Pathfinder Church Messages

Pathfinder Church | August 7, 2022 | AJ Mastic While many will say they aspire to be like Jesus (a noble pursuit!) there are other more accessible examples of people Pathfinders can grow into being. A woman named Priscilla and her husband, Aquila, are two such people. Making clear that imperfect isn’t an impediment to wholeness, they travelled around the world to find wholeness themselves and to b...

Pathfinder Church | July 31, 2022 | Dion Garrett Ruth did a lot of questionable things on her journey, returning to her mother-in-law’s homeland after God delivered their family a heavy blow, courting the attention of a kinsman-redeemer to save her mother-in-law from disaster, and many other things. Along the way, God was directing her steps. Living a “God-directed journey” isn’t easy. You subject...

Pathfinder Church | July 24, 2022 | Doug Mauss Those who are able to connect people to others, not to be the focus of relationships themselves, wield great power and influence. Lydia’s life reveals that. A wealthy merchant, a gentile, and a woman, becomes significant because of her willingness to connect others. But in life it’s often difficult to keep ourselves connected and inspired? Where do Pa...

Pathfinder Church | July 17, 2022 | AJ Mastic Focusing on the real-life needs of people is sometimes condemned as watered down or superficial. But a faith that does not help people with the stuff of life, isn’t very useful and certainly not transforming. Stephen and Philip were peers assigned to the seemingly “less spiritual” work of feeding widows, but their ministry became powerful. When “spirit...

Pathfinder Church | July 10, 2022 | Doug Mauss Paul had it made. His life was set as a very prominent and successful Pharisee. But when he became captured by the Gospel, he realized that the exclusivity and elitism of Pharisaical life was NOT in line with the heart of God. Paul’s life took a dramatic turn as he suffered a lot of misunderstanding and judgment to bring the Gospel to people that were...

Pathfinder Church | July 3, 2022 | Doug Mauss As humans, it makes sense to us that leadership and power are naturally used for the benefit of the one wielding it. Authority is leveraged to increase one’s personal standing, influence, or wealth. Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/give Podcasts | https://pathfinderstl.org/podcasts Facebook | https://faceboo...

Pathfinder Church | June 26, 2022 | Doug Mauss Martin Luther paved the way for the individual’s right to decide—he prioritized each believer’s conscience over the dictates of the church authorities and even over hundreds of years’ worth of traditions. How much authority should tradition have in our lives? Conversely, are we our own best decider—should our individual choices supersede those of the...

Pathfinder Church | June 19, 2022 | Doug Mauss Do people obey bosses because they’ve earned it, or because they’re the boss? Parents unquestionably are allowed to tell their kids what to do when they’re little, but when they grow up you can’t ground them anymore!  Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/give Podcasts | https://pathfinderstl.org/podcasts Facebo...

Pathfinder Church | June 12, 2022 | Doug Mauss It is a noble cause to wield authority for the sake of protecting those who can’t protect themselves (James 1:20). However, the attempt to protect often veers into an attempt to dictate the actions of others. How can we walk the line of advocating for people without constraining their freedoms, or the freedoms of others? Website | https://pathfinderst...

Pathfinder Church | June 5, 2022 | Doug Mauss As always, gender continues to be a dividing line in both culture and faith. Did God design the genders differently, or is it merely a social construct that we are free to modify or reject? Should men have authority over women, or is that a patriarchal relic of the past? Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/give...

Pathfinder Church | May 29, 2022 | Doug Mauss Our government has authority because it can enforce its laws by force. How do Jesus’ followers balance the tension between obeying or defying governmental dictates? Message Resources | https://pathfinderstl.org/message-resources/ Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/give Podcasts | https://pathfinderstl.org/podc...

Pathfinder Church | May 22, 2022 | Dion Garrett We all have different feelings about authority. Some embrace it. Some resist it. But even though we like to think that we are the boss of ourselves, there is always some authority that we are submitting to, consciously or subconsciously. How do we recognize the true—often unspoken—authorities in our lives, and have a healthy relationship with those t...

Pathfinder Church | May 15, 2022 | Dion Garrett Freedom to explore your truest self You are a whole person, which means that if you let any part become too large (or ignore any part), your sense of identity becomes imbalanced. By developing your relational, physical, mental, vocational, financial, and spiritual self, you can not only experience a whole life, but you get the benefit of being a WHOL...

Pathfinder Church | May 8, 2022 | AJ Mastic Freedom to explore your truest self Love is the most powerful force in the universe, and because of that, we can start believing we ARE who we LOVE or even who loves us. But what happens when your feelings change, when the object of your affection grows up, leaves, or dies? What happens when someone stops loving you? Do we become less of “us”?  Website |...

Pathfinder Church | May 1, 2022 | Doug Mauss Freedom to explore your truest self Too many of us let ourselves be defined by our success, careers, talents, or hobbies—or conversely, our mistakes, vices, sins, and shortcomings. It’s true that how we use our days can’t help but speak into our sense of being, but an identity built on “deeds” will be in constant flux and depend on endless doing. Is the...

Pathfinder Church | April 24, 2022 | AJ Mastic Freedom to explore your truest self Nature vs. nurture is an endless source of interest because we assume, “If I can just discover who I was genetically designed to be, then I’ll have something solid to build my sense of self around.” While genetics hasn’t yet given us the answers we crave, the good news is that we all have a common, powerful birthrig...

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Pathfinder Church | April 17, 2022 | Dion Garrett Freedom to explore your truest self Which boxes do you check on the form? You know the ones where we have to define ourselves over and over again by how we vote, where our ancestors came from, by how much money we make, or our career path. Do you ever feel a little defiant when someone tries to put you in a box? But we don’t want to stand on our ow...

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Pathfinder Church | April 10, 2022 | Doug Mauss Leading up to Jesus’ final days, we see a clear model for how we are to live. Not only does Jesus refuse to fight the crowds (As we saw last week, they were the wrong enemy), but he also shows us how to fight differently. It involves putting away the very things that we have relied on in the past for our protection and sense of safety. But does that...

Pathfinder Church | April 3, 2022 | Dion Garrett When we’re feeling threatened, it’s natural to want to fight, and fight we shall. However, whom we are called to fight against may not be whom we think. When we make enemies of those who oppose us, we obscure the real enemy. Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/give Podcasts | https://pathfinderstl.org/podcas...

Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/give Podcasts | https://pathfinderstl.org/podcasts Facebook | https://facebook.com/pathfinderstl Instagram |  https://instagram.com/pathfinderstl St. John School | https://stjls.org Contact Us | churchinfo@pathfinderstl.org

Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/give Podcasts | https://pathfinderstl.org/podcasts Facebook | https://facebook.com/pathfinderstl Instagram |  https://instagram.com/pathfinderstl St. John School | https://stjls.org Contact Us | churchinfo@pathfinderstl.org

Pathfinder Church | March 27, 2022 | AJ Mastic The last two tools make strange bedfellows. Our mental pictures of endurance (a marathoner finishing his race, a mother delivering a child) are usually anything but gentle. And the gentle among us seem the least able to endure when life gets tough. Yet these last two tools embraced together are powerful for people who are going the way of the cross. W...

Pathfinder Church | March 20, 2022 | Doug Mauss If we’ve been to a Christian wedding, we’re probably familiar with Paul’s famous words, “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.” While we may see these as personal values, they actually are powerful corporate values that can work against the prevailing ideas that Christians are irrelevant, out of touch, and even threatening to the good of the...