trinity forest church

Week 5 of Fruit of the Spirit brings us to Patience – or really, Endurance, Forbearance. It’s a tricky but powerful word, and the scriptures show us that it’s less a virtue we cultivate than a Spirit-grown part of our character that shows up and shows out as we deeply trust in Jesus. Come with us and look to Jesus here and the race he ran, finding inspiration, strength and power for enduring...

Week 4 of Fruit of the Spirit finds us on Love. Our guest preacher, Brian Martin, leads us deeper into Galatians 5 and the huge theme of love. Brian reminds us of the big idea of our whole lives and shows us the new “who” we love, the new standard for how we love (like Jesus!), and the new power to love – the gift of the Holy Spirit.

It’s summertime! That means a new series: the Fruit of the Spirit. Join us as we take ten weeks and set the tables and sit down for what the Holy Spirit is growing in us. Week 1 kicks it off with basics on fruit – what’s at stake, what it is, and how we get it. We discover that the Holy Spirit is committed to reproducing in us the life and character of Jesus Christ himself. That’s great news...

It’s the final week of our series The Story – and we return to Acts to talk about Praying the Story. One of the essential ways God works in prayer is connecting our understanding of his mission (in our heads) with our passionate obedience to his mission (in our hearts). Let’s hear how God called and sent people in his church … and how God is calling and sending each of us into the lives of those c...

We’re back! After a few technical difficulties recording – we have Week 6 of our Story series! This is when we start to put the chapters together. If the good news of Jesus is a story that is about reality, and if it is the true story of the whole world – how does it help us make sense of our own stories? Does God really have a part for us to discover and live out? And what does that living...

Act III of the Story story brings the good news to the bad news. If Act II was sin and the fall – creating the problem that we are separated from God and all our efforts in creation are bent and broken – then here’s the good news: In Jesus, God comes to the rescue of his people and his creation. Today we see Jesus standing before Pilate in John 18-19 and discover the heart of his mission. The real...

In our third week of this series, we come to Act II of the story: the problem. Genesis 3 is the passage of scripture that anchors our understanding of the one big problem, the conflict at the heart of our life and all creation: sin and all its consequences. How did we go wrong? How broad are the effects? What is our fundamental question before a holy God? And is there any good news in the midst of...

We step into something new: The Story . Human beings live by stories – we read, watch, and listen to them and we tell them and pass them around. More than that, we live from stories – we look to them to make sense of our lives and know where we are on the journey we call life. Week 1 starts us out in Acts 14.  At its core, the gospel (“good news”) of Jesus is a story. It is a story where God is th...

This Easter morning, we listen in on a conversation from that first Easter Day … but a little known story, later that day, in the evening, as it was getting dark. Because sometimes hope comes from the most surprising place – when you most need it and least expect it. Let’s listen and learn as Jesus shows us that though we might give up on God, he has not given up on us. And he has given each...

Palm Sunday means Psalm 118 – a prayer both on Jesus’ lips and in the people’s praise. We look at passion for God’s praise – in the streets, in the public square, and at the table after a meal. Along the way, we get a sense of what anger really is – a passion for what matters to you, a voice to be heard – and two key pictures of when it is rightly ordered (Jesus in the temple) and wrongly or...

Psalm 137 stands out in the Bible as a white-hot cry of pain from a place of hurt. Let’s discover one more way the psalms teach us to be honest about our hearts before God and others… instead of denial or resentment and revenge, bringing our hurts to God and finding attention and healing. Thank God that his word embraces our very real world, in all its hurt and hardship. Reflection Guide Download

Week 2 brings us Katie Macturk as a guest preacher from Storyhill Church! Continuing our “To be Honest” series, we sit with Psalm 126 and heart’s gladness and sadness. Looking back at the restoration that God has accomplished in the past gives us the confidence to ask God to restore us once more. The same God who has restored us before can restore us again! Reflection Guide

First of the new series! We look at Psalm 27 and the core human emotion of fear. Over these five weeks, the Psalms will both show us our hearts and teach us to be honest with our hearts to God. They teach us to pray, as David Taylor says, “Not to escape your life but to be open and unafraid about it”. Psalms help us express our hearts to God, not praying what we “think” we are supposed to, but wha...

