blessed us and finding contentment. But it kind of stops there. What if we made a slight shift to that popular phrase? What if we shared our blessings instead of just counting them? How much more impact would it have? Not just on other people, but on us, as we shared our b...

There are dozens of mileage programs and consumer clubs, all trying to one-up each other for your membership. Often with the tagline, “Exclusively for you!” Clubs are all about you. As a member, you obtain exclusive deals and discounts, or rights and privileges. Even in the charitable sector, as a member, it’s about your member dues and what they get you; your say and your way! And quite frequentl...

Christmas is the beginning of a journey, that has the potential to transform your life. Christmas is a journey that leads to Good News. “And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Lk. 2:10-11) #Christmas #ChristmasJourney #Journey #Chris...

700 years before Jesus was born, a man named Isaiah wrote that He would be called the "Prince of Peace." It's a bold statement! Then, approximately 2000 years ago, Jesus was born. This week, we celebrate the Advent of Peace. We're focussing on the arrival of the promised peace that was to be brought about with the birth of Jesus. However, when we look around our own lives or th...

Think of a time in your life when you were overflowing with joy. For many people, it's at the birth of a child. That's definitely the case for me. Joy overflowed at the birth of each of my three sons. Each time I heard that first small cry, I was a mess! The birth of a child is such a roller-coaster of emotions, moving almost immediately from the anxiety and turmoil of labour to overflow...

People are missing something. There is an emptiness inside us that we just can't seem to fill no matter how hard we try. We search and search but can never seem to find the answer. We are incomplete. Many look to things like careers, relationships or even themselves to fill the void inside; to fulfill hope. Others simply give up and stop looking. Our world is in the dark. Christmas is a time...

In a culture of affluence, gifts seem to pop up everywhere. As Christmas approaches, retailers might pitch a "free gift with purchase" to increase spending. You might be the recipient of a last-minute Christmas gift or a white elephant gift at your work Christmas party. Those Rudolf reindeer slippers were exactly what you wanted! Right!?!? We should appreciate any gift we receive, but th...

Do you reflect the light of Jesus to the world around you?  Jesus instructs us to shine our light before others and two ways we can do that are through evangelism and outreach.  Outreach can be as simple as reaching out and helping a person or group of people in need, or sharing what we’ve been blessed to have enough of with those who don’t have enough. In outreach we can show those around us that...

Greetings Mountainview Church, Do you ever pause and just consider how hard it is to be a Christian? Are there times in your life when you just don’t feel like you have the time or energy to follow Jesus? Do you struggle with making the Gospel the central feature of your life? Well, I have some good news – everybody does! The truth is, a life of sincere faith and obedience to God is hard. Followin...

Freedom gives us a choice on who or what we serve. When our eyes are fixed on ourselves, we often make self-serving choices. These choices often lead to a type of bondage. We become slaves to our own desires and behaviours. We become slaves to sin. However, when our eyes are fixed on God, we make choices to be in service to something greater than ourselves. We're invited into an eternal servi...

We have a Heavenly Father who loves us. We are His children; He takes care of us and knows what’s best for us. We respond in love. Out of our love for God, we take time to celebrate Him! We choose to serve Him and express our appreciation through worship. In fact, every Sunday, we have an opportunity to celebrate. We may not always feel like it, but we can make a choice to put in the time and effo...

What do you do when you're all alone? What do you spend time doing when you're all by yourself? When God, who sees everything, looks down at you in secret, what does He see? What are you doing in those moments? Do you acknowledge that He's there? Do you believe that He's watching? Do you believe that He cares? These questions aren't stemming from a place of judgement. I&ap...

Our habits often tell a story of who we are, more than what we do. If I habitually consume alcohol, I'm on my way to becoming an alcoholic. If I habitually eat carbs and sugars, I'm on my way to becoming obese, and I might be a glutton. If I habitually stream video games, movies, or social media, I'm on my way to becoming lazy and lonely, and at risk of becoming anxious and depresse...

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time when many of us take a moment to celebrate family, friendship and good food. It’s a time to count our blessings and enjoy what we have. This is great, and we should all appreciate these blessings in our lives but do we ever really consider the God that provides all good things?  We thank God for what he has given us but how often do we just offer praise to him for...

This is the second annual national day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. Depending on your background, you may be deeply, personally and profoundly impacted by the legacy of residential schools in Canada's history. For others, you may come to this day and simply not be able to relate to the experiences of residential school survivors, families that are still mourning lost loved ones bec...

According to Psychology Today, self-control is "the ability to manage one's impulses, emotions, and behaviors to achieve long-term goals". But where does this ability come from? What motivates this ability to control one's self? Consider the multi-billion dollar self-help industry. So much of it centred around controlling, managing and maintaining what Psychology Today describe...

You may not know this, but there's a huge divide between the word gentleness in our modern English language, and the word gentleness found in ancient language, including in Biblical literature. To be gentle is not a matter of simply being kind, tender, or mild-mannered. There is a deeper level to gentleness; one that requires action as well as temperance. This week, as we continue our Cultiva...

When was the last time you heard someone talk about faith? Over the past few years, the word faith seems to be connected with negative statements. We hear people voicing their lack of faith in government, institutions, or the church. Some proclaim, “I’ve lost faith in society!” or even,  “I’ve lost faith in humanity!” These statements shouldn’t surprise us. They all stem from misplaced faithfulnes...

Hello, how are you? How are you doing? Was your reply, "I'm good"? Or perhaps you simply said, "Good." Why did you automatically reply that way? Are you really good? And if you are good, what does it mean to be in a state of goodness? Maybe the deeper questions are, who taught us to do to reply that way, and where did that little greeting come from? More importantly, what...

Kindness is easily shown to friends and family members, or perhaps coworkers and neighbours whom we get along with. We might show kindness for strangers to be polite. We might even show kindness to an enemy, to keep them at bay or avoid a conflict. What’s our motivation of those acts of kindness? To often, kindness is shown if we feel like showing it. How our day went, how we feel about a particul...

What does it mean to live a life marked by peace? If you're searching for peace, where would you go to find it?  Today we'll be looking at how the Spirit of God cultivates peace in the hearts of His people, while we also try to identify and expose some wrong ideas we might have about the nature of peace. #Peace #Cultivate #HolySpirit #Fruit #Scripture #Church #Galatians Mountainview Chur...

Today we look at Patience. Not just the willing to waiting in line kind of patience but a deeper more loving kind of patience. Patience with people.  This is another fruit of the Spirit and with Gods help we can grow into deeply patient, loving, and humble people who will reflect Christ’s light in a dark world. #Patience #People #Spirit #God #Lord #Church #Christ #Loving #Humble #Cultivate  Mounta...