It is always a great joy to have a visit from our friend and brother, the incomparable Bob Goff, and we are grateful for the encouraging word he brought to share. When we see through the distractions, we are granted the opportunity to grow in genuine interest for those around us; which is the first step toward love.
When Life Presses In
Our beloved sister, Jeanne Stevens, shares an important message to reflect on how the darkness of life helps us notice the light around us.
Our thanks again to Jeanne and Soul City Church
Prayer Prepares
We are grateful to have been joined by our brother Jarrett Stevens, sharing a beautiful and needed word from Joshua 3 on prayer as our participation toward the movement of God that is already happening. Are we simply waiting, or are we intentionally moving in the direction we are asking God to move, trusting that he is already preparing upstream what is flowing to meet us as we pray expectantly and act in faith?
Daily Bread
Our beloved sister, Shauna Niequist, shares with us an encouragement to trust in God’s provision for what you need each day. As we are navigating the challenges and unknown of this time in our world, her words are a much needed reminder.
To learn more about Shauna, you can click here - https://www.shaunaniequist.com/
Truth Tellers
Pastor Sean Palmer considers our love of God as a call toward a deeper embrace of the truth; not the partial-”truths” distorted to serve selfish agendas and to tear one another down, but that which requires us to embrace (perhaps uncomfortable and unfamiliar) virtue and humility as God shapes us in faithfulness.
God's Notion Of Freedom
Pastor Sean Palmer enters Jesus’ teaching to the crowd gathered in John 8 on the true nature of freedom. Freedom is not simply the absence of burden or the abundance of choice, but instead about the truth of the reality into which God invites us to fully live. Our freedom is given for the love of the world; that in its sharing, everyone would be set free.
All Is Heard
Ericka Graham invites us to remember some of the primary lessons of the Psalms; that God calls us to bring the full spectrum of our emotion and experience to him, and to do so in community. As we continue trudging through the challenges of this season, may we not only share in lament, but also the thanksgiving and praise that breaks through the significant heartache.
The Father Carries
Pastor Sean Palmer reminds us that when God asks us to call him Father, it is not about maleness, but is painting the picture of the relationship he desires with us. As we pause to acknowledge with gratitude our flawed earthly fathers, we look together to our perfect Father in Heaven and his family into which we’ve been born.
Summer Selah
Pastor Chris Seay teaches from Psalm 32; prompting us to look to the coming weeks, a summer unlike any we’ve experienced, as an invitation. This time of great disruption has reminded us of the gift and privilege that is our very breath, challenged many among us to repent of our part in systems of generational trauma, and encouraged us all to faithfully make steps into the work to which God has called us.
What We Find At The Altar
Pastor Sean Palmer continues our revisiting of the Rhythms of Ecclesia by considering the binding of Isaac, and the challenge faced by Abraham as he endeavored to faithfully Seek God. The God we seek is a God of love and promises kept, far removed from the idols and systems that ask us to sacrifice our own humanity, and that of others, at their false altars.
Pentecost Sunday: The Shared Spirit
Though we continue to gather online in this season, it was a much needed time to be with one another following an incredibly painful week. Pastor Chris reminds us of our call as followers of Christ to live as one, with hands open in sharing God’s blessing, especially in a time such as this; asking the Holy Spirit to guide and use us in helping to mend the deep ruptures in our communities and the world.
Quarantine Made Sacred: Home Front
We simply aren't used to being at home this much. As a friend of mine said, we are great at binge-watching anything but our kids. She meant that home, over time, has become a secondary place for us. After all, most of our waking hours are spent at work. But now the two have merged. And what if that's what it was all about? Not an idolization of "family," but home as the place where we learn to love as God invites us to love the world.
The Backyard Gospel
Pastor Chris Seay continues our series revisiting the foundational Rhythms of Ecclesia, casting a vision for Christian hospitality during a time in which it is a challenge to invite many into our homes. As followers of Jesus, we are to continue extending open arms to the world, always cultivating space for care, community, and growth.
Quarantine Made Sacred: My Slave, My Child
People are experiencing and reporting higher and higher degrees of loneliness and disconnection — even as we spend more and more time with fewer people in our homes. Part of our loneliness is our general disconnection. Even before COVID-19, our lives mostly moved around one another rather than toward one another. Add to that increasing division via social media and we are not only disconnected, but contemptuous to our relationships.
This week, Pastor Sean introduces three powerful questions that the Apostle Paul revealed while he was locked away at home that will help make your relationships more whole.
Beautiful
Quarantine Made Sacred: A Smaller You
When you're stuck at home it's easy to feel stuck. Add to that the chorus of voices in our culture saying that quarantine is the perfect time to finally write your book, launch a business, develop a new hobby, plus the opposing voices that remind us that we are in the middle of a pandemic and that just living through it all and maintaining our sanity is an accomplishment and it all equates to confusion.
But what if God is up to something powerful in the midst of us all staying-at-home? What if we are being invited to encounter the world differently, and the only way God could encourage us to embrace a great reboot was a complete shutdown?
Divine Mothering
Quarantine Made Sacred: Mothered
Mother’s Day is this weekend. And while Mother’s Day is not on the Liturgical Calendar, mothering is a calling, task, sacrifice, and surrender unlike few others. Regardless of who we are, through the hardships, joys, beauty and pain someone somewhere has mothered us. God, in fact describes God’s care and redirection as a mother. This week, we enter into mothering, a task that couldn’t be more opposite than distancing, and we see God mother us in love in the midst of it all.
Kindness Cascades
Pastor Chris offers a reminder of the vitality of kindness as we face the difficult circumstances of this season. As we receive God’s kindness, and extend that kindness both to ourselves and those closest to us in this crisis, we find that it will begin to ripple outward in ways beyond anything we could expect or anticipate. Through the simplest act of kindness, you never know when and how someone may be drawn toward the heart of Christ.
Quarantine Made Sacred: Iron-Clad Relationships
If absence makes the heart grow fonder, then right now we have never been more fond of our friends. Many of us are discovering that we may have taken our friendship for granted or didn't appreciate them as much as we should. And maybe that's because friendship requires more of us than we've ever admitted. What if being a friend — a true friend — is more than hanging out and convenience, but rooted in covenant and commitment?