New Story Church

In the 4th century, after the Roman Empire was officially declared "Christian," thousands of men and women fled to the deserts of Egypt. They were literally following Jesus's example of going into the wilderness to face their demons. This week, we'll explore the story of one such "Desert Father" named Evagrius. In the wilderness, Evagrius faced his own demons and lear...

When God chooses young David to be his anointed King, he describes him as 'a man after my own heart'.  But as the story plays out, David is also shown to be Israel's greatest sinner (on more than one occasion).  How does this work?  How can one be a sinner after God's own heart and what does that mean for your life?   This will be the question we ask on Sunday as we read of beg...

What does it mean to know God? What does that look like? How does it play out in my everyday life? The Bible contains some wonderful summaries in answer to these questions and the passage before us describes its answer to these questions using the language of "walking'.  To know God is to walk daily with him, talking with him (prayer), hearing from him (scripture), and having your life t...

From the Garden of Eden to the final pages of scripture in the new heaven and new earth, we read God’s extraordinary autobiography. The author and the finisher of our faith has designed humanity to be the living and breathing embodiment of his image, right at the heart of his creation. Now, because of Jesus’ entrance into, and redemption of, our part in the grand story of God, we together have a u...

In Scriptures, we are commanded, urged, and warned to remember/do not forget... more than 100 times. The Psalms repeatedly teach us to "remember" in our prayers. One gets the sense that how we remember is critical. According to the Prophets and Apostles, remembering appears to be a spiritual practice that is essential to knowing God and ourselves more truly and more deeply. In Psalm 103,...

Thousands have gathered for the worship concert. Asaph, one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, steps ups to the mic: "My name is Asaph... and this song… is about how I almost lost my faith.” That's how Psalm 73 begins. For thousands of years, believers have been using this psalm as a guide to praying our doubts.

Profound wholeness demands profound honesty. The Psalms invite us to be brutally honest with God and with ourselves, drawing things out of us that we rather not think about.. much less pray. This week, we'll explore a horrifying, but helpful, psalm that invites us to trust God with "our most precious hatreds."

How do I pray when I feel like I have ruined my relationship with God? Psalm 130 is the prayer of someone headed to a worship service. On the way, he realizes that his relationship with God is completely broken, and it's all all his fault. This Psalm shows you how to pray when you find yourself there: in depths of your own brokenness, stuck inside yourself, wrapped in pain, trapped, lost.

This Sunday, professor, speaker, and author, Dr. Duffy Robbins, will introduce us to a Biblical way to lament what is wrong in our world and in us. Using Psalm 13 as a guide, Duffy will show us how to pray our laments and even write our own psalm of lament.

It's through hearing about what God has done in your life that others can begin to know the goodness of God. In Psalm 40, we find David standing at the Temple. He’s come to offer a thank offering to God, but, when he listens to God, he discovers that what God desires more than a sacrifice is for David to tell others what He has done for him. Then, many will see and fear and trust in the Lord.

Am I safe? Who am I? Who are you? Who am I to you? These are the questions that give our lives shape and meaning. This is where we begin to figure out what it means to be human. And yet, these are questions that you cannot answer on our own. Modern Psychology and ancient Hebrew wisdom agree: if you are ever going to answer these questions, you need Someone to know you. You need to feel seen. You n...

In Psalm 84, we stumble into a prayer that reads more like a juicy love letter than what we usually think of as prayer. These are the words of someone who has been wrecked by the love of God. He is sick with love. At times, he almost sounds insane. His voice cracks. He can hardly breathe. And, by praying this prayer, we learn to open up our hearts to more & more of His love.

In Psalm 8, David helps us get oriented to reality. If all you've ever known is the observable universe, this might be a bit hard to imagine. The universe David takes us into is much more vast. But he doesn't take us there to get lost. Rather that is the only place we can truly find ourselves. David guides us into this incomprehensibly vast "kingdom of God" so that we can find...

If you think that life is a problem that you can solve, you're in trouble. In Psalm 2, we're faced with the reality that if it's up to us to fix ourselves or save our world, we are hopeless. But we're not hopeless. It's not all up to us. The hope of God's people is that the God's King would do what we cannot do. In this Psalm, we explore how surrendering control...

The editors of the Psalms knew how hard it is to pray. They felt it too. So, when we open up the Book of Psalms, we find that they don’t force us to jump right into prayer as though that’s an easy leap to make. Instead, they give us two Psalms to help us enter into prayer: Psalm 1 & 2. These two Psalms do not shy away from the difficulties we will face. It won't be easy. But it will be bl...

If you ask Christians down through the ages: "How do I move forward in my walk with God?" They will say (over & over & over again): "The Psalms. You need to pray the Psalms." And this feels like a reasonable answer... until you start praying those Psalms about hating people or about the coronation of a king or the one about smashing the teeth of mine enemies. Yeah. Awkw...

Today, we celebrate the greatest day in history, Resurrection Sunday! Today's Message: An Easter Story about Doubt. John 20:24 -31 We’re not the type of church to have a patron saint, but, if we were, ours would have to be "Doubting Thomas." We live in an age of unrelenting doubt. It infects and affects us all. This Easter, we will look at the story of Thomas, the disciple who heard...

Sometimes you can get it all right, and still get it all wrong. One of the occupational hazards of discipleship is doing the right things for the wrong reasons. In this second Lenten meditation from the Gospel of Luke, guest speaker, Duffy Robbins helps us to consider how easy it is to completely miss the point of the discipleship relationship with Jesus.

What does it mean to be Jesus' disciple? Is it about church membership? Sunday attendance? Being in a small group? Wearing Christian shirts and bracelets? In a special two-week Lenten study from the Gospel of Luke, guest preacher, Duffy Robbins will help us "define the relationship".

Consuming red meat is not just a dietary choice. It is (and has always been) fraught with moral, political, economic, social, environmental, religious, and health implications. It's almost like eating the flesh of another creature has some unseen, but significant, effect on our world. In this message, we'll explore the spiritual significance of eating meat. According to the Scriptures, h...

When God's People experience the Presence of God, they start pouring oil on things. From oil covered pillars to beards dripping with oil to a woman pouring precious oil over the feet of Jesus, oil is everywhere in the Scriptures. Why? What did oil mean to them?  And how might oil help us experientially know - maybe even smell - the Presence of God? That's what we'll explore in this...

When we ask Jesus: "Who am I?" He says: “You’re salt.” That's who you are. It's not the answer that most of us would expect. Nor is likely to be the first way most of us would self-identify. But, if we were to take this seriously, what might it mean? What does "salt" say about how Jesus sees you? And how might “salt” help us experientially know who God is, who we are,...

If we ever hope to experientially know God the way that the saints of old knew Him, then we are going to need some help. We need a guide. This week, we are going to look to the Apostle John to give us some advice on how to experience the life-giving invitation of Jesus... through water. If it sounds a bit crazy that's because this is a wholly (& holy) different way of viewing things. But...

According to the Scriptures, you can’t just know about God. You have to experientially know God. You have to “taste & see” for yourself. In this series, we’re exploring what it might look like for us to taste & see God in the stuff of life. And this is bread week, the week in which we ask: How can we experientially know God through our daily bread?

For millions of Americans, God no longer feels real. Collectively, we seem to be losing the capacity to know & experience God in a way that was common in the Scriptures and in the Church down through the ages. In this series, we're going to explore what it might look like for us to "taste & see" God in a way that is deeply personal, strangely sensual, overwhelmingly Biblical...