New Life Downtown

In Genesis 20, Abraham is called a prophet-- the first person in the Bible to be called one. Yet his fear leads him to rationalize a lie and jeopardize someone else's future. Pastor Glenn Packiam challenges us to think how often we shrink back in self-preservation and rob others of the blessing we could speak over them by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah contains a graphic depiction of God's judgment. But what if the story is more about God's mercy and deliverance? Visiting pastor, Jason Jackson, explores how the story reveals God extending mercy without ignoring injustice, and God keeping his promises by delivering people. This is good news for us because we need both mercy and justice, and because God never forget...

How does God respond to the mess of our broken world? Does He stay away or demand that we clean it up? Pastor Glenn Packiam teaches on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, calling us to see how God meets us in the mess and leads us out. Moreover, the final act of the Story is not judgment but new creation. God is putting the world back together, and He wants to start with you.

Preaching from Genesis 18, Pastor Dr. Michelle Anthony unpacks the transformative truth of God's design and plan for our lives. His ways are higher than our ways and His plans cannot be enhanced or thwarted by our success or failure.

How do we get to participate in God's plan to put the world back together? Do we try to impress God? In Genesis 17, we see God's covenant once again as God's gracious initiative. There is nothing we do to deserve it. It is a promise that changes our identity and our relationship to God. And yet, as Pastor Glenn Packiam explains, it is the gift that requires everything from us.

Have you ever felt powerless, stuck and unable to escape? Genesis 16 is the story of two women who are powerless. Sarai is powerless in her barrenness; Hagar is powerless as a female Egyptian slave. One tries to take over; the other is overtaken by the kindness of God. Pastor Glenn Packiam calls us to recognize the God who sees us, and sends us to see others in the light of His grace.

Genesis 15 is a pivotal point in Biblical history, where Abram's faith is 'counted as righteousness.' Dr. Steven Todd takes us on a look beyond the theological implications of this story and considers how Abram had still not seen God's promise of a son and yet moved toward God in simple belief. We see throughout Scripture God seeking us out not turning us away, even when we're filled with doubt, c...

Genesis 14 features Abram as a warrior, a king who appears from nowhere acting like a priest, and the strange custom of tithing. Pastor Glenn Packiam explains how Abram reconfigured the ancient custom of tithing to become an act of worship. While there is no magic in the math of giving, there is a power in worshipful giving to silence the lie of self-reliance and break our slavery to the false god...

The older we get, the harder it is to let go, to live generously. In Genesis 13, Abram was transformed by the generosity of God, and went from selling out his wife to save his skin to offering the best land-- his inheritance!-- to a relative with whom he was in conflict. Pastor Glenn Packiam calls us to see how we can begin to live like we have nothing to lose.

Kicking off a series on the life of Abraham through the book of Genesis, Pastor Glenn Packiam invites us to see the story of Abram in Genesis 12 as the story of Israel, the story of humanity, and, more profoundly, the story of grace. It is a story of God making promises where there is no human potential and possibility. Where the ancient Greeks sought a story of glory and postmoderns insist that t...

Are Christians to be spiritualists who shut out the world and await escape, or realists who try to take matters into their own hands? Preaching from Isaiah 6, Pastor Glenn Packiam challenges us to begin by seeing the world not as natural or supernatural, but as sacramental-- created to be a container for the glory of God. The Seraphim's singing, 'The whole earth is full of His glory', challenges t...

What do Christians do when they find themselves in situations beyond their control? Drawing from the dramatic story of Peter's miraculous release from prison in Acts 12, Pastor Rich Villodas from New Life Fellowship in Queens, NYC, inspires us to believe in the power of a prayer. Power seems to be in the hands of cultural and political leaders, but the praying church is the most significant force...

This final week of the "Thy Kingdom Come" series, pastor Evan gives insight into the tension of the Kingdom here but not here, now but not yet. The good news? That in the midst of the tension there is hope.

How are we supposed to live as citizens of God's Kingdom when we have a lifetime of experience living according to another standard? Pastor Joey Jimenez reminds us that God's plan has always been to establish His kingdom through the testimony of the church and its members. We each have a role to play in revealing the Way of King and the Kingdom.

In week 2 of our "Thy Kingdom Come" series, Pastor Evan Reedall opens the Word to look at the Kingdom inward. The Gospel of Luke tells us that the Kingdom is within, and it's giving God the rule and reign of our hearts that brings about this reality.

This week Pastor Joey Jimenez begins a new sermon series called "Thy Kingdom Come." Jesus came to show us the Father and to reveal a way of life that is is radically different than anything the world has ever known. Pastor Joey shows us that in order to fully understand the nature of the Kingdom we first must seek to understand the nature of the King.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Pete Greig, founder of the 24/7 Prayer Movement, joins us all the way from the UK to talk about how to host the favor of God in times that feel turbulent. Pete offers a wonderful reminder to dream and pioneer in ways that reflect the creative potential of Christ in us.

In the final week of the "This Functional Family" series, Jeremiah Parks brings a message about emotional healing through forgiveness. His testimony speaks powerfully of Gods way of forgiveness and the healing that comes by it.

After a few weeks of exploring what some may call the negative emotions, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us examine how we experience joy in our relationships. Along with practical guidance from the Scriptures on how to cultivate joy in our relationships, we discover that the secret of joy is knowing the difference between what it comes through and where it comes from.

Sadness is a result of loss, and life is full of losses - from the small and ongoing losses to the large, one-time losses. Yet we often compartmentalize our sadness, keeping it from ourselves, and from others. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see how to be a good friend to others during times of loss, and to allow sadness to become a pathway to intimacy in our relationships. Above all, we see Jesus,...

In this third week of our series on emotions and relationships in the family of God, Dr. Adam Pelser illuminates the nature of anger as a concerned perception of an offense. As revealed in the biblical narrative of Jonah, anger can be a right response to injustice, but all too often it is a self-righteous reaction to inconvenience and a relationship killer. Our culture encourages us to angrily dem...

As we explore how emotions affect our relationships in the family of God, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us examine the science of emotion to uncover how themes, scripts, and triggers work. Fear is cued by a perceived threat to something or someone we love. While it can have a healthy function, it can also be devastating to our relationships, as we see from the Bible's story of Jacob. In the end, only...

In this series on relationships, we will use emotions as the primary lens to examine how our how our brokenness distorts us and destroys our relationships, and how the Spirit restores us into the image of God and makes us fully human so that we can truly be the Family of God.

In this conclusion to our series on the Gospel according to Mark, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us follow the thread of Mark's key description of Jesus as the Son of God. The first human to recognize Jesus as such was the unlikely Roman centurion. Yet recognition is not the same as faith. What will we do with this revelation of Jesus as the Son of God? Mark urges his readers to repent and believe, an...

How is this all going to end? We have various ideas-- conscious or subconscious-- about what will happen. Some place their hope in progress; others, in a form of escape. But what does Jesus say about the end of the world? Pastor Glenn Packiam unpacks Mark 13, an often misunderstood passage of Scripture, by drawing from a historic Christian vision of hope-- one that rests on Jesus' faithfulness.