New Life Downtown

Pastor Glenn Packiam begins a new series from Ephesians 4-6 on what it means to live as resurrection people. In this first week, we explore how living in unity is a kind of living that is equal to the weight of our calling as the people of God, and what it takes to live peaceably with one another.

The most troubling claim Jesus made was the exclusive one - that He alone is the Way to the Father. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us discover how Jesus is the Way because He is the truth about God, and the Life of God. This exclusive claim is good news that extends to everyone.

When is it too late? If physical death is the embodiment of spiritual death, then resurrection is not only the hope of new bodies in the future, but also the promise of new life now. Pastor Glenn Packiam invites us to believe in Jesus, the only one who can bring us back from death. Once we experience this new life, we are invited to partner with Jesus in bringing resurrection to others.

With enough experiences of leaders or teachers or others disappointing us, we begin to believe that we have to take care of our selves. We close our heart off, trusting no one. Yet Jesus calls us to see Him as the Good Shepherd, the only one who cares, the only one who is strong enough to lead us. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us to see Jesus as the Shepherd who does not take, but instead gives His l...

Jesus is the light that represents both the person and presence of God, and the revealing wisdom to live. Coming into the light starts to order the chaos of our darkness.

In the first week of this Lenten series, Pastor Glenn Packiam unpacks the first of the 'I Am' sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John. To see Jesus as the Bread of Life is to first recognize that our lives are ordered by the pursuits of our appetites. Then can we see Jesus not only as the Provider, but also as the provision.

How do we participate with the Spirit in his transformative work? In the final week in our series on the Holy Spirit, Pastor Jason Jackson takes a look at our role in spiritual formation through the lens of Romans 12:1-2. By and through the mercies of God, Jason encourages us to place ourselves in God's presence - to show up where the Spirit is at work - through what John Wesley called the "means...

Does the law matter, or does grace mean that we don't need to fuss about how we live? Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us to not only understand the law in a different light, but also to grasp the power of the Holy Spirit's work in us to become radically different people. We have the power to desire rightly and to live rightly, just as God designed us to.

If the Holy Spirit lives in each of us why do we need the church? Pastor Jason Jackson explores the relationship between the Spirit and the Church in Ephesians 2. He demonstrates that according to Paul the church is where the Spirit dwells and therefore our relationships with one another matter.

As the series on the Holy Spirit continues, Pastor Glenn Packiam takes a closer look at the two gifts Paul expounds on in 1 Corinthians 14 -- the gift of prophecy and the gift of tongues. Each gift has acquired some misconceptions in recent decades, leading many to avoid them or to conclude that they are peripheral to Christian practice. Yet with a deeper reflection, we see how they lead to the bu...

What are the spiritual gifts? Why do they matter? While we are tempted to think of the gifts as ways of becoming more spiritual or proving our status before others, Pastor Glenn Packiam returns us to Paul's vision of the gifts as signs of grace that are for the good of the church and for the glory of God.

What does it mean to be a witness? Teaching from the ascension and Pentecost scenes in Acts 1 and 2, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us understand how the Spirit helps us to live as participants in the arriving Kingdom of God, bearing witness to the reign of Christ in the course of our daily lives.

Guest Pastor Andrew Arndt teaches from John 14 and 16 to show us what it means to welcome the Holy Spirit as the Companion.

It's difficult to believe that having the Holy Spirit is truly better than having Jesus with us in the flesh. Pastor Glenn Packiam teaches from John 14 and 16 to show us what it means to welcome the Holy Spirit as the Companion who comes alongside us to convict, to guide into truth, and to reveal Jesus.

Pastor Glenn Packiam kicks off the series, inviting us to take a fresh look at what the Scriptures say about the person, power, and presence of the Holy Spirit. By exploring what the early Christians meant by confessing the Holy Spirit as the 'Lord' and the 'Giver of Life', we discover how we can give a daily 'yes' to the dynamic work of the Spirit in our lives.

The theme for the fourth Sunday of Advent is love. Joe Kirkendall shares a sermon about God's love and stories from the New Life Church congregation plant in Manitou Springs.

In Isaiah 42, God calls the 'servant of the Lord' to carry out justice in the world. Pastor Glenn Packiam shows how this is first a reference to Israel in the Old Testament, but is ultimately a vision of what Jesus would do. In Christ, we get to be recipients of and participants in God's rescuing and re-ordering work in the world.

In the third week of Advent, Pastor Glenn preaches from Isaiah 40, calling us to see how God's coming is our comfort. We often feel beyond help because of the choices we've made, or have even experienced what psychologists call 'learned helplessness', because we've stopped believing that our choices matter. Yet into this shame and despair, God comes to us as our warrior and as our shepherd.

Preaching from Isaiah 35, Pastor Glenn Packiam calls us to make room in our theology and in our lives for God to do the unexpected. Healing is a sign of God's arrival and a foretaste of the future 'shalom' that God is bringing. The truth is, asking God to heal is not asking for an exception or an aberration or a suspension of the rules; rather, it is asking to God to do what is consistent with His...

Preaching from Isaiah 9, Pastor Daniel Grothe helps us stand in wonder of the God who meets the moment.

On this first Sunday of Advent, Pastor Glenn Packiam invites us to keep time around the life of Christ as a way of keeping company with Jesus. After unpacking the our waiting for the return of Christ as a waiting in the light, Glenn invites his wife Holly and congregants Ian and Bre Speir to discuss why and how Advent can be meaningful practice for individuals and families. Traditions, books, musi...

Is there any room in the blessed life for sorrow? Teaching from the story of Sarah's death in Genesis 23, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us learn what it means to grieve well.

Preaching on the familiar text of Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us to see what is often missed in the story. God meets Abraham where he is, asking devotion of him in the only way he knew to express absolute surrender. But the test is not so much one of faith, but one of sight: Will Abraham see God as the one who requires sacrifice, or as the one who provides it?

Laughter can be the sound of joy or the threat of scorn. In Genesis 21, it is both. In the story of Isaac and Ishmael, Pastor Glenn Packiam shows how the joy of answered prayer can quickly turn to jealousy when we fail to trust God's faithfulness to us, or when we resent His mercy to others.