Pathfinder Church Messages

Pathfinder Church | May 21, 2023 | Dion Garrett  Family and relationships require a lot of work! You can pour into people your whole life and still feel misunderstood and alone. It can seem easier to keep intimate relationships at a distance or just go it alone. So why isn’t “going it alone” a more logical choice?  Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/give...

Pathfinder Church | May 14, 2023 | Dion Garrett  When a plant—or a relationship—starts to get sickly, it seems easiest to just yank the whole thing out and start over with a new plant--or a new relationship. But you can’t build up a fruitful garden with a “scorched earth” approach. What does it look like to tend to the most important relationships, and when is it time to cut your losses? Website |...

Pathfinder Church | May 7, 2023 | AJ Mastic Too often, we teeter-totter between not wanting any more excitement in life—craving stability and certainty---and feeling trapped by life’s monotony. Could the back and forth be a sign that we’re on the wrong journey? Jesus says that his followers will be like the wind; people will be unable to tell where they come from or where they’re going. How can we...

Pathfinder Church | April 30, 2023 | Dion Garrett It is no surprise that many people have become disillusioned by what Christianity has become. When Holy awe is lost, then the teachings from the manifest wisdom of God get reduced to clichés and pat answers to life’s great questions—answers that don’t really answer anything. How do we pursue greater understanding in life but also recognize when we’...

Pathfinder Church | April 23, 2023 | AJ Mastic  The thousands of Christian denominations in the world, all certain that they’re the only right ones, are the outward evidence (the fruit) of a deep inner problem. How did the followers of Jesus come to be known by our divisions, arrogance, pride & self-righteousness?  Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/g...

Pathfinder Church | April 16, 2023 | Dion Garrett  Certainty is vital for human development. A child who doesn’t know if she’ll be fed again will not develop well. Nor will the one who’s not sure anyone will pick him up when he’s crying. The same is true with faith. To begin a relationship with God, we need some assurances. But when does certainty start to get in the way of true spiritual maturity...

Don’t Settle for Certain | We Lose the Plot | April 9, 2023 | Doug Mauss  Certainty is one of the reasons people come to church in the first place. In a random, otherwise uncaring world, we crave certainty; we want answers. And the Christian church has provided the world with volumes and volumes of answers! But maybe all those answers have only clouded the very thing that made Christianity thrive?...

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Pathfinder Church | April 2, 2023 | Dion Garrett Who is Jesus? That’s the question we all must answer. It’s tempting to view Him as a wise teacher, enlightened person, or even as a demigod. Yet, John over and over again returns to the complete divinity of Jesus as God enfleshed; the one who embodies God’s presence, love and wisdom. But how can a human also be God?  Website | https://pathfinderstl....

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Pathfinder Church | March 26, 2023 | Dion Garrett In this world, we naturally section off into tribes of people who are like us. As people who avoid discomfort, we fear the cost of engaging with people who are different. But what if our comfort isn’t high up on Jesus’ list? What if his hopes for us can only be fully realized through embracing community with all people? Website | https://pathfinder...

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Pathfinder Church | March 19, 2023 | Doug Mauss  Sometimes we forget just how revolutionary Jesus is. We can easily settle into practicing routine religion, where nothing really changes. Our Christianity can become a thought exercise that doesn’t result in any real action. Comfortable faith seems to fit nicely into our lives, but what if it wasn’t meant to? Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Onli...

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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 12, 2023 | Dion Garrett  The first-century Israelites were a people mourning the loss of their kingdom. Living under the rule of Rome, they longed for a king of their own to bring them political salvation. Just like people today, they didn’t see Jesus as the answer. What would it look like, and what would it change, if we would live like Jesus is our king? Website | https...

Pathfinder Church | March 5, 2023 | AJ Mastic  Why does the Bible contain four biographies of Jesus that each tell his story so differently? For some of us, this can introduce doubts about the reliability of scripture. For many of us, this means figuring out how to piece the four narratives together. But what if in doing so, we’re actually missing out on the full picture of Jesus that can only be...

Pathfinder Church | February 26, 2023 | Doug Mauss Too often we let our disagreements get boiled down to a binary: One side is right and the other side is wrong. The stress of conflict makes us rigid and controlling, and extremely difficult to find any sort of win/win outcome. It’s extremely difficult to master “the craft of hard conversations”! Sometimes, is it ok to settle for win/lose? Website...

Pathfinder Church | February 22, 2023 | Dion Garrett 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 | February 19, 2023 | Dion Garrett Because disagreement is difficult and painful, our natural tendency is to try to rush for resolution immediately. And the quickest resolution would always be for someone to cave: if other people would just change their mind and agree with us, everything would be fine! Or else, we can quickly dismiss our own needs or convictions in order to keep...

Pathfinder Church | February 12, 2023 | AJ Mastic Relationships are tricky because people can cause us harm. In response to that threat, it’s tempting to withdraw, or lash out, or concede the issue, or try to change the other person for our own benefit. But every one of those choices just creates an adversarial and unsafe relationship for you both. Is there a better way to protect ourselves from o...

Pathfinder Church | February 5, 2023 | Dion Garrett People naturally take sides in a conflict based on the externals of the situation. We judge people by their actions or behaviors. And when someone has wronged us, it’s easy to feel blameless in our reaction. After all, they started it! But hidden under the behaviors, our own emotional wounds affect the conflict more than we realize. Website | htt...

Pathfinder Church | January 29, 2023 | Doug Mauss Disagreeing with other people is scary. It feels like it costs us peace or connection with others. So we avoid having “crucial conversations,” hoping that it will minimize our pain. Or we lash out in unproductive ways, harming others with our anger. Is there a better way to understand conflict and use it to create better connections with others? We...

Pathfinder Church | January 22, 2023 | Doug Mauss We live in an instant gratification, over-night success society, where only dramatic transformations & grand achievements get noticed. Which is why so many of our attempts to change end up in a wash of broken promises and unfinished projects. But what if instead of focusing on the grandiose, we shifted our attention to the potential of small ch...

Pathfinder Church | January 15, 2022 | Dion Garrett Gentle parenting and positive employee recognition are growing trends, but naysayers worry they’ll only make people soft. But do they? Could we achieve more if we were gentler with ourselves?  Website | https://pathfinderstl.org Online Giving | https://pathfinderstl.org/give Podcasts | https://pathfinderstl.org/podcasts Facebook | https://faceboo...