Summit Drive Church

We live in a culture that often sees “faith” and “reason” as opposites – at odds with each other. In this message we’ll see, however, that reason is a key resource for thinking Christianly, that the Bible says that: reason is possible, reason is necessary, reason is ‘broken’, and finally, that reason ‘has a Name.’

This week, Pastor Ricky explores the Christian perspective on our ability to know truth and explains how our personal experiences fit into our pursuit of truth.

We are beginning a series called “Thinking Christianly: On Loving God with Our Minds.”  Today we’ll see how the Christian faith requires the use of our minds, along with all the rest of our lives, in love of God and neighbour.

In Jesus’ first resurrection appearance to his disciples, we find that the Spirit who fills us and forms us to be like Jesus, empowers us for mission – to be God’s sent people for God’s good purpose of bringing God’s peace to the world.

In the final two messages of our “Shaped by the Spirit” series, we will focus in on the Person and work of the Holy Spirit; to see that it really is possible to “keep in step with the Spirit.”  For the Spirit, who is God, is the One who changes us.

Self-control is transfiguring the temptations of the flesh by habituating the love of God. Pastor Ricky will open up Galatians 5:13-25 and Matthew 4:1-11, demonstrating that self-control is not about self-mastery or brutal physical discipline, it is about control over our lower base and sinful desires. From there, we will see that temptations are resisted by engaging in habits that instill the lov...

This week Pastor Ricky teaches us that gentleness is when we stop using force to get our way and start making space for genuine love. He roots this in God’s gentleness displayed in Jesus, who shows that gentleness is power under control.

SHAPED BY THE SPIRIT: The Fruit of Life with God | Part 7: FAITHFULNESS

Goodness is one of the fruit that God cultivates in us by His Spirit. While we, as humans, are sinful and broken; God saves us out of His goodness, calls us to a life of goodness, and cultivates the fruit of goodness in us by His Spirit. Two key expressions of goodness are generosity and integrity.

This week, Pastor Ricky explores the fruit of kindness, arguing kindness produces real change. He will define our kindness by exploring the kindness of God as doing good for others, especially those who can’t return it or don’t deserve it.

SHAPED BY THE SPIRIT: The Fruit of Life with God | Part 4: PATIENCE

In the third installment of our Shaped by the Spirit series, Pastor Ricky will be sharing about the fruit of peace; teaching us that peace is the serenity that comes from our settled trust in God’s Fatherly care. It is the fruit of the truth that God is working for the good of those who love Him, the fruit of our calling to be righteous peacemakers, and the fruit of the discipline of silence and s...

Dan Sczebel, one of our Ukraine missionaries, will be preaching on how the Spirit grows the Jesus-like characteristic of Joy in us. The joy of the Lord that remains in us is the joy that makes our hearts full; His presence is our joy.

In this first message in our series on the fruit of the Spirit, we will be clearing the way to understand how God is working to make us more like Jesus. We’ll focus particularly on the characteristic of love and hear from one of our Ukraine missionaries to understand how love is committed action for the sake of others.

The story of Jonah is intended to bring us face-to-face with our own questions about how far God’s grace goes in order to ask if we will have God’s heart for the world. God’s questions to Jonah come back to us: what will you do with my grace toward those you think are undeserving of it? How will my grace change you?

It can often be a tendency of the human heart to want justice for those who do us wrong, but mercy when we do wrong. What if God is more consistent than that? Jonah 3 opens us up to the God who is just and merciful with complete consistency.

God meets Jonah - and often meets us - in a desperate place. Here we see that Jonah repents... sort of... as it seems that he remains unchanged at the core. But God is rich in mercy, and he delivers and uses Jonah - and us too - regardless of the shortcomings.

In Part Two we see how Jonah is falls fast asleep in the bottom of the ship – a signal of his spiritual condition of being in a deep spiritual slumber. Jonah’s spiritual apathy causes him to ignore the very real needs of the rest of the crew. This text continues to be full of surprises about how the God of mercy is working for our good and his glory, even through the storms.

In Part One of our series, Pastor Dave will help set the stage for understanding the surprising message of Jonah. As Jonah runs from God, we’ll see more of why that is the case and what it says to our own heart postures toward our enemies.

In the book of Hebrews, we are instructed to “fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest” (3:1b).  In a world where there are many things competing for our attention, may we fix our thoughts on him this week.

In this message Pastor Dave shows that in the ancient world, clothing was an indicator of where you “fit” in the world.  In the final portion of this letter Peter tells the Christian community to “clothe yourselves in humility”, essentially taking on an identity as servants.  How does this get played out?  This takes the very pattern of Jesus’ self-giving love and makes it the norm for Christian l...

In our passage, we see Peter helping us examine our ‘expectations’ of the Christian life. But not just examine these – he shows us how to find true joy, to ‘rejoice’, even when under pressure for our faith.

LIVING HOPE | Part 8: The Christian’s New Reality and the Call to Show Up

The story of Jesus’ resurrection in Mark’s Gospel leaves us with many questions – and we’ll explore those this week.  But in the end, it turns the biggest question of all back on us: What will we do with the news that “He is risen”?

Looking at John 19, we’ll wonder together with Pastor Andrea about what the cross means and who it is for. We’ll see both the cosmic and the particular as we encounter the Good Shepherd who lays His life down.