The Connection Church

Please enjoy this encouraging and challenging message from this morning’s guest speaker, Mark Shell.

In his letters, the apostle Paul, made statements like “if God be for us, who can be against us?” and “we are more than conquerors.” Where does the audacity and boldness to declare this come from? Does this mean that, like Paul and those early Christians, we have some sort of power that can lift us up above the often chaos and hopelessness in the world around us? Is this merely a power that we fin...

Follower of Christ. Lover of God. Servant of the Most High. The most loving person. These are the things most Christians would want to be said about them long after they are gone. Unfortunately, for one of Jesus’ disciples, none of the above words are the first words that come to mind when remembering him. Because of one moment—one sentence—Thomas’ whole life has been summed up with a nickname tha...

Power. This is one word that must be associated with the resurrection of Jesus. The power that was present when Jesus rose from the grave on that first Easter Sunday morning is immeasurable. Great hymns of the faith remind us how there is “power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the Lamb.” The power of God exploded upon the infrastructure of sin, death, Satan, and hell when Jesus accomp...

Great courage was demonstrated on the day Jesus died. He was born sinless to die a sinner’s gruesome death on a Roman cross. Not only do we witness the courage of Jesus on display during Good Friday, but also we see the courage of one of His followers stepping out of the shadows of secrecy and into the light of open association with Jesus. This Sunday, we will look into the life of this secret fol...

If God is love, does He just sit in Heaven pining for us? Last week we began examining Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, the reason we gather, the reason we live and breathe, the revelation of what God is really like. And we saw that everything that He is and does emanates from His love. After all, He is love! We continue our Easter sermon series this Sunday by discovering more of what...

JESUS. The name above all names. God became man to walk among His people—love them, lead them, and ultimately die for them. But the story didn’t end there. For the next five Sundays, join us for an Easter experience exploring the love, salvation, death, and resurrection of our Anointed King of all creation!

As believers, we start the maturing process when we accept our responsibility to become sons and daughters of God. However, the process of becoming spiritually mature comes with a cost. This Sunday, we will cover a third cost in our final part of the Upgraded sermon series.

You can define spiritual maturity in one phrase: Spiritual maturity is being like Christ. Most of us want to grow. Most of us want to mature. Most of us want to be like Christ. Yet many times, we come up short. This Sunday, we will focus on the one discipline that is essential for a Christian to spiritually mature.

The day a person gives his or her life to Christ should mark the start of an ongoing process of maturing spiritually. This process requires a radical reordering of one’s priorities. It takes a willingness to change from pleasing oneself to pleasing God and learning to obey Him. Scripture is very clear that God wants us to mature. He wants us Upgraded, so we can be the best that we can be for Him.

Esther, a Jewish maiden living in exile in a foreign land, faced many challenges in her life. However, this didn't stop her from becoming the Queen of the Persian empire. As queen, she was able to overcome the horrible odds that were stacked against her and save her people, the Jews, from certain death. This week we will see how she won the battle for her people and discover the two attribute...

Esther, a Jewish maiden living in exile in a foreign land, faced many challenges in her life. But she didn’t let the bad cards she had been dealt defeat her. While most would crumble under the pressure, Esther conquered her fears and turned her disadvantages into victories.

In the book of Joshua, we are introduced to one of the most thought-provoking and astonishing heroines of the Old Testament. Rahab, the prostitute of the Canaanite city of Jericho, is noteworthy for her great faith and for her place in the lineage of Jesus Christ. But a closer examination of the life of this remarkable Gentile woman can lead to deeper insights into God’s dealing with individual be...

The narratives of the Old Testament are a rich resource for God’s people. There is no better example of this than the story of Deborah in the book of Judges. Deborah was a mighty judge for the people of Israel. She was a strong woman of influence who led her people out of 20 years of bondage into 40 years of peace. Find out how she accomplished this on Sunday, as we continue examining the Victorie...

Gideon was a mighty judge for the people of Israel. His first victorious battle over the Midianites, with a puny 300 man army, is legendary. Through the amazing story of Gideon, we can learn how to face any battle with confidence. During his 40 year rule, all of Israel lived in peace. However, Gideon was not without his faults. And this Sunday, we will glean from Gideon’s Victories and Failures, a...

Gideon was the youngest in his family, but still became the fifth recorded judge of Israel. By putting aside his station of being poor and being from the most insignificant tribe, he was able to accept the calling of God for his life. Gideon, with God’s help, led the people of Israel to victory over their Midianite oppressors. Because of Gideon, “the land had peace forty years.” (Judges 8:28) Desp...

We believe for 2018 that God is going to bring unexpected shifts to The Connection Church—unexpected shifts in your life. When we say “unexpected shifts,” we’re talking about supernatural shifts of favor in your life. A turning point that puts you on a path to fulfilling your destiny. A turning point that makes you victorious.

Incarnation is a term used by theologians to indicate that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, took on human flesh. It is one of the greatest events to occur in the history of the universe. It is without parallel. The Incarnation was an astonishing act of humility that was on full display from the beginning to the end, from Bethlehem to Golgotha. And He did it all because He loves us!

There is nothing worth more than you. Yes, you! Did you read that and say, “Yeah, yeah…” and mostly, or even partially, doubt that it’s true? Here’s the thing—God really thinks that way about you. Need proof? God lowered Himself from His divine and heavenly throne to take on human flesh, the same type of human body that we all have, becoming one of us (He values us that much!). Then, to break the...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “No pastor, no theologian stood at the manger of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of all wonders: that God became human. Holy theology arises from knees bent before the mystery of the divine child in the stable. The purpose of theology is to preserve the miracle as miracle, to comprehend, defend, and glorify God’s mystery precisely as...

More than 2,000 years ago, the Jewish people saw themselves captive in a world that was just not right, with no liberty to live and rule themselves as God had promised. They longed for a God-anointed king to come and save them and set them free. And today, we find ourselves in a world that still shows evidence of brokenness, waiting for our Anointed King to return and finally bring His Kingdom to...

So far in this sermon series, Victories & Failures, we have seen in the lives of the early Old Testament patriarchs that God was very patient and merciful in spite of these men’s failures. He brought them through those bumps in the road to lead victorious lives. The overall lesson for today? God deals with us with the same mercy and graciousness! This Sunday, we will finish our look into the l...

As we continue our exploration of the characters found in the Old Testament, we see such drama developing in the story of the family that God is forming under Abraham and Isaac. It is like watching a daytime soap opera play out in the beginning pages of our Bible. The story seems almost ridiculous until we realize that it reveals the heart of mercy, patience, and love that God holds and gives to t...

Isaac was blessed by God just like his father, Abraham. And like his father, he wasn’t blessed because he was good or perfect, but because of his faithfulness to God. Isaac definitely had victories, but he had just as many failures. He even made some of the same mistakes as his father. Did Isaac have to make the same mistakes as his father? Were Abraham’s sins passed on to Isaac? Was it inevitable...

Abraham was a man chosen by God for something huge. But just because he was called by God didn't mean that he was perfect. As a matter of fact, Abraham was far from perfect! However, despite his imperfections and failures, God still used Abraham mightily. The miraculous thing is that God took the mistakes in Abraham's life and turned it into victory. What we must realize is that God desi...