Revelation 21-22 paints the most beautiful picture of God’s new creation – life in the new heavens and the new earth. We discover that it is a real place, packed full of God’s people, and filled with his presence. And that focuses and fuels our work as a church now: in this place, with these people, pointing to God’s presence and his call to salvation! Thanks for staying with us as we wrap u...

Revelation 19.2 starts with “for true and just are his judgments.” In these two chapters, we get the true word on Jesus’ return, his judgment, and his salvation. Come discover why these matters must matter to us and why they are safe in God’s hands. And hear the choice before you and the invitation to meet the judge …who is a friend.

Revelation 6-19 is the part of the book … “where the wild things are.” It’s the unrolling of the scroll: God’s plan to save and to judge. We look at chapter 6 plus selected scenes to discern what’s happening, what God does with his church, who the enemy is, where we live – and how we persevere. Note: this is a re-recorded “extended version” since our recording did not quite take when we were live...

We keep pressing on in this letter …to Portrait #3: Jesus at the throne! Revelation 4-5 are the key to interpreting this whole book. Here we zoom in on the throne room scene to see Jesus, the lamb who was  slain, standing right there at the center. Join us in discovering how this vision redefines so much for us – our posture in worship, our grasp of power, and our ethics: how we live.

On Friday I adapted a bit of Revelation 4 for this snow day weekend when we can’t gather. The vision Jesus gives John shows us what’s true – even when we don’t perceive it, and even when everything seems otherwise. I encourage you take a few minutes this weekend to watch it, read Revelation 4, and use the short mediation or discussion guide posted at our website. And much joy as the snow fal...

Week two of Revelation! We’re looking at the “portraits” revelation paints and this one (ch. 2-3) is what Jesus has to say to the Church – back in the first century, in our age, and really in any age. It’s a mix of blessing, critique, and challenge. Jesus has words for us that carry notes of warning and promises of comfort and victory. If our church is going to be his faithful witness, we will hav...

Starting a new book! Our church will spend the next six weeks taking an extended tour through the book of Revelation. Imagine you’re walking through a gallery and seeing six pictures, six creative portraits representing Jesus and his work. That’s this book: Revelation isn’t a code to break or a puzzle to be solved – but a piece of poetic, prophetic, pastoral care for you and everyone else learning...

Happy New Year! We took this Sunday to dig deeper on what Jesus calls his church to in terms of community. Borrowing a little from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his short book “Life Together,” we talk about how the good news of Jesus makes us sons and daughters in faith – and brothers and sisters of one another. This kind of deep community is the dream in all our hearts and in our wider culture, but it’s...

It’s our last week of the “Do you see …?” series, looking through the eyes of the characters in the story of the coming of Jesus. What do they show us about Jesus, and how does their story illuminate our stories? This week we pick up the story of the magi (wise men) and the two kings (Herod and Jesus). We look at the journey (where are we going?), the search (how can we know?) and the challe...

Keeping with our theme of “Do you see…?” for Advent, we skip forward in the story of Jesus’ birth to when Mary and Joseph present their new baby at the temple and they meet Simeon and Anna. These two older people challenge our view of Jesus. He is not just the sweet little baby Jesus in the manger; he is the center of God’s story in the scriptures, and his mission is salvation for all nations. Tha...

This week we looked at the Christmas narrative through the eyes of Mary and Elizabeth as it is told in Luke 1. This passage teaches us something crucial for the Christian life today: because Jesus came to us, we can come to him. This advent season, may we all reflect anew on the miracle of Jesus coming to us as our Immanuel, a name that literally means “God with us”.

It was a joy to have Dr. Wes Vander Lugt as our guest preacher this week and look at the story lines of Zechariah and Elizabeth. Each week, we’re asking the question: do you see? This week we find people asking God that very question – and he does indeed see them. And they are liberated by the God who sees them … to see him and see others rightly. Let’s look through them and see!