Shartel Church

This message compares Deuteronomy 20:4 and 1 John 4:4 and how God gives us Victory. We are to claim God's victory instead of fighting for our own victory. He has already won the battle for us.

Is the way you live clearing a path for unbelievers to encounter Jesus, or are you becoming a stone in their path? Is the way we are living causing others to stumble? Does our right to do what we think is okay blind us from the negative effects of not living above reproach? This message will seek to help people care more about their pursuit of Jesus than doing what they feel they have the right to...

Deeper, that’s where Jesus always wants to take us: to places within ourselves that we haven’t yet gone; to places of His calling that we haven’t yet followed. Many of us spend our lives in a place of shallow faith. We want just enough Jesus to make us feel safe. But Jesus wants to take us to the “deep waters” where we must cling to Him for survival! Peter teaches us a “must learn” lesson for ever...

Peter thought he was being noble by asking Jesus if forgiving someone seven times was enough. Seven was a lot. Seven was the perfect number, so it had a bit of a “magic” sound to it. But Jesus challenged Peter to think bigger. “How about 490?” Peter wanted to be good with grace. Jesus wanted Peter to become GREAT with grace! How will YOU do with Jesus' challenge?

Can YOU stay put when all others walk away? Can YOU still believe, even when people who matter to you say that they don’t? This was Peter’s challenge in our scripture for this week. Jesus said some hard things that made many of His disciples walk away. Peter, the rock, stood firm. His commitment to Christ over others is a model for us all.

Peter was a strong man. But he wasn’t nearly as strong as he thought he was! This message will look at what happens when we overestimate ourselves and put too much trust in OUR strength rather than depending on Jesus. Peter learned the hard way that pride goes before the fall. And sometimes that fall REALLY hurts! This message takes a hard look at how all of us are prone to this temptation. We’ll...

Is God calling you out of your comfort zone? When Peter saw Jesus walking on the water, he wanted to know if HE could walk on water, too. So Jesus told Peter to join Him. Peter learned what faith really is…and how we lose it! This message will challenge all of us to step out of our boats, and to keep our eyes on Jesus!

Jesus asked Peter a question that ultimately we ALL have to answer: “Who do YOU say that I am?” It doesn’t matter what the crowd thinks, what the pastor thinks, or what your parents think. Eventually, we will all stand before God and it will be the only important question because THAT questions will decide eternity. Peter’s answer is a great answer for us all to have!

Many times, we are victims of the systems we have set up with others. We tolerate behavior we need to confront. We let things go until it’s “just the way it is.” This message will look at how to set up relational systems that lead to healthy relationships. We’ll also look at how to confront systems and behaviors that are unacceptable and need to change. If we get the first steps right, the others...

How do you respond to someone when they have failed you, disappointed you, or not lived up to what they promised you? When people fail, they are often filled with shame. We hold the power in those moments to crush them or to redeem them. Forgiveness often bonds another person’s heart to us and makes them feel indebted and valued. This message will focus on how to redeem those moments—not ignoring...

Defining moments in relationships often happen when there is a lot of emotion involved. When someone is in a crisis. When someone experiences a loss. When someone experiences great success. When someone has been hurt, criticized, or betrayed. How we respond to them in those moments will create bonding or barriers. This message looks at how to do effective emotional responding and give to others wh...

Trust is a bridge we build or destroy one incident at a time. Often we don't even realize the little things that we're doing that are causing others to lose trust in us. This message we will discover how to be "Trust Builders" instead of "Trust Busters." Come discover how to strengthen the trust bridges in YOUR relationships!

Anger is like a fire. How you respond to someone who is angry will either help that fire go out, or it will cause it to get hotter and spread. This message will focus on how to keep our cool when someone’s angry and how to respond to them in a way that helps put that fire of anger out!

Jesus makes it clear that we are to apologize for hurts we caused. Some of us are not really good at that. Instead of making someone we hurt feel better, we make them feel worse! This message will look at making the most of our apologies to draw others close and not push them further away.

We are going through trying times right now. 25 years ago today was another trying time. In this message, we remember what happened with the Murrah Bombing and how we can hold onto the Ledges of Light that give us hope.

Don’t miss this incredible day as we remember the event that changed history!

Today is Palm Sunday! We are looking at how Jesus is King and was welcomed as a king when he entered Jerusalem. In this message, we look at how Jesus is King, but he didn't come as a normal king would. Jesus came as A Different Kind of King.

One of the canyons we can slip into is the canyon of worry. Worry is spending time, energy, and emotion fretting over circumstances that we can’t control. We let concerns about tomorrow rob us of today as well. David and Paul both challenge us to learn to trust God with our circumstances. This message will help us to discover the power that comes when we do as Paul suggests and “pray about everyth...

God gave us the ability to grieve as a way of dealing with the losses we experience in life. Grief is good. Grief is healthy. Sometimes we don’t move through our grief. We simply become stuck in our sadness. That’s when we need to be reminded that our God didn’t stay in the grave. He arose! We’ll discover how God can help us in our times of loss to make sure that our grief doesn’t consume us.

When David was confronted by the prophet Nathan about his adultery with Bathsheba, God broke his heart. God used the shame to wake David up, turn him around, and make him into the man of God that he had been and wanted to be. The enemy will try to use our shame against us. He will try to make our sin unforgivable and our lives unredeemable. This message will look at the difference between shame th...

Depression is a darkness that many people struggle with. It’s like quicksand that can drag us down a little bit at a time. It saps our energy. It steals our hope. It’s a cave that the enemy seeks to push us farther and farther into until we can no longer see the light. Some depression is chemical and requires medication, but most depression is our minds dwelling on darkness rather than light. This...

Is there any worse feeling than feeling alone? David cries out to the Lord in this Psalm and says, “I am alone and in deep distress.” Sometimes we feel like no one cares. Sometimes we feel like no one even notices. Loneliness is also a tool the enemy uses to make us feel hopeless and defeated. This message will remind us that we have a friend who sticks closer than a brother!

Fear magnifies our pain and steals away our joy. It is one of the enemy’s greatest tools and one of our greatest of human weaknesses. Fear, in and of itself, is a healthy emotion and a gift from God. In the enemy’s hand, it becomes a tool of self-destruction. This message will help us to discover how to not only face our fears, but how to push through them to victory.

It may have seemed to many that David lived a charmed life, but he didn’t. He suffered a lot of disappointments along the way, particularly with his children. This message will use Psalm 3 as a backdrop to talk about how God actually uses the disappointments of life to shape us and make us into who He’s called us to be.

This verse is special. It was Jesus’ life verse. It was the one He quoted in the synagogue when He began His ministry. He came to heal. He came to liberate. He came to bring life and light to a dying and dark world. Then, before He left us, He declared that “As God the Father sent me, so send I you!” Jesus’ life-verse became our mandate. Go do as He did. We are given more than a second chance. We...