Vista Community Church

How you love others has less to do with what you do but everything to do with knowing, embracing and living out of who YOU are…

Going further with the concepts of holiness/sacred and the profane, I set the stage for some practical application about how we must be different in the midst of a culture that's losing its way...

I dusted off a 34-yr old paper written by one of the Religion professors at Grove City College (where Tammy and I are both Alumni), and it ends up informing this weeks sermon! Wow.

I'm headed back into town after being away for a week attending to things with family in the midst of our loss of my dad. I wanted to take just moment here to express the Smith family's gratitude for all of you that have offered your prayers and support, and to give you a quick personal update...

Worshipping God is getting to know Him…but worship isn’t complete unless the one you’re worshipping knows you.

An incomprehensibly blessed life is ending this week, instantly flipping upside-down the lives of those who loved him and whose lives radiated out from his: Mom's dear husband of 56 years, my sister Julie's and my Pop, and the grandkids' Papa. Taught me nearly everything I know. Gave me nearly everything I have. Loved everything I ever did. Took credit for nothing – gave all of that to God.

After listening to a podcast about the impact of COVID on the Church (which concluded, that due to its infatuation with "returning to normal") the Church (in general) missed it's opportunity to follow God into what could have been healthy and necessary adaptations to its methods. But not us, Vista! I was very encouraged to know that in June we saw the opportunity and – with great intentionality –...

The Christian life always involves change…

Even though you're demographic has been hardest hit, we don't wish that you'd concede or just get out of the way – you are irreplaceable, valuable beyond words, and a critical a part of the church and our [re]church efforts. Forgive me for not realizing the subtle demoralizing and despiriting messages that, as part of our older generation, you must fend off.

It's a mushy sloppy life where there is forgiveness, mercy, or grace without first a clear accountability for and recognition of wrongdoing. Think about it. What is being forgiven if there is no understanding of failure? What good is the mercy of judge if there hasn't first been a judgment and an impeding consequence. And how would we ever fully grow up (children sure don't have a chance) if there...

When Djokovic was defaulted after accidentally striking a line judge with a tennis ball, I wondered how wonderful it would be if that kind of infraction-clarity and swift consequence were true in society in general. It wouldn't only be wonderful, it would be healthy, and it would be a significant part of slowing our culture's downward moral spiral. In fact, if we follow God's moral law (which only...

God doesn’t care about your dreams…What God cares about is you getting in alignment with His dream.

Our core values are rooted in Jesus teaching about the two greatest commandments (Love God; Love Others) and his great commission (Go, and make disciples). We remember those this way: Worshipful, Relational, Missional. We'll cover them in details in our Sunday teachings, Sept 20th – Oct 4th, 2020, but here's an overview...

Met with the Leadership Team Thu night and kicked off the [re]church season. It was a great meeting and even better just seeing all of their faces. I realize from the discussion that it's going to be important to keep reiterating what we intend with the  [re]church initiative. So here  is...

Continuing the previous episode, Pastor Mike does a brief overview of the 5 spiritual characteristics listed in Ephesians 4:11...(A)postle, (P)rophet, (E)vangelist, (S)hepherd, and (T)eacher, often referred to as APEST.

This is a re-load of (One of the Most Power Tools...) which was errantly loaded as a duplication of the previous episode. In this episode Pastor Mike DOES actually talk about one of the greatest tools at your disposal, as well as a quick overview of Eph 4:11, commonly known as the APEST verse...

Love dies with pride, but comes alive with humility.

Ever since Jesus started the Church, he's been reshaping the Church. Mostly because only manage to trust and follow Him for short stretches of time. In any case, his mercies are new every morning, so all we have to do is [re]follow Him and he'll orchestrate His [re]church. Always has; Always will. What a blast to be entrusted with such purpose. Let's go, Vista!

Problems, challenges, impasses, trauma, change, etc...all create emotional, psychological stress. I'm no psychologist, so don't quote me on all that...just try to catch my point: The world we live in right now is internally stressful. And when people are stressed, we communicate poorly.  We "communicate" nearer to the ends of the continuum that stretches from "spewing" to "stuffing." We're going t...

In the first two episodes of the "Do you know...the Bible" mini-series Pastor Mike talked about Who the Bible is to, and What the Bible is about. In this third episode he covers What the Bible is for. Hopefully a few more Bible episodes will come about in the future so he'll have the opportunity to create a few more titles that end with prepositions!

COVID is changing the way the world [c]onnects with each other, [c]ongregates in large groups, and gathers [c]ontent; it's also exposed systemic/operational weaknesses in all sectors of society; and it's particularly exposing the inadequacies in the church's approach to reaching the post-christian communities we live in. [re]church is our attempt to [re]shape...to learn, grow, and get better at wh...

If our foundation is having God’s perspective of relationships, then the first floor is selflessness and the practice of forgiveness, communication, and encouragement.

God's telling one big beautiful story in the Bible, and we get to peek in, be steeped in it, and be changed by it all. The whole story can be captured, generally, with the acrostic G.O.S.P.E.L. (for which I borrow heavily from NT Wright's sweep: Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus, Church, Eternity...or maybe he uses Re-Creation)

To [re]church properly we've got to understand the purpose of the Bible, and that starts with three basic questions: Who was it written to? Who was it written for? And, why?

If you're having trouble finding, receiving or keeping up to speed with the Vista information flow Mike's guidance and tutorial here with respect to our website, facebook page and instagram feed might just be the thing you need. He's also very excited (maybe too excited) about a discovery he made that was a game-changer for him!