WestGate Church Teaching

Well, guys, it’s the final week of our Here to Stay Campaign. As we wind up the public-facing aspect of the campaign, Jay talks about the lessons he’s learned during this campaign (including the months and months leading up to this), and what kinds of things he wants to carry forward with him into the future - both personally and us, as a church family. That’s the important stuff, but we also brie...

One of the most famous stories that Jesus ever told is called the story of the Good Samaritan. It’s a story about activated compassion, about helping people who are hurt, even if it’s risky and even if it costs you. This is the way of Jesus. Over the past 16 years, WestGate Church has been haunted by the question “If WestGate Church burned down, would anyone care?” And we’ve tried to answer that w...

One of the most famous stories that Jesus ever told is called the story of the Good Samaritan. It’s a story about activated compassion, about helping people who are hurt, even if it’s risky and even if it costs you. This is the way of Jesus. Over the past 16 years, WestGate Church has been haunted by the question “If WestGate Church burned down, would anyone care?” And we’ve tried to answer that w...

This past weekend, we talked about how one (hugely important!) element of the Here to Stay Campaign is about generosity - we want to try, as a church, to give away more money outside of our walls than we ever have before. But why? Wouldn’t it be faster just to keep that money and use it for our own projects instead of giving it away? Well, it all comes down to “compassion.” Jay and David trace the...

Elton Trueblood, a 20th-century author and theologian, once wrote, “A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.” His point is that we find deep meaning in our lives by giving our lives away. And part of the goal of the Here to Stay Campaign is to invite all who call WestGate Church home to giv...

We all stand on the shoulders of past generations. And if we slow down for even a moment, the impact of the people in our past on our present is nearly overwhelming. And personally, we all have people who have poured into us and sacrificed for our benefit. Especially as Christians. Jay and I reflect on Saints who have gone before us who have impacted us, on the difference between “results” and “fa...

Every church has to answer the question “Why are we here?” For years, the short answer on that was that WestGate Church exists to be and to make disciples, learning and living the way of Jesus. Summarized in a word, the way of Jesus is LOVE—we exist to love God, one another, and our neighbors. But for the past few years, our leadership team and elders have been praying and asking God the question,...

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this past weekend was a big one for WestGate Church. We launched a massive campaign, called Here to Stay (the first in more than a decade) to raise $35 million. But even though this is the first weekend many people might have heard about it, it’s been in the works for years. Literally years. Jay Kim stops by to offer some behind-the-scenes info about how the vis...

For Christians, the Bible isn’t nice to have, it’s vital. Central. Christians believe that the Bible is not just a book, but the divinely inspired Word of God, spoken for us, to lead us in the way of truth and love, down the path toward God’s glory and our good. But it isn’t about intellectual ascent; it’s about transformation. And we find, in the Bible, that the Word of God is referred to as a nu...

For Christians, the Bible isn’t nice to have, it’s vital. Central. Christians believe that the Bible is not just a book, but the divinely inspired Word of God, spoken for us, to lead us in the way of truth and love, down the path toward God’s glory and our good. But it isn’t about intellectual ascent; it’s about transformation. And we find, in the Bible, that the Word of God is referred to as a nu...

In Luke 15, Jesus tells one of His most famous series of stories, and starts by painting a stirring picture of the human condition. Jesus says that humanity is like a sheep that’s been lost. This isn’t an indictment on the sheep necessarily. It’s not that the sheep is bad. It’s that the sheep is bad off. Traditional Christian language is that we are hopelessly lost in our sin, which blinds us to o...

Luke 15 is one of the most famous series of stories that Jesus tells, including one in which Jesus compares humanity to a sheep that is lost. The point of this story - that we are in trouble and need saving - grates at the central story that we modern people tell one another: that humanity is actually stunningly capable of solving nearly every problem that faces us. We aren’t sheep. We are capable...

The 613 laws of the Old Testament are intended to remind us about who God is, and what kind of people He wants us to become. But they’re also there as a sobering reminder: there’s no way for us to keep all of them. Which means, there’s no way for any human to summon up the moral fortitude to earn a perfect score, and earn their way onto God’s good graces. This is beyond reach. And Biblically-speak...

