The Branch Church

What does it mean to be blessed? And how do we experiencing the blessing Christ talks about? By accumulating power? Putting on a good face? By protecting our interest? What if openness, humility and vulnerability were the door through which we experience a blessed life? To see the google doc we created together in worship, click here.  

Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with three passages that carry a similar theme: a life of faith, life in the Kingdom, is more than just lip service or idle listening. We are called to bear fruit. Which perhaps begs a question: how? How does one bear fruit? Together we consider some ideas and encourage each other to be intentional this week. See the google doc we created at the end of the messag...

Presence, Not Performance Matthew 6:1-18 (The Message) In the second week of this series we consider the temptation to turn faith into a performance. We can so easily try to leverage gifts like prayer and generosity for our own benefit -- to gain the attention of others or the approval of God. Jesus is clear: this is an upside down way to live. The call is not to perform, but to be present. To go...

Our final week looks at a core value that pushes against one of the strongest currents in modern day life.

Good news: this week's podcast is nice and short. Bad news: it's nice and short because only the first half got recorded. Back to the good news: the 2nd half was really just us giving time for people to reflect on Romans 16:1-15, write their thoughts in a google doc ( which you can find here ) and then mention a few notes to finish up. If you're giving this a listen, we invite you to add to the go...

Week three brings us to the core value of simplicity. Yes, the world is in need of renewal; and yet, God does not intend for us to burn out as we try to be everything to everyone. Instead, we must choose simplicity. We must discern what is ours to do and not to do.  Here is a link to the google doc we created. And here is the link to the blog post Chris references from Nadia Bolz Weber.

Week 2 of our series on our core values takes us through the value of incarnation. We consider what it means to be incarnational and what we might do to embody the presence of Christ in our everyday lives.

Our first week in a series on our core values takes a look at Liberty -- a commitment we have made to practice humility, proximity and curiosity when we encounter those who we disagree with, dislike or are different from. Here is the google doc we created together. And here is an excellent podcast that covers some of the same ground we did.

Our final Sunday in our series. Together, we look back at the series as a whole, and consider three themes we see in the collective of characters.

This week, instead of focusing on one or two biblical characters, we're looking at 28. Most of these folks, from Romans 16, are never mentioned again in the biblical text, and yet this passage (Romans 16:1-16) helps to remind us of how God calls us to live, and how that might differ from the current of our culture.

Guest preacher Deborah McCreary invites us to consider what Shiphra and Puah's story may have to say to us today.

Elliot leads us through the extremely short, and often overlooked book of Philemon - inviting us to ask what Onesimus, Philemon and Paul may have to teach us about our vocation.

After considering the 'After-Times' in the month of May, we pick up a series we started in April: Faces of Our Faith. This week, we look at Priscilla and Aquila. They are only mentioned in four places in the NT - and yet their story instructs and challenges us for what our lives might look like today. 

What do we want our lives to look like in the After-Times? As the pandemic wanes and we move out of a period of disorder, how will we re-order our lives? We continue that conversation in week 3 of our series.

The pandemic is not over and yet things are beginning to change. This raises a number of questions, including: what have we learned and who do we want to become on the other side of the pandemic? Week 2 of this series invites us to look inward and ask questions about what we've gained and what we've lost and how that might inform that kinds of people we want to become in the After-Times.

We begin our series in which we'll look at a number of often-overlooked biblical characters. Yet, despite their lack of notoriety and short screen time, these people are examples to us -- providing insight, wisdom and instruction for what our lives might look like today.

The promise of peace. This is what Jesus offers. And not just peace in the sense of an absence of tension or conflict -- but peace in the sense of wholeness and restoration. We consider the resurrection and what it means for us as we wrestle with the fears of our everyday lives, and how that fear is put in its proper place in light of what Jesus has done. 

Our final week (for now) of debriefing on our look into vocation. We've enjoyed this six week journey, and your participation with us! Stay tuned as we consider how/when to keep this conversation going.

Our final week in this Lenten series, we consider two of the gifts Jesus gives to us as he sends us out to be people of shalom in the world. 

Our fifth week of looking back on Sunday's sermon (what it means to walk together when we live out our vocation) and saying a few things we didn't have time for (just how hard it can be to walk together).

Jesus sends out his disciples in pairs. This was not an accident. To be people of shalom - people who live out our vocation - we will need each other.

Discerning our vocation can be aided by considering a unique intersection. Where does our deep gladness, the world's deep hunger and the work of God's Spirit intersect? We explore this together by looking at Luke 10 and the sending of the 70.

A quick look back at Sunday's sermon and a discussion about a cycle that can all too easily show up when we try to live out our vocation.

Did you miss Sunday? Or, want to go a bit deeper on vocation? You can do both in the time it takes you to get to the grocery store (this week - the episode is just over 7.5 minutes!). We're having fun looking back on Sunday's sermon, and sharing one thing we didn't get to cover. Thanks for listening!

Last week we considered this truth: that when we live out our vocation we are joining in God's work of restoring shalom to the world. This week, we take the idea of shalom and look inward. Could living out our vocation not only change the world, but us as well?