National Community Church Audio Podcast

Pastor Marion Mason continues our Beloved series! “This is the marvel of marvels,” said C.S. Lewis, “that he called me Beloved.” We are beloved by God. His love is where we find our identity, our security, our authority. Then, and only then, can we become what Dr. King called the beloved community. We lead with love - we love because He first loved us. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See...

Pastor Heather Zempel continues our Beloved series! In order to step into our belovedness, we must first encounter and be transformed by the unimaginable, inconceivable, incomprehensible love of Jesus. In 1 John, the disciple reminds the churches of Asia Minor of the final teachings of Jesus in John 13-17- that God is love, that God demonstrates his love towards us at the cross and the empty tomb,...

Pastor Joshua Symonette kicks off our new series! Many years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described his longing for a beloved community. It was not something he created or came up with on his own. It was what he read throughout the Gospels and reflected in his pursuit to bridge a segregated America. God's beloved is what he calls those who are submitted to him wholeheartedly. The Apostle Paul,...

Dr. Mark Batterson gives our annual State of the Church message. Together, we’ll look back at all God has done in and through NCC in 2020 and look ahead into 2021 and beyond. The church ought to be the most CREATIVE place on the planet. The church ought to be the most DIVERSE place on the planet. Those two things are not unrelated. In fact, you can’t have one without the other. Unity does NOT mean...

As we conclude our Win the Day series, Dr. Foth riffs on Pastor Mark Batteron's "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Win the day!" Through the lens of Hebrews 13:8—"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever"— Dr. Foth helps us explore what we believe about what really matters. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collec...

Sow today what you want to see tomorrow. Over time, one of two things happens. Either MEMORY overtakes IMAGINATION or IMAGINATION overtakes MEMORY. The difference? Prophetic imagination. It’s seeing the invisible, hearing the inaudible, and believing the impossible. Add to it patient persistence and bold prayer, and it’s game on. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.co...

Dr. Mark Batterson continues our Win The Day Series with Habit #6! Time is measured in MINUTES, but life is measured in MOMENTS. You don’t FIND TIME, you have to MAKE TIME. How? For starters, curse the barren fig trees. These are the things that waste time, waste energy. How do you curse the barren fig tree? You establish boundaries and establish priorities. If managing minutes is a science, then...

How you do ANYTHING is how you’ll do EVERYTHING. The good news? If you do little things like they’re big things, God will do big things like they’re little things. The key is kaizen—an uncompromising commitment to continual improvement. It starts with a growth mindset, and there is no finish line. You keep setting stretch goals until the day you die! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See h...

There are weeks when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen. This felt like one of those weeks. This weekend we hold space—we catch our breath and collect our thoughts after a difficult week in Washington, DC. We are here for such a time. We are here for such a place as this. We stand in the gap as peace makers, grace givers, and tone setters. We believe God for racial reconcilia...

If you want to change your life, you have to change your story. You can’t just flip the calendar, you have to FLIP THE SCRIPT. It’s the first of seven habits in Win The Day, and it’s a high leverage habit. In the science of cybernetics, there are two kinds of change. First-order change is behavioral—it’s doing something more or less. First-order change can facilitate a quick-fix, but second-order...

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When Jesus was born into the world, He didn’t just bring hope with Him. He WAS and IS hope and is a revelation to every person that encounters Him. To one, a revelation of hope brought confirmation, to another joy, to another redemption. He was the fulfillment of prophecies of old. He was the embodiment of comfort in the now. But what we found in the incarnation is that He is a God who reveals His...

Pastor Joshua Symonette continues our advent series with a celebration of Hope! Hope is a powerful force that can propel us forward like a canon or a rocket. But there are times when our hope fades or takes a hit. It is usually in the "in-between" times or in the middle of our current reality and our anticipated reality. In Matthew 2, the Magi, who are on their way to find baby Jesus, give us an e...

