Teachings from Unionville Alliance

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Let's learn from International Workers Lorne and Vivian as they share stories from their work and pose the questions: How do you share the Gospel when you don’t share a common language? When you feel the Holy Spirit’s prompting, how do you respond?

We have studied who the Holy Spirit is, his work in the Old Testament and the New Testament. We have seen how he desires us to be planted by streams of living waters so we can live a Spirit empowered life. As we conclude this series, we will focus on the Spirit as the life giver within us. He wants us to experience abundant life through adoption into his family, prayer, fruitful living, and a cont...

How do we discern the difference between trusting in the flesh and trusting in the Spirit? Looking at Jeremiah 17:5-8, we will walk through the ways in which we can plant our trees next to streams of living water, so that regardless to what is around us we stay green and bear fruit.

The outpouring of the Spirit is a promise of the Father and Jesus for the people of God in the New Testament age. We have the privilege and blessing of the indwelling and abiding presence of the Holy Spirit to empower us for life and service. From the Day of Pentecost till today, the Spirit has been empowering people to fulfill and accomplish his will and mission. As we allow the Spirit to fill us...

We see the beauty, power, and work of the Holy Spirit in multiple ways in the Old Testament. He empowered prophets, priests, kings and others to accomplish His will and purpose. In a similar way, the Lord is calling us to be empowered by His Spirit to live out our calling as prophets and priests in this New Testament age. Let’s surrender to the Spirit and allow Him to fill us afresh each day!

Who is the Holy Spirit? Is he God? What is his role? What does he do? How should I relate to the Holy Spirit? These are all excellent questions that we will examine as we launch into our series on the Empowering Spirit. We will discover some of the attributes and functions of the Spirit and his desire to empower us to do his will.

Amazement and Chaos is an overview of the travels of Paul and Barnabas, two early church leaders, who were sent to respond to the growing church in new areas. In these areas, the message of Jesus Christ was received with amazement and followed by chaos. We will consider how Paul and Barnabas navigated the first century culture to better understand how we need to navigate our current cultural reali...

Jesus calls us to follow Him! That is not an easy task, but it is an important one if we desire to deepen our true identity in Him. Following Him means taking up our cross just as He did on Calvary, abiding in His word just as He obeyed the word from His Father, and revealing His love just like Jesus did among the disenfranchised. As we discover our identity as citizens of heaven, we can live this...

Our identity is rooted in who we are in Christ. As we are made new in Christ through repentance and by receiving his gift of forgiveness, he brings us into his family. We can find our identity in doing the will of God as part of his family, by understanding our role in the body of Christ with Jesus as the head, as living stones in the house of God with Jesus as the chief cornerstone, and as his br...

As we move onto our second part of the series on "Who Am I? Discovering our identity in Christ", we will study 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 and discover five clear marks that identify Christians as Ambassadors of Reconciliation, the challenge is: do you accept?

A new year is also a time of new beginnings. A time to leave the past behind and press into newness of life. One part of our identity that brings newness is the fact that we are forgiven by God. Forgiveness is the first step towards a reconciled relationship with God that helps us receive and walk in the fullness of God’s blessings for us. We need to realize that we are forgiven, redeemed, set fre...

What does it mean to be a child of God? We receive every spiritual blessing in Christ and from that comes new life at peace with God! So let us live in this new reality!

We look at the story of the Prodigal Son through the eyes of the Prodigal Father. He was prodigal in his extravagant giving of his possessions and especially his love. He realized that both his sons were lost and both needed to experience the depth of his love like never before. His actions are a beautiful display of the agape love of God which is unconditional, unmerited, and unending. Our heaven...

The older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son was very unprodigal. He didn't want to celebrate with the others, didn't want to accept his brother back, and was upset at his father for showing love and forgiveness to his brother. In many ways he reflects a lot of religious people who have missed the core message of the gospel. He was just as lost as his brother...and maybe even more. However,...

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The church of Smyrna was known as the persecuted church because of the suffering they went through for the cause of Christ. They were encouraged to stay faithful in the midst of difficult times knowing that a crown of life was awaiting them. As we remember the National Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, let us pray for and support our brothers and sisters around the world who are being perse...

The church in Sardis had a reputation that they were alive, but they were actually dead and the Lord wanted to awaken them to that reality. He wanted to revive and restore them to a vibrant life with him and the Lord desires to do the same for us. Do you know that you can be his child? Chosen, redeemed, forgiven, righteous, holy, blessed and totally complete in Christ! Let's listen to the Spirit a...

Jesus with eyes like a flame of fire saw and commended the church in Thyatira for their love, faith, service, and patience. Yet there was a spirit at work in the church to draw people away from a holy walk with God and towards false teaching and practices. They are encouraged to repent and stay faithful until Jesus returns. Let's listen in and hear what the Spirit is saying to our church and for o...

Jesus revealed himself to the church of Pergamum as the one who has the sharp two-edged sword which represents the word of God. He revealed the importance of the word of God and truthful teaching to a church tempted to compromise with the world and societal standards. They were faithful to the name of the Lord in the midst of difficult trials. Let's listen to the Spirit and hear what he has to say...

We don’t hear a lot in Revelation 3:7-13 to describe Philadelphia because we will notice most of the letter is taken over not with a description of the church but rather the verses are given over to comfort and encouragement. Little Philadelphia gets the most sustained discourse of promise and of hope—the smaller you are; the weaker you feel—the more it seems Jesus wants to come alongside and give...

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Our vision is to touch our world through Jesus, one life at a time. How can we do this? Who should we reach? What kind of life transformation does this inspire? Why is Jesus significant in this process? As we discover the answers to these questions we will see how we can effectively make a difference in our world for Christ as we pray for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Fear to serve Jesus Christ can grip our hearts. But Jesus says that we should take courage and not be afraid. If you enter into this conversation with him you'll see what amazing things He does. Hear the inspiring stories of those who took courage and the wonderful things that happened!

Barnabas was a man of vision and purpose. When others didn't want to have anything to do with Paul, Barnabas saw the potential of a great leader and kingdom builder. When Paul lost faith in Mark, Barnabas was willing to give him a second chance because he saw something great in Mark. Barnabas also saw the beauty of the gospel and the role of the church in bringing hope to this world. He was willin...