New Life Downtown

How do we last? What will the story of our lives be after we are gone? In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul points to the church's spiritual fore-parents, Israel, as both an example and a warning. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see five possible layers or steps to falling away, beginning with wrong or disordered desires. Temptations, then, can be invitations to examine our soul and opportunities to witness th...

What is the place of ambition in the Christian life? Pastor Glenn Packiam unpacks 1 Corinthians 9 to show that we are a "sent people", and that we have been sent to be "spent" for the glory of God and the good of others. The race we are invited into is a long obedience in the same direction, a steady life of faithfulness and service. Though we may fall, we will not fail, for we run as those who ha...

Why do I still struggle with sin and weakness even though I am a believer? Can I really live the Christian life described in the Bible? Pastor Jeremiah Parks shows us how realizing the fullness of the reality of Christ's Resurrection utterly empowers us, not to be better people, but to be a new kind of people all together.

What do we do when all hope seems lost? Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see that Lent gives way to Easter, sorrow is pierced by joy, night is broken by morning, death gets swallowed up by life. Because of Easter, sin-- no matter how dire-- is not the end. Because of Easter, death-- the great threatening bully-- is not the end. Because of Easter, even heaven is not the end. One day, the Creator-God w...

In this final week of the series, Pastor Glenn helps us explore the feeling of being forsaken by God. From the rich tradition of lament in the psalms, we discover that protest can be a proof of faith. When we take our complaint to God, we affirm both his sovereignty and his love. But the psalms-even Psalm 22-comes to its completion in Christ. In Jesus-from His birth to His death to His resurrectio...

In a culture obsessed with success and strength, it can be hard to know what to do with failure. Failure, when it happens, is an experience of loss, a loss of status and sometimes even a loss of meaning. Failure can be disorienting, the feeling of life 'going off script.' And yet, we have a Savior who was considered a failure by his culture and his friends. More than that, Jesus carried our deepes...

Beyond the loneliness that can come from new situations or locations, many of us have felt a profound sense of loneliness or dislocation--wondering where we fit and if we belong. Once again, we are reminded to give voice to this ache in prayer. This week, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see that Jesus does more than weep and pray and suffer *with* us and *as* us; he does all this *for* us. This mean...

What do when we do when life presses in on us? Why does it feel like God doesn't answer our prayers? Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us to see that petition and protest are proof of the relationship, signs of trust in God. Jesus, the True Human One, shows us the range of human emotions- including anguish and anxiety in the garden of Gethsemane- that can be brought before the Father in prayer and trust....

Sadness is a normal and healthy response to losses of all kind. Yet, we struggle to express our grief, and want to make it simply go away. Drawing from Scripture, sociology, and stories of walking with friends dealing with loss, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us give voice to our grief and to recognize Jesus weeping with us. In this participatory sermon that includes reflection, psalm-praying, and sin...

Jesus experienced a great deal of suffering as he obediently carried out the Father's will and stepped into the brokenness of creation to transform humanity from the inside out. What do the suffering's of Jesus teach us about our own pain in the Father's plan for us as son's and daughters? Pastor Jeremiah draws richly from the Scripture and from his own journey of pain to help us see that nothing...

We often hear that the church is 'behind the times', but this belies a particular view of progress: that what is now is superior to what was then. Pastor Glenn Packiam examines this claim while sharing his personal journey toward Anglican ordination. We then turn to the words of Jesus, calling us away from our own way and to Himself, the source of true rest. It is from the place of rest- trust in...

How should we think about alcohol or marijuana or other complex issues? The Bible isn't a rulebook or answer manual; but when we stand under it and let the Spirit draw us into the text, we often find that our questions are reframed. Teaching from 1 Corinthians 8, Pastor Glenn Packiam shows how Paul urges us to consider how our actions will affect others. This means paying attention not only to our...

Working from the foundation of the "theology of the body" established in 1 Corinthians 6, chapter 7 helps us to see sex as powerful, marriage as beautiful, and singleness as purposeful. While graciously dealing with questions of premarital sex, divorce, and same-sex attractions, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us recognize the good gifts that marriage and singleness are. We discover that we need not tr...