What do circumcision, the Book of Galatians and Baby Jesus have in common? MOre than you’d think. In the Book of Acts, chapter 15, we have one of the first real church conflicts. A group of Jewish leaders were conviced that this new Jesus movement was basically a new form of Judaism, with a Messiah tacked on. But others said, “No, no. This a brand new thing altogether.” So…are the laws and customs...

Nobody likes folks who are arrogant. We even invented a word for people who try to draw attention to themselves while pretending they’re not: humblebrag. But while we don’t like arrogant people, being a person who is humble - well, that takes a LOT of work, too. Does being humble mean we’re a punching bag? Does it mean we have to pretend we’re not good at things? Lisa Averill stops by to talk abou...

The Nativity stands as one of the great reminders that God is with us, but if we take a few moments to consider it, we’ll see another level. Not only that Jesus is “God come near.” But considering HOW FAR that journey was. What coming to earth cost Jesus. What is shows about Jesus. The early church had a hymn or song, which the Apostle Paul quotes in one of the most beautiful, soaring passages in...

Title: Down to Earth - Week 1 - The Incarnation Description: The birth of Jesus means that God has come to live among us, with the end goal of actually living *IN* us. Bonkers! But what happens if we don’t *feel* that God is very close to us? What happens if God feels pretty far away? Even though we might intellectually know this isn’t true, experientially God feels distant, like our prayers are h...

There is an art genre of known as “capriccio” (ka-PREE-cho) where artists take famous landmarks and depict them in places and times where they don’t belong. The goal is to shock the viewer out of complacency and really consider the beauty of the landmark depicted. The thing is, sometimes the entire Christmas story becomes so familiar, we need to do that with the birth of Jesus. Because when we con...

Christmastime in the United States is a wonderful time, but it’s also a bit of a trap. If we are not careful, as Christians, we’ll allow the imagery of our culture around Christmas to dominate how we think about Christmas. And although there’s nothing wrong with chestnuts roasting on an open fire, one-horse open sleighs, or silver bells, those images aren’t the way the Bible describes what Jesus c...

Are Nativity scenes dangerous? Not, as in, “could they hurt or kill you” type of dangerous. That’s unlikely. Unless it’s a live Nativity and you get in the way of some angry live camels. But “dangerous” in the sense that they shift our imagination so that we can only see Jesus as a helpless infant. Jay and David stop by to break down three images that tend to dominate the Bible which describe who...

Most Christians would say that they think about God. Perhaps, even, think about God often, or at least when we’re not too busy thinking about other things. But what if instead of thinking ABOUT God we could make a switch to thinking WITH God. After all, our thoughts determine the orientation and direction of our lives. We examine what it might mean to do this, and what “thinking” with God might lo...

Many of us have had the experience of having a good friend, or a spouse, or a co-worker who just *gets* us. If we were to play Taboo!, we would slay. There’s even language for this: we say we are “on the same page” or are “in sync” or “on the same wavelength.” But what if we could do this with God Himself? Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 2 that we can have the same “mind as Christ.” But what does that...

What does it mean practically to live life with God? Mark Averill stops by to talk about doing life with God, and how doing life WITH *anybody* is going to require things of us. We talk about what it means to get to know God and what it means to “follow” God. We discuss the metaphors the Apostle Paul uses for this. Also, Dave attempts to make a comparison between human beings and the F-16 Fighting...

Just like cars were made to run on gas, human beings were not made to do life on their own. God wants to do life *with* us. And when we decide not to - when we decide to run on our own power and strength – things don’t go well for us. Jesus invites us to do life with him, and when we do we discover life and peace. But…choosing to live life with God often will demand that we make some changes in th...

Dave gets in his DeLorean and goes back in time to his sophomore year of high school when his best friend played him a song that contained a radical idea to him at 15 years old and that still seems incredible: that humans can talk conversationally (and safely) to God Himself. Jay Kim stops by to talk about this idea, and we go through John Calvin’s famous “four rules for prayer” that practically h...