New Life Downtown

When you are trying to rebuild out of the ruins, you want to know if there really is any order in the cosmos. Psalm 112, meant to be prayed after the return from exile, reminds us that God has ordered the cosmos with both righteousness and justice. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see how that is both a commission and a comfort.

In times of crisis, we question the most basic things, like what God is really like and what He really thinks about us. The psalmist knows that in those moments we need a song to sing. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see how Psalm 103 reminds us of who God really is and what He really thinks about us.

Few psalms (if any) exude as much confidence in God as Psalm 91. The psalmist's assurance in God's protection has led many to love and cling to this song. Many hold it as an expression of future hope but others as a present guarantee that nothing will ever harm them. In this message, Pastor Jason Jackson explores the relationships between Psalms 89-91 to help us see and hear Psalm 91 as God's resp...

If God is everywhere, why does the church matter? Yet Psalm 84 is a joyful song of longing that commends to us the courts of the Lord. Pastor Glenn Packiam shows us how the psalm challenges us to see the importance of place, the reality of pilgrimage, and the centrality of the presence of God.

When was the last time you heard good news? The Bible calls the Jesus story good news - that's what "gospel" means. But what's so good about the Jesus story? In today's Easter sermon, Pastor Glenn Packiam shows how the good news is an announcement of the victory Jesus won and why that matters for us today.

There was a famous song the crowd sang on the first Palm Sunday. We know the chorus, but forget the rest. Yet Psalm 118 shows the reason Jesus came: God's steadfast love. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see why God's steadfast love is our only salvation, and how God's salvation often arrives in unlikely ways.

God, where are you? Where were you when...? We all question God's proximity to our pain. While some psalms help us lament when we feel forsaken, Psalm 46 reminds us that God is with us in our troubles. Pastor Jason Jackson explores how our confidence in God's presence shapes our response to suffering.

What do you know when you know you've messed up? How do you ask for help and also say you're sorry? Preaching from Psalm 51, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us understand confession as a way to shift our focus from sin to God, to demonstrate our confidence in God's compassion, and to be opened up to God's work of new creation in us.

Life has a way of leaving us parched. In that desperate state, we can sometimes turn to the wrong things to quench our thirst. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see how Psalms 42 and 43 call us to return to God and to His people, and to find a hope there that will never let us go.

This week our guest preacher Amber Ayers walks us through the spectrum of human experience contained in Psalm 40. It reaches from praising and thanking God and declaring his goodness to expressing the hurt, disappointment and difficulty of being human. This psalm describes the stuff we all feel, but many of us don't talk about.

Psalm 23 may be one of the most well-known and well-loved Psalms because of the way it addresses our longing to be cared for and looked after. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see how anything else that we look to as our shepherd--as being able to protect, provide, heal, and guide us--will ultimately let us down. Even when we try to care for ourselves, we can't give ourselves what we long for most. B...

Do you ever read the headlines and look around and wonder who's running this place? The world can seem chaotic and tumultuous, but Psalm 2 reminds us that there is a King. God, the King of creation, brought His Kingdom on earth through Jesus. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us understand that we cannot speak about God and His ways in generic terms; instead, there are now claims that God makes of us, an...

We take a look at Psalm 1, a wisdom psalm. It presents two ways to live; the way of the wicked that will perish and the way of the flourishing life and God.

How do we order time? Christians have macro-rhythms like the Church Calendar, and micro-rhythms like a Rule of Life. Pastor Glenn Packiam unpacks the purpose and practice of a Rule of Life, helping us to see it as a pattern of practices that help us to pay attention to and participate in the Holy Spirit's work. Joined by his wife, Holly, and another staff member, Lori Duncan, the latter part of th...

Every Christian knows he should read the Bible more. But if we're honest, the Bible can be confusing and difficult to understand. What kind of book is it, and how do we find meaning in it? Pastor Glenn Packiam shows us how to enter the Grand Story of Scripture, how to let it enter us, and how to find Jesus as the center of the story.

From the earliest human civilizations, there has been a sense that the gods are angry and that humans are guilty. Yet the radical claim of the Gospel is that Jesus is the culmination and completion of the priestly system of temples, sacrifices, and priests. Jesus is how we know that God is not an angry God, and that we can be saved from the guilt that binds us.

As we begin to prepare our hearts for the birth of Christ, we will explore what it means to see Jesus as the fulfillment of each of the three main offices in Israel's life as it was in the Old Testament - the prophet, the priest, and the king. Pastor Glenn Packiam reshapes our popular notions of what a prophet is by helping us understand why the Bible calls Moses the greatest prophet in Israel, an...

As we close the Romans series, we look at how the truth of the Gospel that is presented in accord with the character of Christ. We, in turn, are called to represent the truth while reflecting the character of Christ.

As Christians, we have different convictions about how to be faithful to Jesus. Some believe certain practices are good (or at least ok), and others believe those same practices are wrong. So, what do we do when our convictions differ? This week Pastor Jason Jackson explores Paul's instructions in Romans 14 to two groups who face the same dilemma.

We want church to be a politics-free zone, but the Gospel has always had political implications. What does Paul's letter to a church in the power center of his part of the world have to say about governments? Pastor Glenn Packiam unpacks Romans 13 and sets it along side Revelation 13 to help us see what governments can be at the best and at their worst, and how the church can live under both kinds...

It is evident that cultural attitudes toward religion in general and Christianity in particular have changed for the worse. While we may be tempted to fight for how things used to be or to flee to the margins of society, Paul offered the church in Rome a different approach. Preaching from the final section of Romans 12, Pastor Glenn Packiam calls us to examine how we might look for opportunities t...

It's a common phrase: I like Jesus, but I don't want to have anything to do with the Church. Yet the Gospel forms us into a community; it sets us within a family. Pastor Glenn Packiam teaches from Romans 12 on what it means to see the Church as a community formed by grace, and yet one which invites our participation to cultivate it to become a place of diversity, unity, and mutuality.