Hope had and has been at the core of Jewish faith for its entirety of existence: hoping for freedom from slavery, hoping for justice, hoping for peace, hoping for a savior. When Christ came, heaven touched earth in a new and profound way. God’s glory was being shown, not by splitting a sea, with a pillar of fire, or by the glowing face of Moses. God’s glory was embodied in the small and breakable...

You can get an A for EFFORT. You can get an A for TRUTH. Are you getting an A for LOVE? Many decades after the Ephesians receive a letter from the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John calls them back to their FIRST LOVE. How? One, REMEMBER. Two, REPENT. Three, DO WHAT YOU DID AT FIRST. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of p...

Ephesians 6 is a message Paul gives the Ephesians to wear the full armor of God, every piece. From warrior to a wrestler, their context was fighting for life or death. Dr. Foth imparts to us the same hope Paul gave back then reminding us to not duck or run away but to stand firm and fight the good fight. We are not going down no matter the situation because we have a destination. Hosted by Simplec...

There are 59 one another statements in the New Testament. Two of the most significant are found in Ephesians 5—SUBMIT to one another and SING to one another. When practiced in two-part harmony, marriage turns into a melody. Marriage is an ICON—an earthly representation of this eternal reality called the Trinity. You have to make sure the ICON doesn’t become an IDOL. That puts an impossible burden...

It takes moral courage to STAND AGAINST what is WRONG and STAND FOR what is RIGHT. It takes moral courage to SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, to SPEAK THE TRUTH IN LOVE. Living not by lies is refusing to bow to cultural idols or ideologies if they don’t pass the TRUTH TEST. It’s living according to your biblical convictions even if it’s COUNTERCULTURE. It’s RISKING YOUR REPUTATION for what you know is GOOD a...

From the very beginning of our lives, we learn and grow from imitating others. The question over time becomes WHAT and WHO should we imitate? When you find faith in Christ, you are given both an identity as a child of God and a calling to imitate God (Ephesians 5:1). Identity and action are interlinked. Things like love and purity and sacrifice are virtues that we should strive to imitate. But tha...

The disintegration of civilization is caused by the deterioration of what British historian Arnold Toynbee called the CREATIVE MINORITY. The church is the creative minority, as well as a moral minority. It must swim upstream and go against the grain. Then—and only then—can it catalyze revivals, reformations, and renaissances. The key to this creative minority? Unity in diversity. That is what resu...

Whether it’s racial tension or political polarization, cancel culture or social media shaming, navigating this cultural moment feels like a high wire act. How do we stay balanced? How do we stay positive? How do we shift the atmosphere? The Apostle Paul shares four cardinal virtues that guide our cultural engagement—humility, gentleness, patience, and tolerance. When we practice those principles,...

Power has been a pursuit of humanity since the inception of our existence. And our world is in a constant state of drama as a result of the pursuit to possess power. Paul, the apostle and theologian, writes to a group of Christians in a place called Ephesus. Power is one of themes in this letter, which is an encouragement and a reminder of who has ultimate power and how we can access it. It is onl...

“TO SEE FOREVER” is the title of this week’s message. We explore the Apostle Paul’s thoughts as he hits the PAUSE button in his letter to his friends in Ephesus, now western Turkey. He reflects on his IDENTITY, DESTINY, and AUTHORITY from a vantage that is his alone. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for adve...

The Bible is full of plot twists and turns- a Hebrew baby raised in the house of Pharaoh delivers the Hebrews from Egypt, the shepherd with the sling defies the Philistine, the baby in the manger is God in human form, the crucified Jesus walks out of a tomb. But Jesus had one more plot twist up his sleeve-- the inclusion of the Gentiles into the promises and the blessing given to Abraham. God is n...

So many of us find ourselves stuck. Stuck in routine. Stuck in frustration. Stuck in systems that hold us down. Stuck in destructive patterns. Stuck in sin that tangles us up. It almost seems impossible to escape. But do you know that God works best in the impossible? Ephesians 2:1-10 speaks to our journey in Christ. It take us on a journey from who we were , to who we are , to who we can become ....