99 CHURCH

How often do we stop working, and make time to look back and thank God for all He's done? The Feast of Trumpets was an opportunity for the people of God to express their worship through recognition and reliance: recognizing God's faithfulness in the previous year, and relying on God's faithfulness in the upcoming year. This week, we explore how we can express this worship of gratitude annually, mo...

If you ever want to know what the love of God looks like, it looks like hospitality. We're reminded that God doesn't just save us, he sustains us. God doesn't just deliver us, he dwells with us. This week, we study the Festival of Tabernacles and learn how we can worship God today through hospitality.

We imagine spiritual maturity as the need to confess less. But it's actually the opposite. Spiritual maturity means more confession, not less. This week, we study the Festival of Unleavened Bread, as we continue learning about the different expressions of worship we can bring before God at the altar.

For many of us, the Sunday worship gathering feels irrelevant or disconnected from the rest of the week. This leads to a passive engagement that places a bulk of the responsibility on spiritual leaders to feed us and stir us up to worship. But we find that God actually expects all of his people to show up, prepared with something to offer him. This week, we explore what kind of sacrifices God is l...

For the people of God, rebuilding the altar of worship started with a radical reshaping of how they spent their time. But it wasn't just their daily schedules that revolved around worship. Their entire year was reoriented towards worship. Last week, we talked about what it means to reclaim the clock. This week, we talk about reclaiming our calendars for worship.

The most important element of Christian worship is time. Living a life of worship requires us to radically redefine how we approach time and how we use it. This week, we explore how time is not meant for productivity, but for faithfulness.

After returning from exile, God gave the Israelites instructions for how to use their gold and silver—not to build idols, but to build vessels for worship. Today, He calls us to do the same. In this message, we explore how generosity leads us away from financial stress and into deeper worship, community, and purpose. And we look at how generosity reorients us toward God, empowers the church to ser...

Why do we gather as a church? What is the purpose and design for our Sunday gatherings each week? In the book of Ezra, the temple lay in ruins because the people had forgotten what the temple was designed to do. Rebuilding the house of the Lord meant rediscovering its purpose and design. This week, we get to the heart of why we gather as a church, and what should happen every time we get together.

In a world full of complex issues and divided opinions — even among faithful Christians — what does it mean to follow Jesus with honesty and humility? This week, we explore how to find comfort with uncertainty. Drawing from Paul’s letter to the Romans and the teachings of Jesus, we see how God invites us into a deeper kind of faith — one built not on having all the answers, but on trusting Him thr...

Whenever God wants to do something in our world, He always looks for a people whose hearts are open and available to being moved by Him. We find in the book of Ezra, that the first people to return back home out of exile, were those whose hearts were moved by God. They were the first responders. This week, we explore how we can be the first responders to what God's doing in our unique context.

What makes 99 a church, and not just some random community or club? It's that at the center of our togetherness is the worship of God. This week, we begin a new collection of teachings on the book of Ezra, as we respond to God's calling for us to rebuild the altar of worship in our community.

The problem is not the seed. The problem is the soil. God is always speaking. God is always moving toward us in love. God is always working on our behalf. The problem is that the soil of our hearts often prevents the seed of the God's blessings from bearing fruit in our lives. This week, we read through the "Parable of the Sower," as we identify four different types of soils, or heart postures, th...

We all inherit a mixed bag from our family of origin. There are unhealthy things we've inherited, but there are also beautiful things as well. This week, we talk about generational blessing, and how God gives us agency to decide what legacy we want to continue or create for our family and the next generation.

Our lives are shaped by invisible scripts—messages we believe that have been formed by past experiences, that affect how we live today. But what if some of these scripts aren’t true? Together, we ask God to help us confront the lies we've believed and embrace the better story He is writing for our lives.

We are haunted houses. How many of us live in the present haunted by the ghosts of our past? Who we are is shaped by where we come from, especially our family of origin. But here’s the good news: your past doesn't have to define your future. With Jesus, we can face our ghosts, break old patterns, and step into a better future—together.

On Good Friday, they killed off the main character. Jesus was dead in the tomb. And all hope was lost. We find the church of Philadelphia in a very similar place. They were tired and weak, unsure of what the future held. But underneath the surface, resurrection and life were coming. Jesus, who holds the keys to life, has come to make all things new.

There's something about the church in Laodicea that makes Jesus so sick, that he's about to spit them out of his mouth. Which begs the question: What kind of spirituality makes Jesus want to vomit? One of the greatest struggles we face here in the West is the temptation to become lukewarm followers of Jesus. How do we break out of autopilot and live life by design, and not by default?

There's a kind of death that's deeper than physical death. A kind of death that corrodes you from the inside out. Many of us have the appearance of life, but we're actually dead within. This was Jesus' rebuke to the church in Sardis. What characterizes the "Living Dead?" And how do we tap into the life that Jesus promises us?

How often do we try to influence and control God? How often do we use the name of Jesus to fulfill our own plans, agendas, and dreams? All of us have experienced the subtle temptation of manipulation in our relationship with God, with others, and even with ourselves. This week, we read through Jesus' letter to the church in Thyatira.

There's a kind of fatigue that attacks the body. But there's another kind of fatigue that attacks the soul. Often times, our lives are far too busy and noisy for us confront our weariness. But the invitation of Jesus is to a life marked by rest. This week, we explore the spiritual practices of silence and solitude.

The church in Pergamum was known for their loyalty to Jesus. But although they never renounced the name of Jesus, they restricted the influence of Jesus on their lives. Slowly but surely, they were tempted by the surrounding world to compromise. We face the very same temptation today, specifically in relation to money, sex, and power. This week, we read Jesus' letter to the church in Pergamum.

It's very easy here in the West to organize our lives around the avoidance of suffering. But suffering is inevitable. The question we have to ask isn't: how do we avoid suffering at all costs, but how do we remain faithful to Jesus in our suffering? This week, we read through Jesus' letter to the church in Smyrna, the suffering church.

In the first of seven letters written to the churches in the book of Revelation, we see Jesus affirming the hard work, good deeds, and perseverance of the Ephesian church. But there's one thing he holds against them: they have forsaken the love they had at first. This isn't just a message for the church in Ephesus, this is a message for us today: You are faithful, but you are loveless. This week,...

One of the more recent shifts in how we think about sexuality here in the West is that sex has been disconnected from gender. The majority of the church, however, still believes that marriage and sex should only be between a man and a woman. This week, we explore some of the misconceptions we have when we talk about gender and sexuality in the church, as we try to uncover God's heart for sex.

We continue our conversation about sexuality and faith. We explore the major shifts we've experienced here in the west in how we see and approach sexuality, and what Jesus' vision for sexual formation is in the midst of our culture.