Verve City Church: Weekly Messages

This Week: Understanding the grace of Jesus requires us to acknowledge our faults and our sin. As Donald Miller once wrote, “Grace only sticks to our imperfections.” Thankfully, those imperfections are not the end of our story. Series Overview: One of the most unchallenged beliefs in Western culture is that life is about finding happiness. There is an ancient alternative to living for happiness, h...

This Week: Is it crazy to believe in angels, demons, or some kind of “devil” figure? What did Jesus seem to believe about the existence of a spiritual realm? And even if any of those things are real, what implications does that have for us? Series Overview: One of the most unchallenged beliefs in Western culture is that life is about finding happiness. There is an ancient alternative to living for...

This Week: While the word has lost most of its weight and is often said with a wink and a smile, “sin” points to a deeper darkness that we are all familiar with if we’re honest: our human propensity to make a mess of things and our inclination to make good things into ultimate things.  View the discussion guide and recommended resources. Series Overview: One of the most unchallenged beliefs in Wes...

This week: Where and how you start the story determines the kind of story you are telling. So what kind of story are you living? Why are you here and what is your purpose? The origin story of the universe that Jesus believed is so different from our common understanding that it almost seems divine. Series Overview: One of the most unchallenged beliefs in Western culture is that life is about findi...

You probably know that Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead. Yet that’s not the way the world works: dead things stay dead. But what if death doesn’t have the final word? What if that reality could change the way we live?

This week: Anxiety lies to us. It's a schoolyard bully taking advantage of our vulnerabilities. It can feel like an unstoppable force. But in the greatest sermon ever, Jesus taught us to confront the lies of anxiety with the truth of God's goodness. Series overview: You can’t understand how good Michael Jordan was if you’ve never watched a video of him playing. You can’t comprehend the c...

This week: Christians all over the world are taught that prayer is important. Even people who don’t consider themselves to be affiliated with a particular religious tradition sometimes find themselves praying in the midst of heartache. Does prayer “work?” And if it does, what does it accomplish? And if it accomplishes anything, how do we actually pray? Series overview: You can’t understand how goo...

Our church has always existed to help people find life by following Jesus, and that remains our mission today. We believe God goes where God is wanted, and we deeply and prayerfully desire to be a vibrant, passionate faith community in which more people will find their lives transformed by Jesus in the years ahead. In this special message, Lead Pastor Josh Crain shares vision for the next five yea...

This week: Making snap judgments is human nature, right? Judgments keep us safe and help us organize our world into all sorts of helpful categories... But what's the difference between judging critically and judging harshly? How can we avoid letting our moral standards become a trap of hypocrisy? Jesus modeled how we can find fulfillment by living with humility and gentleness. Series overview...

This week: When someone hurts us, our impulse is to get them back. We want to get even because even feels fair. But it doesn’t end up feeling good. In fact, it doesn’t end at all. We get sucked into a never-ending cycle of retaliation. Jesus did His best to give grace to those who treated Him the worst. What made Him think this counter-intuitive strategy would make a difference? And why did He ins...

This week: In the beatitudes, Jesus taught that the people who are often at the bottom of society are actually blessed beyond their wildest imaginations. The world has struggled to believe him ever since. How might grasping the beginning theme of his sermon on the mount change the way we see God, ourselves, and the world around us? Series overview: You can’t understand how good Michael Jordan was...

This week: Genius violates the status quo; it challenges deeply held beliefs and values. Genius is original; it sees the world from a perspective that didn’t exist before. Genius is transformative; it leaves its mark and divides the world into “before” and “after.” Genius is transformative, but it’s not typically transferable. Jesus was a genius. But perhaps the defining, world-shaking characteris...

This week: How Christians Can Shape Culture We can condemn culture, we can critique culture, we can copy culture, and we can consume culture. But none of that changes it. The only way to shape culture is to create culture. Jesus did it. The early church did. We can do it, too. Series overview: Are you interested in learning more about the kind of life Jesus invited us into? Do the teachings of Jes...

This week: How to Make Peace in an Anger Culture We see it in airplanes, at ballgames, in social media feeds, and on political talkshows: people are angry. Increasingly, our culture is fed a steady diet of fear and outrage and we feel justified when we lash out at others. Jesus called his followers to be peacemakers. How can we shape the culture more than the culture shapes us? Series overview: Ar...

This week: How Nationalism Warps Faith Almost every nation that has ever existed believed God, or the gods, was on their side. Powerful kings, queens, dictators, and politicians have consistently shown a knack for tapping into religious fervor in order to further a political agenda. How has nationalistic fervor warped the faith of Christians who came before us? And how can we keep it from happenin...

This week: How to Lose a Culture War In 1991 James Davison Hunter wrote a book and titled it with a phrase for what he saw playing out in America’s fights over abortion, gay rights, and religion in public schools: “Culture Wars.” In 2014, CNN published an article by Rachel Held Evans entitled “How Evangelicals Won a War and Lost a Generation.” What does thinking Jesusly help us discern about the w...

This week: How to Think Jesusly The earliest Christians encouraged followers of Jesus to take every thought captive to Christ, to put on the mind of Jesus, and to have the same mindset of Christ. Which begs the question: how did Jesus think? What was unique about his thought patterns and worldview that might shape our own? Series overview: Are you interested in learning more about the kind of life...

This week: How Culture Shapes Us Christians say they want to live more like Jesus. Even non-Christians say that want Christians to live more like Jesus. So why don’t they? It’s time to explore two of the most challenging barriers to living the life Jesus has invited us into: the culture in which we live and the culture in which Jesus lived. Series overview: Are you interested in learning more abou...

Student Pastor Greg Morton offers thoughts on how our intentional moments with God and in connection with our faith community can shape us in the New Year ahead.

Week 3 - For many of us, Santa Claus embodied the magic of Christmas when we were children: a selfless, timeless being who rewarded good behavior with lavish gifts. But where did our modern-day understanding of Jolly Old St. Nick come from? And how is he perceived around the world? And what does any of that have to do with Jesus?  Series overview - Ever wondered why some of our cherished Christmas...

Week 2- Bright whites, multicolored bulbs, incandescent string lights, icicle LEDs… Christmas lights strung from our rooftops are a sure sign of the season. One of the most famous fictional characters of Christmas even has a light-up nose that saves Santa! What if we could see all these lights as more than seasonal whimsy and, instead, a reminder of a beautiful truth that dazzles beyond anything w...

Each Christmas season millions of Americans place trees in their homes — draped in lights, engulfed in ornaments, a bundle of beautifully wrapped gifts gathered beneath the branches. It’s a beloved tradition with a complicated origin. What if a guided tour of the Christmas story meant you’d never look at a Christmas tree the same way again? Series overview: Ever wondered why some of our cherished...

Week 5 - "Be 1 of 11" Jesus founded the Church and invited each of us to play a role in it. But what is the church? What is its’ purpose? And what role, if any, are we invited to play in it? Series overview: The hit television show Ted Lasso took the world by storm because of its positivity, humor, and the charm of its lead character. A number of internet articles even compared Ted to Je...

Week 4 - "Be You" We can expend so much energy trying to be other people that we never become the best version of ourselves. How do we become satisfied with the life we’re living and stop spending so much time pining for the lives of others? Series overview: The hit television show Ted Lasso took the world by storm because of its positivity, humor, and the charm of its lead character. A...

Week 3 - "Be Curious Not Judgmental" Most of us grew up hearing the adage, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” And yet we make snap judgments about people we encounter every day. Jesus - and Ted Lasso - had a knack for connecting with people by asking questions. What attitudes and practices can we develop to encourage health and new understanding in our relationships? Series overview: The...