Restoration Church

These are desolate and often desperate times. In these challenging days ahead, we’re either going to wither away in our weariness… or we’re going to grow our roots deep. Sunday is about being honest about where we are, what is growing in us, and how we might put down roots in the steadfast love of God. (Psalm 1:1-3)

Of all of Jesus’ commands, his call to love our enemies might be the most radical - and yet the most needed in a moment like this. Sunday, I’m unpacking why love for our enemies isn’t just a lofty ideal to admire, but a kingdom strategy of resistance to the world as we know it. (Luke 6:27-38)

Known by our theology? Nope. By the superiority of our morality? Nope. By the passion of our activism? Nope. By the allegiance of our politics? Nope. By the depth of our knowledge? Nope. Jesus said the world would know us by agape - steadfast, self-giving love. So what does that look like at ground-level in a moment like this? (1 Corinthians 13:1-7 NIV)

This weeked, our Church family turned 8 years old! This Sunday, we’re going to look back at where we’ve been, celebrate where we are, and talk about the mission we’re seeking as we moved into our future as we "grow up together." (Ephesians 4:11-16)

There is a through line that weaves through the Scriptures around the deep, dark waters of chaos. Disorder. We all try to push back against its power. But here's the question: what if God is not saving from from it, but rather through it? (Isaiah 43:1-7)

When salvation arrived, it did not come in the form of a new set of rules, a superior philosophy, or a purer religion. No, God gave Himself. This Sunday we begin the new year with perhaps our oldest and dearest hope: that Jesus is what God is saying to us. (John 1:1-18)

There is a paradox at the heart of Christmas: the God of all glory not only becomes human, but vulnerable.  Jesus arrives in the messy vulnerability of our humanity, taking on not only a human body, but a human life – with all of it’s complexities. Why? Because He’s redeeming all of us – not just our souls. He became like us so we might become like Him. 

Mary wasn’t anything like the serene and sanitized depictions we often see during the Christmas season. This poor, Galilean, teenage girl stepped into the story of God with boldness and trust, and the song she sings while pregnant with the Savior of the world is a reminder that God is turning the world as we know it upside down. 

JUDGMENT.😬 Some streams of Christianity try to gloss it over. Others love to project it onto everyone else – except (conveniently) themselves. So what do we do with these promises of judgment – and how do we understand them through the lens of Jesus? (Luke 3:1-6, Malachi 3:1-4)

Advent begins not in the bright lights of Christmas, but in the darkness of our need. As we wait for the coming of our Savior, we remember that the darkness we face is not a place of God’s absence, but His presence. 

We all have a need to be seen and known and loved where we are. And no matter how crowded the room we find ourselves in, if we still feel unseen and disconnected, we will feel one of the toughest feelings of all: loneliness. In this message, we unpack what loneliness is, why we feel it, and how to overcome our barriers to deep connection with others. 

Peeling back the layers of our emotions, you’ll often find a feeling that loves to stay in the shadows. But while we may not always see it on the surface, it constantly whispers our worthlessness while simultaneously stirring our wrath towards those we’d rather see condemned in our place. In this message, we’re hitting a big one we ALL need to come to grips with: SHAME.

Life will upend you eventually. Some sort of crisis, broken relationship, diagnosis, or unexpected heartache will find us. And while we’ve build a world designed to numb us from feeling it, it is almost always the very space where we meet God in a way we would not otherwise. This week, we’re tackling GRIEF: why the Bible honors it, how Jesus redeems it, and why strangely, it’s where joy takes root...

Anyone who struggles with anxiety knows it can be so much more than just a “feeling.” It often makes its home in our bodies, leaving us feeling isolated from God, from the people around us, and even ourselves. In this message, we’re tackling an emotion that hasn’t always been easy to talk about in the Church. We’re aiming to change that – and find healing and hope along the way.

Anger. Maybe you’ve learned to stuff it in. To numb it. Ignore it. Maybe it leaks out slowly in your body language or the way you speak to the people around you. Whatever the case, it’s in there. So let’s face it - and bring it to God. 

As the election nears, the anxiety and animosity in the world around us seems to grow with it. In this special message, we’ll look at the Christian call to peace-making in a violent, vitriolic world. 

As a community, our commitment to prayer is the foundation of our life together. In this message, we look at a pivital moment in the early church when crisis drives the family of God to prayer – and how we can trust God with the same boldness. 

Every week, the Scriptures both inform us and form us as a community. But in a world where the Bible is misused and abused in so many ways, how we approach the Bible matters. In this message, Justin shares how we come to the Bible through the lens of Jesus - the Word made flesh. 

For thousands of years, the Church has gathered around a central sacrement of both our belief and our belonging: the Table of Jesus. Communion is more than a weekly ritual – it’s an opportunity to remember who we are and return to the One who welcomes us home. Join us this Sunday as we continue our series Common Threads!

Every week, an eclectic group of people gather at the Lyric – a room full of stories and struggles that are finding their way together in Jesus. Everything we do in these moments matters – serving not just to inform our faith, but to form us as the people us God. 

From the very beginning of our faith, baptism has been a public declaration of both our belief and belonging in Jesus. In this message (on a Sunday with 5 baptisms!), Justin shares why this symbol is so central to the journey of our faith, and why it marks our trajectory for our future in Christ. 

Being "on mission" is anxious and exhausting in a Church when the underlying belief is that it all hangs on you. At Restoration, we're seeking to make Jesus the model for Jesus' mission - learning to join God instead of trying to frantically do His work for him.

Every person - and every organization - has a center. It is the orientation of the whole, the measurement of both what it means to believe AND what it means to belong. In this message, we explore what it means for our Church family to make Jesus our center - and how that impacts the kind of community we seek to build.

As God restores us, the first place we see the fruit is in our relationships. Sunday we’re unpacking barriers to building healthy relationships - and the kind of community where we can slow down, find healing, and learn to bear with one another in love. (Colossians 3:12-13)

We can’t offer the world around us what we’re not receiving ourselves. To become a community of restorers, we must ourselves receive God’s restoring work in our whole selves. Sunday we’re beginning to unpack what it means for *us* to be restored to wholeness in Christ.