Woodland Hills Church

Jesus tells us to hate our life in order to keep it, and if we love our life, we’ll lose it. Guest speaker Shane Hipps shares with us what life Jesus wants for us. He also talks about his personal experience with the Anabaptist tradition.

God’s design for creation is beautiful. But, sometimes, we don’t follow God’s design for our life. In this sermon, Greg and Vanessa Williams address the battlefield in our mind and how to keep God’s goodness flowing to us. In addition, Greg gives a Kingdom response to the Boston Marathon bombings.

In the movie, Wizard of Oz, the characters are all looking for something they think they need. As Christians, we do the same. Whether it’s a new job, a marriage, a lack of a marriage or some other change that we’re looking for, we all look for something else that we think we need. In this sermon, Greg shows us that we have all we need for joy, and we just need to activate it through faith.

Putting off immoral behavior can seem a lot like legalism. So, how do we reconcile that we were saved by grace not works and that we need to put off immoral behavior? In this sermon, Greg shows that we need to trust in God’s reality instead of how we define our own reality.

Christ’s death and resurrection changed EVERYTHING! When we see this emerge from the story of God, it revolutionizes the way we view God, ourselves, others, and creation.

Good Friday is the day where we remember Jesus’ work on the Cross. In his death, Jesus showed us what love looks like. The radiance and power of the Cross is the center of who God is and who we are called to be in his image.

All of us seek for peace in our lives, but peace is just a small part of God’s shalom. Shalom is right relatedness between us and God, each other, and creation. In this sermon, Greg shows how the Anabaptists seek after shalom in every part of their lives and how we can seek after shalom as well.

We often define ourselves according to what we have to offer this world. But what happens when what we have to offer isn’t enough? In this sermon, Steve Wiens shows us how our wounds and inability to offer something can actually be used by God in glorious ways.

Baptism and Communion are important sacraments to the Christian community. In this sermon, Greg shows us how the Anabaptists understood these sacraments and how Woodland Hills performs these today.

The Anabaptists saw that the building is not the Church. God wants to dwell on this Earth, but it is not in a building. It is in his people. In this sermon, Greg shows how we are to demonstrate the beauty of the Church in our lives.

When you read a book with a twist ending, the ending reframes the entire story. The Bible is no different. In this sermon, Greg shows how Jesus’ message reframes how we are to understand the Bible, and he shows us why the Anabaptists shared this belief.

Throughout Scripture, we see a strong emphasis on positive traditions in the Church. In both the Old and New Testament, God repeatedly calls his people to be anchored with a sense of history. In this sermon, Greg explains why the Anabaptist tradition is closest to Woodland Hills.

Got Bread? In this sermon, Laurel Bunker shares with us the all too common desire of humans to want more from God than Jesus. We all want to never be hungry, but we first have to realize that Jesus is the true source and nothing else will satisfy.

How we respond to misfortunes and tragedies depends on how we frame them. In Colossians 3, Paul writes that Christ is all and is in all. When we frame our life within this understanding, we begin to see how we can live through misfortunes and tragedies.

It is extremely difficult to not worry in this life. In this sermon our guest speaker, Nick Cunningham, shows us how to deal with worry in this life. Through setting our priorities in order, being aware of God’s goodness and participating in that goodness, we find that we have much less to worry about than we thought.

The ancient Israelites were called to be a chosen people who bless the entire world. But, like the Church today, they often made their chosen status a blessing only for themselves. In this sermon, Greg calls us to become evangelists by living a Kingdom life.

We are God’s chosen people, predestined to be holy and blameless. But does God create and choose those who will be blameless and those he will blame? In this sermon, Greg shows how God does choose us but we also have the ability to choose him and get on board the predestined train.

What does it mean to be one of God’s chosen people? Some people think back to middle school gym class and how they might have been last-picked for the team. In this sermon, Greg talks about the idea of being chosen by God and how being chosen isn’t the same as predestination.

It’s a simple but profound truth that God looks like Jesus. This truth becomes all the more important when we face struggles in this world. In this sermon, Greg shares the story of Henry and Henry’s family that faced a battle no parent wants to face.

In 1914 at the beginning of World War I, enemy soldiers spent a week celebrating Christmas with each other. We can learn much from this stunning slice of history, and remember that the “peace on Earth” we strive for around Christmas should be our calling throughout the year.

The poverty of the manger exemplified the power of God. In this sermon, Greg shows that God really is like the baby swaddled in clothes in the manger. The kind of power that God exhibits is foolish to this world, but it shows the type of God that we can follow with all our heart.

We have lost the mystery of this world. We go about our daily lives and are not filled with wonder at what happens. In this sermon, Greg shows how viewing the world like a child will increase how much wonder and mystery we see.

Waiting is hard, especially in the western culture of want and gratification. In this sermon, Greg tells us about Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings on advent, and how getting in touch with our emptiness through silence and solitude can lead to peace.

The wrath of God is a misunderstood topic. In this sermon, Greg shows how sin has natural consequences that boomerang back to us. While God’s wrath has serious consequences for us, we need to understand how God uses his wrath.

TOHU wa BOHU is the term the Old Testaments writers used to describe the formless, empty and chaotic world before creation. In this sermon, Greg talks about how sexual immorality is outside of God’s plan for creation, and it leads us back to TOHU wa BOHU. If you are struggling with these issues and would like to speak with someone or you have experience dealing with this issues and would like to h...