It’s no secret that we live in an age of isolation. Especially in the urban context, though we are surrounded by people, we often don’t commune with our neighbors or build lasting relationships with our peers. In the Bible, we see a clear contrast between this way of living and the call that God has put on our lives. God has modeled the foundational practice of hospitality to us, which has a myriad of benefits, but importantly, gives us space to be healthy people. All throughout scripture, there is a common theme of God’s hospitable nature and His care for humanity in the way he communes with ..read more

A Great Moral Teacher One thing that virtually everyone agrees on is that Jesus is a great moral teacher. And His magnum opus is the Sermon on the Mount. From MLK to Ghandi to Leo Tolstoy, this famous discourse has made an impact upon Christians and non-Christians alike. The sermon (a shortened summary of it at least) spans three chapters and is found in Matthew 5-7. It is Jesus’ longest, most detailed teaching in all the gospels and continues to be one of the most influential ethical teachings in the world. And while it plumbs the depths of ethics, philosophy, and theology, it is also extrem ..read more

The churches I grew up in didn’t observe Ash Wednesday, or any religious calendar dates except for Christmas and Easter. The generation of leaders before me pushed back on ritual and tradition, mainly because things done out of routine can often lose their meaning. However, I think we’ve at times “thrown the baby out with the bath water” and failed to recognize important dates and seasons that the church has celebrated for much of its history. Ash Wednesday is one of those days, and it is held 40 days before Easter, marking the beginning of the season of Lent. In many liturgical churches, Ash ..read more

An Epidemic of Loneliness This week the United States’ Surgeon General published an advisory on social connection, declaring a nationwide emergency that we are living through an “epidemic of loneliness.” Though the presence of lonely feelings are not new in the modern day, loneliness has been on the rise in our culture for decades and is plaguing our very lives. I would go as far as to guess that you are (or have been) lonely; in a recent Harvard survey of American adults, 36% of respondents reported serious loneliness, and this included 61% of young adults. Data points to the stark reality t ..read more

This past Sunday, while working our way through John 15 and Jesus’ command to “remain in him”, we talked about some ways to develop a life of prayer. While prayer is one of the most rewarding things I ever do, it is also one of the most difficult things for me personally. And that is often the case—things that are very rewarding are often very difficult! So to help us (and me!) cultivate a life of prayer in this New Year, I put together these 5 tips. Whether you’ve never prayed before or you pray somewhat regularly, I hope the following guidelines serve to aid you in growing in the practice o ..read more

We just wrapped up what may have been my favorite teaching series to date (granted, we’ve only had a few!), entitled “How We Change.” In the series, we asked the question: how do we actually change and grow spiritually? For example, how can you go from a non-believer to a fully devoted follower of Jesus? For Christians, the New Testament is clear that we are to grow and change and produce fruit in our lives. So where do we start? In attempting to answer that question, we proposed a 5-part Theory of Change, which attempts to distill what the Bible teaches on the topic. (Full disclosure: I did ..read more

Hi Church Family! Christmas is officially upon us! And in the midst of the rush of this season, we want to help you slow down and focus on what Christmas is all about. That’s why we want to invite you to join us in studying the Bible together during Advent! Christians have historically celebrated Advent (which means “arrival”) in the weeks leading up to Christmas where we prepare our hearts for the arrival of Christ. One way we want to help you prepare well in this time is by directing you to places in Scripture that point to Jesus’ arrival and help us understand the meaning of His ..read more

Hi, Church Family! As we enter the new year, I have been reflecting on our core value of “Biblical Authority.” One of the best ways that I believe we can lean deeper into this value as a community is by pursuing Biblical literacy.  Biblical literacy means understanding the grand narrative of scripture from beginning to end. It’s about finding our place in God’s story by becoming familiar with the character and personality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as represented from the Old Testament to the New Testament. It’s also about seeing how God’s plan for salvation that began w ..read more

I’m excited to be starting a new teaching series on Sunday mornings this Fall, looking at the first half of the book of Exodus! Here’s an overview of what we’ll be talking about in this series, plus a few helpful resources for further study. I believe that the Exodus event is the clearest gospel foreshadowing that we see in the Old Testament Scriptures. (That is why we gave the series the subtitle, “The Gospel According to Moses.”) While the work of Christ revealed in the New Testament calls us to interpret all of the Bible in a Christ-centered way, there is no place where this may be easier ..read more

Not only was this past Sunday the official launch of our church, but it was the start of our first teaching series journeying through the gospel of John! Whether you were able to make it out or not, I’d love to give you an overview of the series and intro into our teaching text for the first seven weeks. John’s gospel is often referred to as “The Book of Signs”, and that is because the word “sign” appears 18 times throughout—way more than any other biblical book. That’s because the author—the Apostle John and the disciple of Jesus—wants to point us beyond Jesus’ teaching and miracles to a dee ..read more