The Problem with Endurance by George San Miguel I am not a runner. That may not be a shocking statement to those that know me, but I used to be a runner. I was a sprinter in high school, and for a (very) short time ran Division 1 track in college. To be fair, I was just an “alternate” third leg of a 4×100 relay team. As an alternate, I was ready to run in my first race when the person I replaced was miraculously healed of his hangover…this ended my college track career. I played a lot of sports in my life but soccer was always my passion. And while my speed gave me a great advantage on the f ..read more

Pictured above: Pastor Jeff Hundley of our Edmonds Expression preaching from Luke 12:4-12 last Sunday. by Kim Arthur | Hallows Communications Director   “The battle is to take God at His Word without wavering in fear and in doubt. I hope you will allow me to preach a sermon to myself this morning which I hope will help overcome my sin of fear by strengthening my heart in the words of Jesus. And since this battle is not unique to me, I hope you might listen in and find something here for your heart too…” – from Pastor Jeff’s sermon last Sunday on “The Fear that Frees Us.”   ..read more

by Frank Mayfield Paul urges the Church in Philippi to “live a life worthy of the gospel” in Philippians 1:27. What a lofty calling this is–to live lives which are worthy of the gospel of Christ! When I first read this, it felt to me like an overwhelming command. I was left wondering, “How can a person possibly live up to such a high standard?” A Weighty Calling Before we consider the answer to that question, it’s important that we acknowledge that being called into a life with Jesus is a weighty calling. On many occasions when Jesus was questioned about God’s law, rather than making it easie ..read more

by Frank Mayfield In our Philippians series last week we looked at (among other verses) Philippians 2:12 where Paul urges the Philippians to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Whenever we encounter verses about the fear of the Lord on the pages of our Bibles we can be tempted to skate over them, moving on quickly, or attempting to explain them away out of our unease.  Jake Hess’s study notes which I used in the preparation of my sermon for last week (which incidentally I didn’t get to preach due to an eye injury) helped me to understand that when the Old Testament writers ..read more

God Give Us Grace to Go in Peace by Kim Arthur “God may you give us grace to go in peace and be a blessing to the city of Seattle and beyond.” Every Sunday, we close our worship gatherings with this earnest prayer. Every week, God graciously answers. Sometimes the answers are small and easily missed. Sometimes they are extraordinary and jaw-dropping. This has been the case since 2010 when God gathered a group of strangers in Birmingham, AL and disrupted their comfortable lives by challenging them to live missionally in a faraway city with less than 4% confessing Christians. In ..read more

Get More from Sermon Listening by Kim Arthur Over the years, I’ve found that two simple, yet essential, changes to my approach of listening have enabled me to be more engaged with every sermon no matter the teacher or the text. Most importantly, these practices have led to God’s Word impacting my life long after the 40 minutes of any sermon. Listening as a Prayerer  As obvious as this might sound, praying in faith has been the number one thing to dramatically change how I experience worship gatherings–and in particular, how I listen to sermons. I used to treat Sunday worship as a happy ..read more

A Time to Prepare: Lent by Jake Hess   I had a Covid wedding. The ceremony was simple, the food was quant, the crowd was light. But even with the necessary reductions of having a wedding in the middle of a pandemic, the season of preparation leading up to the big event still felt like a whirl-wind of activity. There were family and friends to communicate with, food to plan, pictures to take, materials to purchase, premarital counseling to attend. Not to mention all that’s involved with joining the lives of two people forever! It was a lot… but I was so glad to have the season of engagemen ..read more

A Time for More Awe by Kim Arthur “And awe came upon every soul” (Acts 2:43).  In Acts 1, we see that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to empower Jesus’ followers to live differently–to live in a way that testifies to the gospel to the ends of the earth (1:7-8). In Acts 2, a scene unfolded that only Hollywood’s CGI machines could attempt to depict. The Holy Spirit came upon God’s people who were gathered in Jerusalem waiting for what was next. As they gathered waiting, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and the commotion caused a multitude to gather around them. All were bewildered, some ..read more

February: A Month of Prayer and Fasting   Passages on Fasting To start, please read the following verses with their surrounding context and consider adding them to your devotions: Isaiah 58:6-9 Nehemiah 1:2-6, 9:1-3 Daniel 9:2-4 Joel 2:12-16 Mark 2:19-20 Luke 2:36-38 Acts 13-1-3, 14-21-23 These verses show us different circumstances when the people of God sought his will with prayer and fasting. Would you be praying that God gives wisdom and guidance for what comes next for our church? As a continuation of that request, we are asking all members to consider making February a mont ..read more