Much is made of the fact that Christians have a different sexual ethic, but few understand that this ethic is rooted in a radically different view of the body. Unpacking 1 Corinthians 6, Pastor Glenn Packiam asks, "How are we to live in our bodies? What is the body for? Whose body is it?" We discover that our bodies were made for glory and for intimacy; that, in Christ, our bodies have been reclai...

In trying to avoid the harsh judgmental attitude Christians have sometimes been known for, we can over-correct to a version of love that is reluctant to deal with sin. Pastor Glenn Packiam explores an unpopular passage, helping us to see whom, how, and why we are to judge. With God, judgment is not merely punitive; it is restorative; it isn't about paying a person back but turning them back. The g...

Is Christianity the religion of the weak or of the strong? The young church in Corinth seemed to think faith in Christ meant always being at the top of pile, reigning like kings; they had moved beyond the Gospel to a kind of spirituality that worked with their love of success and status. Paul wants them to know that the 'self-made person' and the 'spiritual triumphalist' are both lies, facades for...

Beneath the surface of our many interactions and associations, questions persist: "Who am I connected to? What am I part of? Do I matter?" We often think that the Gospel's response to these questions is to silence them, to slap us on the wrist for caring about these things. Pastor Glenn Packiam shows us that Paul wants the young Corinthian church, eager for status and significance, to realize that...

Pastor Daniel Grothe continues our series on 1 Corinthians with a look at chapter two. He highlights Paul's 're'definition to the Corinthians of what it is to have the mind of Christ, and encourages us with weakness and humility according to God.

How are we to live as the people of God in a wicked and immoral world? As bad as our world is, we have every reason to think that Corinth was far worse. Yet Paul does not rail against "culture at large", but instead instructs the church on how to embody a different way. But this Way-the Way of Christ-is one that seems like foolishness at best, and scandalous at worst. And yet, the so-called folly...

The name by which Israel most commonly referred to Yahweh, The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, links three generations grandfather, father, and son, all with very different faith journeys and all with extraordinary challenges and 'dysfunctions' in their lives. Dr. Steven Todd gives a biblically-rooted and experientially-tested exploration of what it means to be an inter-generational church. As w...

We want to love well, but many of us have been deeply hurt, making it hard for us to open ourselves to love at all. Even hearing that "God so loved the world..." can be hard because we cannot imagine a love like this. The trick is that we cannot receive love unless we are vulnerable, but we cannot be vulnerable unless we know we are loved. What are we to do? Who takes the risk of love and becomes...

Is it possible to have joy in our world of sorrow? We often feel like our only choices are to fake it, to manufacture it, or to become cynical about joy. As Pastor Glenn Packiam unpacks the promised hope in Isaiah, we begin to see that joy is a gift, a startling surprise to our dead end. In Jesus the Messiah, God announces to the world that it is not over, all is not lost; joy is breaking through...

The angels announced "Peace on earth" at Jesus' birth, but when we're surrounded by violence, broken relationships, and anxiety, it's hard to know how peace is really here. Pastor Glenn Packiam contrasts Caesar's peace-- the Pax Romana-- and they way he brought it through external force with the peace that Jesus brings. Peace is not the absence of trouble but confidence within it that we are being...

We don't like to wait. Yet there are times in life when we are forced to wait. But what do we do when we feel like God has forgotten us? We need a way to mark time that reminds us of our hope. Pastor Glenn Packiam explains that this is the heart behind the Christian Calendar-- to mark time around the life of Christ. For Christians, our hope in the present and our hope for the future is God-with-us...

In this final week of the series, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see that this journey has been leading all along to a Table. So many of us are exhausted because we've been taking in what does not satisfy & cannot sustain. But at the Table, Jesus offers us Himself. It is here that we give thanks for the grace of our rescue, of the coming restoration of all things, and of the real presence of Ch...