VUE Church

Jesus began His ministry by stating a set of paradoxes that we call the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5. George focused on the first two (poor in spirit, mourning) and their relationship in our everyday lives to help us keep living from an open heart. SLIDES GEORGE'S READ IN OUR GATHERING When we describe God, we can only use similes, analogies, and metaphors. All theological language is an appr...

Can we discover strength in our weakness? Sounds absurd, but unique to Christianity is the idea that someone is strongest in their lowest moments. Most of us who call ourselves Christians do so on the basis of belief more than experience. We’ve substituted theological ideas for the experience of life; we are full of religious notions, but our great weakness is that for our hearts, there is no one...

What a facinating way to articulate how to really live!?Jesus: "whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it." (Matthew 16:25) SLIDE GEORGE READ The cross says, "The pain stops here.” The way of the cross is a way of absorbing pain, not passing it on, a way that transforms pain from destructive impulse into creative power. When Jesu...

When we describe God, we can only use similes, analogies, and metaphors. All theological language is an approximation offered tentatively in holy awe. That’s the best human language can achieve. We can say, “It’s like . . .” or “It’s similar to . . .”; but we can never say with absolute certainty, “It is . . .” We absolutely must maintain a fundamental humility before the Great Mystery; otherwise,...

Tensions are largely considered a negative thing. In this teaching, George explores the vitality and necessity of some dynamic tensions that, when held together, are good and reveal to us a new and larger truth. SLIDES GEORGE READ “Any time you take a dynamic tension at the heart of human vitality and ask people to pick one or the other, you are going to have absolute madness.” —Rob Bell, Congress...

As we began a new year, George read to us Psalm 139 which reminds us we are wonderfully made and everyone is worthy of love. SLIDE GEORGE READ I want to feel that I am thoroughly and completely understood so that now and then, I can take my guard down, and look out around me, and not feel that I will be destroyed with my defenses down. I want to feel completely vulnerable and absolutely secure tha...

Christmas Eve at the Bellevue Community Center December 24, 2023.

It’s no easy task to walk this earth and find peace. Inside of us, something is at odds with the very rhythm of things.  An unquenchable fire lies at the center of the human experience. Sometimes it hits us as pain— restlessness, dissatisfaction, frustration, and aching.  At other times it’s felt as a deep energy, as something beautiful, as an inescapable pull, more important than anything else in...

The liturgical year is an adventure in bringing the Christian life to fullness, the heart to alert, the soul to focus. It does not concern itself with the questions of how to make a living. It concerns itself with the questions of how to make a life.  -Joan Chittister

George-Advent is about waiting and hoping with room for many different experiences like hope & joy, longing & aching, lament & peace, woundedness & healing, darkness & light. Join us as we explore why the practice of Advent can tune our lives to the greater things to come that our hearts long for. SLIDES READ IN OUR GATHERING Those who learn to wait are uneasy about their way o...

George - In some ways, we all may undervalue the depth of friendship as a vital aspect of growth and learning in the spiritual life. But understanding the deeper meaning of true friendship can have incredible healing possibilities for our lives. For me, often, poetry helps me understand the underlying, deeper meaning of words. The essay below, by one of my favorite poets, David Whyte, opened my he...

Seeing someone well is a powerfully creative act. No one can fully appreciate their own beauty and strengths unless those things are mirrored back to them. There is something in being seen that brings forth growth. If you beam the light of your attention on me, I blossom.  If you see great potential in me, I will probably come to see great potential in myself. If you can understand my frailties an...

George-when the world is breaking all around us we can often feel helpless. But the reality is we can make a difference in the social fabric nearest us by leaning into the relationships that make up our everyday lives. In this series, we are looking at how seeing one another and being seen by others makes a bigger difference than we might initially think. SLIDES George Read In Our Gathering: "We h...

Jesus in John 15 says, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." What's the invitation here: to change, fix, convert, or to love? As one theologian says: "Love is a transforming power when we are poised to promote the good of those in range." SLIDES GEORGE READ We are created for love. There is no other energy that can truly bring together what has been tor...

Adam Buzard from Operation Andrew Group shared with us research done with the Barna Group about the "State of Nashville" concerning how both the churched and the unchurched feel about faith in our city. About Operation Andrew Group: UNITE. PARTNER. LOVE. We seek to unite the Body of Christ as we partner with the local church to love God and our neighbors. Operation Andrew Group, in partnership wit...

So what happens when you worship the creator God whose plan to rescue the world and put it to rights has been accomplished in Jesus? Because you were made in God’s image, worship makes you more truly human. When you gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image you were made, you do indeed grow. You discover more of what it means to be fully alive. -N.T. Wright, Simply Christian Neuroscient...

In this teaching, George reflected on the practice of communion and the thought that the grape & grain in the elements, remind us of why all human labor necessary for human flourishing is SACRED.

In Luke 24 Jesus is recognized by his disciples only after having a meal with them at a table. Thousands of years later we are still realizing Christ's presence at our communion tables. Who's invited? Everyone! “If Jesus died for this kind of inclusion at the table, why would we constrict it after his death instead of expanding it? It’s like saying: Only well people are allowed to receive God’s me...

George explored the question: What are we doing here? Worship is so much more than what we do on Sunday mornings for an hour. Nonetheless, what we do in that hour is vital and significant to what it means to worship with our lives. Romans 12 says that we are more than offering our individual selves to God when we gather to worship. We are actually creating some larger together. Singing matters, bu...

In 2 Corinthians 6, Paul lists several hardships he's faced, yet after a whole passage of naming them, it doesn't end in despair. Somehow, accepting hardship was a pathway forward to peace which helped him see life in its wider perspective. SLIDES GEORGE READ "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show...

In this teaching, George talks about the lack of margin many of us live with leading to chronic overload and exhaustion. The American Psychological Association says 7 out of 10 U.S. adults feel completely overwhelmed with life. Jesus says we can learn the unforced rhythms of grace to live more lightly and freely.  SLIDES GEORGE READ IN OUR GATHERING In emotionally healthy churches, people understa...

Justin and Trisha Davis share vulnerably and honestly about the failure of their marriage. What followed was a 4-year journey of pain, grief, and ultimately the restoration of their relationship. LEARN MORE ABOUT JUSTIN & TRISHA HERE Refine Us Ministries

What a special Sunday gathering to start a new school year! We created some sacred space for prayer: for our schools, teachers, administrators, counselors, support staff, coaches, SRO’s, custodians, bus drivers, parents, & students. Some members of our community lead us in some beautiful ‘prayers of the people.’ SLIDE GEORGE READ IN THE GATHERING I have come to think that much public prayer in...

One of the mantras of our modern world is DO more, BE more, HAVE more which can lead us to live a hurried life. In this sermon, George talked about how hurry is incompatible with the love, joy, and peace that are right at the center of Jesus’ vision of life. God walks “slowly” because he is love. If he is not love he would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a sp...

Let's talk about our phones and the 2nd book of the Bible and a story that's thousands of years old and how they're related. Is your phone the first thing you reach for in the morning and the last thing you touch before bed? Do you frequently pick it up "just to check it?” Today, just over a decade since smartphones entered our lives, we're beginning to suspect that their impa...