Northplace Church Podcast

Some people are stuck in the rut of the super-normal. They approach church like it’s their court ordered support group and they check in and check out with no expectations. We wouldn’t waste our life serving the local church or as Christians coming to the church on a regularly basis if we didn’t believe there was supernatural potential for life change every time we get together. Many of the people...

The final 5 psalms, Psalm 146-150, all begin and end with same word in the Hebrew tongue: “Hallelujah,” which literally means “praise to the lord.” These are truly psalms and victorious praise, and they differ from most other psalms; you don’t find any disappointments or discouragement here. Many of the other psalms are open and honest about life's injustices and evils that leave the psalmist...

In 2 Timothy 1:8-9, Paul speaks 4 specific words over the life of Timothy; four words we believe are also applicable to us. He says, God has saved us. He has called us. He has purposed us. And he has graced us. He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our own works, but according to his own purpose, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Saved. Called. Purposed. Gra...

Imminence, Urgency, Timing, and Opportunity.  In life we need to: 1. Live with Imminence 2. Live with a Sense of Urgency  3. Understand Timing  4. Seize Opportunity

Change can be really hard, and at times we do the opposite of what we hoped we were going to do. The good news is God knew we would struggle with these things. Four Things That Christian Change Is: 1 Change Is Gradual  2. Change Is Inevitable  3. Change Is Internal 4. Change Is Symmetrical

Hope is more than a motivational thought or a fading daydream. It’s not a wishy-washy, vague, wait-and-see attitude, but an action we choose to take on purpose every day. We choose to trust God’s control and we choose trust in his promises regardless of what it looks like in our current circumstances. Like Jesus, we endure the present because of the “joy set before us.”

All throughout the Scripture, presence is a priority. God’s presence makes the difference. His presence is what sets us apart and presence should be our priority. We should live in a way that invites it. We should honor it, respect it, protect it, pursue it, crave it and long for it.  AW Tozer, a pastor and writer from a previous generation, wrote a prayer that I have personalized in my own life....

Most of have friendships, but to truly do life, walk through trials together, close enough to see blind spots; that takes more intimate relationships.

There is a difference in the general social interaction between people…and the supernatural relationship and community that is supposed to exist in a biblically functioning community. On the surface, they may look the same but one is natural, the other is supernatural; it’s incarnational.  And because of that, Incarnational Community is counter-intuitive; it goes against the flow of what comes nat...

This is Week 5 of "The Year of Here" If we start living like Jesus, letting him live his life through us, being Jesus with skin on, living incarnationally; then our world will see the glory of God in and through us just like John’s generation saw it in Christ Jesus. We’ve talked about incarnational worship and incarnational presence. We’ve spent some time talking about living the incarna...

This is Week 4 of "The Year of Here" What is the habitat for the dwelling of God’s presence? Where has God chosen to make his habitation? The church - not the building, but the people - when we come together corporately, collectively to worship, according Paul, we become a dwelling place or habitation for God by the Spirit. The place that God has chosen to dwell, the place that he has ch...

Part 3 of "The Year of Here" Jesus didn’t just come to show us what God was like. He wasn’t just the Son of God. He was the Son of Man. He was human, He was flesh, and one of the primary reasons he put on skin was to show us how to truly be human.  And this is God’s strategy of changing the world. When we are incarnational humans like we are supposed to be - embodying the presence of God...

We have come out of the Christmas season this year, doing something a little different. Instead of taking our conversations a completely different direction, we decided to dive deeper into the incarnation of Jesus. The message of the incarnation is that God has become a man; that he has come here to be with us. It’s about his presence.  We want to know what that looks like in our lives in a practi...

The word "Here” became a key word in our Christmas conversations and the manger became the central image in explaining the Incarnation - how got God “here”. But as we were praying through the Christmas and Advent theme…we had this sense that it wasn’t the end of the conversation but the beginning of the conversation. That 2019 was supposed to be The Year of “Here” 2019 "The Year of Here,...

When we search for change in the wrong places it often makes things worse. ‭‭Mark‬ ‭5:24-34‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Christmas Eve is the crescendo of the Story of God. The driving passion of his heart from the very beginning of the bible up until now, is to have a close personal relationship us. He wants to be with us. He wants to dwell among us. If you search the scriptures, you will see God compassionately and continually trying to break into the disinterested hearts of sinful people.   He doesn’t give up on...

What does it mean to live an incarnational life? When God comes to dwell among his people, he comes with a purpose. His presence doesn’t fill our lives and his presence doesn’t fill our corporate worship experiences so that we can sit, soak and sour.  This is the mistake a lot of us make that truly value the presence of God. We become so focused on the presence of God; worship in the presence, soa...

The Garden of Eden was the fulfillment of the heart of God; a place to give his love to us without restraint, but sin ruined all that. It severed the relationship and brought distance between a sinful man and a holy God.  He could have thrown us away. He could have started over. He could have chalked it up as a failed experiment, but he didn’t. He loved us. He pursed us. He came searching for Adam...

On this first weekend of Advent, grasping the rich theology behind the Christmas story, will bring us nearer to God’s presence, reframe our perspective, and infuse our hearts with an otherworldly joy that will undergird the next several weeks of our celebrations. It will literally change the way we do the holidays this year and we hope moving forward throughout our lives.

Most people love receiving invitations. To a party. A meal. A wedding. A celebration. A special event. It’s nice to be included- to feel part of something…because many Americans are truly lonely. We live in a lonely society. That’s why Mother Theresa is right when she famously said: ‘The greatest disease today is not starvation but loneliness.’ Loneliness is one of the greatest ills of 21st Centur...

Gratitude is the key to a fulfilled life. Every year as we approached the Thanksgiving Holiday it becomes clearer and clearer that learning to foster a grateful heart is THE most crucial piece of what it means to be whole, complete, centered, satisfied, content, and spiritually mature.  Here’s what the Apostle Paul said: 2 Corinthians 4:15 NLT As God’s grace reaches more and more people, there wil...

Jesus prayed generational prayers. John 17:20 NIV 20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”  Do you realize the prayers that he prayed over 2000 years ago, are being fulfilled in us...

No matter who you are, the Bible will surprise you. No matter what your culture or what your social class, no matter what prejudices or categories you come to the Bible with; it will smash some of them.  Most people will say that…you're either inclusive or exclusive, but Christianity is both…radically inclusive and radically exclusive.

What happens when the people of God settle into this world? When they stop resisting the evil of it and start looking and acting more like Babylon than they look and act like the people of God. Daniel stood for his faith. He maintained his identity, his integrity and his commitment to God, but we know there were many who slowly but surely caved to the constant pressure of the culture’s pull. Sadly...

The overarching theme in the book of Daniel is that statement that says: But Daniel resolved not to defile himself…whether it was refusing to eat the king’s food, refusing to stop praying when the king ordered, or many of the other challenges of living out his faith in Babylon…Daniel had a made-up mind…he had resolved in his heart that the headwinds of the Babylonian culture were not going to chan...