This week, we are commissioning Michael Hinton, our new Lead Pastor! Joining us is Michael’s long-time mentor, Rusty George, who will encourage and challenge us to continue to be a church that lives out Jesus’ posture of grace and truth.

We all struggle with something that is keeping us from growing closer to Christ and growing closer to each other. We all struggle with something that is preventing us from being the person God has designed for us to be. And left unchecked and unresolved, this “something” could lead to a life we were never meant to live. Join us for this series of messages centered around our reGROUP ministry, a specialized community pursuing healing and hope.

Genesis famously depicts the world’s creation as well as the origins of God’s people, but what if the patterns set up in this ancient text can help us more fully appreciate the life and works of Jesus? What if there’s wisdom within these old pages that could even help instill context and hope into the struggles we face today?

Silence on hard-to-talk-about topics and avoidance of our questions will only leave us in darkness, while bringing our doubts into the light may actually help us on the way to finding truth. Join us as we learn how asking hard questions leads to a deepening of our faith.

For over 2,000 years, baptism has been intertwined with being a Christ follower. But what does it really mean? Is it for me, for God, or is it merely symbolic?

What is it about a campfire that encourages people to share their thoughts and emotions, even the deep and dark ones? We will delve into the life of a Jesus follower who has experienced a spectacular failure but is now finding reconciliation around a beach fire in the early morning sea breeze. The beauty of Easter lies in the realization that no one’s beyond the reach of grace, regardless of how far they’ve fallen or how high they’ve climbed. This Easter, we invite you to join us, especially if you have ever experienced failure.

Jesus is in control even when things seem out of control. He is a king like no other - who chooses to be a humble servant and whose revolution is love.

And when we see him clearly (as sovereign, humble, revolutionary) everything in the world looks clearer….

Sometimes, in our journey of faith, we hit roadblocks, struggles, doubts, and big questions that can be hard to traverse alone. One of the beautiful things about the Church, though, is that we carry each other's burdens. We’ll be taking time to delve into some of those questions on the hearts of our congregation. As we study the scriptures, "seeking" truth together, our genuine hope is that we'd all walk away glad someone asked.

Sometimes in life, we run into circumstances that seem dire, but our God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. He is with us in those darkest times, and if he is for us, who can be against us? Our “immeasurably more” God can and will breathe life into old bones.

When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment is, he, interestingly, gave a two-part answer, saying, “The most important one is this: ‘…Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ’Love your neighbor as yourself…”

Not every change in life comes expected or desired, but we always have a choice about how we walk through these transitions into new beginnings. Our framework for how to embrace new seasons always starts with remembering who God is and what he’s done.

No matter who you are, when you were born, or where your loyalties lie—there is one thing upon which all of humanity can agree: something’s wrong here. The very creation itself groans in longing for this world to be set right. But what is it we’re longing for?

In a world so full of uncertainty, all of us long for peace that is permanent. Jesus’ arrival as a child in the manger inaugurates that peace. And while we must wait a little longer for that peace to displace the darkness completely, the light of the world has come, and the darkness will not overcome it.

The God of all creation has the power to step in and interrupt our universe, abruptly, surprisingly, and even beautifully. As a part of his rescue plan, our loving God won’t give up on his pursuit of our hearts. He’ll continue to step in and interrupt our universe, our world, our mess. The question is: Will we fight his presence in our lives and be annoyed by his unwelcomed interruptions, or will we “Prepare Him Room?”

As “believers”, there’s a tendency to profess our faith in an intellectual way, while not fully embodying its values. We develop a curious talent for compartmentalizing our pursuit of Jesus, keeping it boxed off from other aspects of life. When we create partitions like this, we can even take on different personas—separate outlooks, approaches, and justifications that might not totally align with God’s will. What if we let our faith in Jesus finally become integrated into every aspect of our lives?

As we look back and thank God for his providence through the years, we also want to be praying over what lies ahead. Whenever we gather, there’s a growing, palpable excitement around the dreams and visions he’s given us for the future, and we know how important it is to take our plans before the Lord, trusting in him.

It’s been a winding road and just like the wind and rain shapes the ground before us, our God has indeed been shaping us. When guests come through our doors, they’re truly seeing a community “20 Years in the Making”, and because of his good and sovereign hand in our journey, we look forward to how he might mold and shape us for whatever awaits beyond the horizon.

Jesus shared a meal with his disciples the night before he died, and when the meal was over, he prayed a prayer. He prayed this prayer with the full knowledge that in a few hours, he would be arrested, beaten, and nailed to a cross for sins he did not commit. Jesus prayed his last will and testament. These are his deepest concerns. These are the last words he could impart to his disciples and friends who will be left behind on earth.

How do you come to God with questions? Are you approaching God with child-like faith, trusting whatever he says, or are you trying to verify an answer you’ve already constructed?

As we grow, the barriers between us and God often do as well. But the kingdom of God has no room for our pride or inability to change. The kingdom of God receives instead of pushing away.

We no longer live in the perfect garden. On this side of heaven, life always contains suffering and loss and challenges that feel too great to overcome. Nevertheless, we are still tasked as the image-bearers of God to co-rule his creation, bent though it may be. We are still called to serve. To lead. To steward. To be in community. To cultivate goodness from this dry ground. And to lead well and judge rightly, we will need wisdom. But how will we attain it? Will we lean on our own understanding to bring about the ends we desire? Or will we trust in the Lord, and submit our paths to him?

Whether you’re an old soul, or a newborn Christian, the book of Colossians is like a how-to manual for the faithful life. In this year where we seek to follow so closely after Jesus that we become covered in the dust of our rabbi, we should pause to ask the question—what does that walk actually look like? How will we know if we're getting dusty?

When Jesus died as a payment for our sins before God the father, we see he is our savior. But when he rose from the dead and God placed everything under his feet, we see he is our Lord. To follow him as Lord means nothing less than submission to him as the ultimate authority, even when his priorities conflict with our own.

In their young church, the Colossians were met with incredible pressures to abandon their new found faith in favor of something more familiar. As is often the same for us today, those pressures came from both sides. The very religious looked to Jesus plus (circumcision, ceremonial law, etc.) for their salvation. And the pan-religious looked to Jesus as well as a number of other gods that promised to fulfill desires and needs.

But Paul tells the Colossians the resurrection life should transform even the things we long after. We are new creations in Christ, meant to serve, not to be served. We shouldn’t chase after our old desires which lead us to lesser gods—and more often than not, to deep disappointment and shame. Of course, we're not perfect. We will never be perfect until Jesus returns and glorifies our weak and mortal bodies. But that doesn’t mean we should behave like the people we were before we ever met him.

No part of the human existence is untouched by the loving and liberating rule of Christ. How a husband treats his wife, how an insider treats an outsider, how a rich man treats a poor one—Jesus commands us even here. Faith is not an intellectual exercise, but a complete submission to the rule of Christ in both the mundane and the meaningful moments that we live.

We should seek to live each day like the people we are becoming as we follow Jesus.

Join us for this 5 week series on Colossians, April 24th through May 22nd.