Episodes
5 days ago
Ordinary Faith | Caring For Others
5 days ago
5 days ago
For many of us, caring for others like children or family or friends with needs is ordinary. How do we do so with gentleness, like Jesus? In this Mother's Day message, Pastor Julie shares how from the book of Hebrews.
Sunday May 05, 2024
Ordinary Faith | This is Your Brain on Politics
Sunday May 05, 2024
Sunday May 05, 2024
In this series, we’re talking about the ordinary. Something that is ordinary for Americans is elections, and we have another contentious one coming up in a few months. We’re hunkering down for the fear, the anxiety, the conflict seeking, the black and white, back alley, bare knuckles, street fighting with the other side nature of it all. It’s exhausting. Is it how we should approach it as Christians? The answer is emphatically no, and in this message, Pastor Joel talks about why Christians have a whole different agenda when it comes to politics than we normally are told. Join us as we study 1 Peter and find out what that looks like.
Sunday Apr 28, 2024
Ordinary Faith | Lament, the Language of Suffering
Sunday Apr 28, 2024
Sunday Apr 28, 2024
Most upper and middle class Americans are uncomfortable with suffering, and we often think of our faith in terms of the triumph and success we can get from it. But when we read Scripture, we find stories of suffering are a lot more common than we think, and we need to be exposed to them so that we can learn how to speak and think about our seasons of suffering.
Suffering is ordinary. What are we going to do when we enter it? In this message, Pastor Joel walks through how to speak the language of lament, looking at the book of Lamentations.
Sunday Apr 21, 2024
Ordinary Faith | Minding Our Bodies
Sunday Apr 21, 2024
Sunday Apr 21, 2024
Having a body is a lot of work! It requires a lot of ordinary maintenance, and we can get annoyed by it or view our body simply as a machine. But according to Scripture, our bodies are spiritually very significant to God. In this message, Pastor Joel explains why that is the case, from why it has significance, the stories it tells as we maintain it, and the sacredness of how God dwells in us and when we engage it in worship.
Sunday Apr 14, 2024
Ordinary Faith | Building With God in Our Work
Sunday Apr 14, 2024
Sunday Apr 14, 2024
On this special Res City Commissioning Sunday, Angela Hermanson preaches on what is most ordinary about the work we do: it never seems to end. As she focuses on the story of Nehemiah and the efforts of the Jewish people to rebuild the city walls of Jerusalem, she notes different encouragements to remember when our own work feels repetitive and ordinary.
Sunday Apr 07, 2024
Ordinary Faith | Surrendering to God’s Will and Love
Sunday Apr 07, 2024
Sunday Apr 07, 2024
We tend to view maturity as being the opposite of a child—someone who is independent, can make their own decisions and get what they want without help. Someone with willpower and assertiveness is someone we look up to. But at the same time, Christians pray a prayer that says of God, “Your name be hallowed, your kingdom come, your will be done.” The mature Christian, if we take that prayer seriously, is someone who can surrender their will to God because they are surrendered to the love of God.
To be honest, we struggle with this. In this message, Pastor Joel talks about why, what happens when we try to use all our willpower for the purpose of kingdom of self, and why surrendering to God’s love first is the key to surrendering to his will. Come check it out!
Sunday Mar 31, 2024
Ordinary Faith | Why Easter Is Extraordinary
Sunday Mar 31, 2024
Sunday Mar 31, 2024
Easter weekend is sacred because it’s the interruption of what’s ordinary: death. There is perhaps nothing that is as ordinary as death because it’s something all people do, no matter who they are. Except for one man, Jesus. By definition, the resurrection is extraordinary, and disciples of Jesus are people who come into an encounter with the extraordinary, risen Jesus. Yet, as we’ve been talking about recently as a church, we also are ordinary, and ordinary is good. What is the relationship between the ordinary faith Christians often have and extraordinary treasure we have within us? In this Easter message, Pastor Joel walks through it all.
Sunday Mar 24, 2024
Sunday Mar 17, 2024
Ordinary Faith | Telling the Truth in the Ordinary
Sunday Mar 17, 2024
Sunday Mar 17, 2024
Imagine this: You get poor feedback at work, or you get a poorer grade on a test than you thought. You are more winded after a workout than you thought. You find out something you said a week ago actually rubbed a friend the wrong way. Bumping up against the truth like this is ordinary, but how often do we make confessing and surrendering to the truth ordinary? Those are not the same thing. In reality, we often find telling the truth to be a nuisance. It contradicts our self-image, or it gives us something to fix. We often would rather suppress it than surrender to it. But what if ordinary moments of being confronted with the truth are more than just annoyances, but are good for our soul? What if those moments can become sacred because they draw us into God’s love in a way we can’t do when we ignore them? In this sermon, Pastor Joel talks about why we need to make telling the truth ordinary, and how it opens pathways of healing to us when we do.
Sunday Mar 10, 2024
Ordinary Faith | Sustaining Spiritual Life in the Ordinary
Sunday Mar 10, 2024
Sunday Mar 10, 2024
One of the tensions Christians live with is how to sustain their spiritual life of discipleship with the often chock full, fast paced life of their ordinary, which fills up their schedule and can squeeze out the time necessary to have a robust life with God. While God finds the ordinary good, our ordinary can lead us away from him too. We need to learn how to be intentional with our ordinary, because the truth is that the disciplines needed to sustain a flourishing life of discipleship are not going from spiritual high to spiritual high, but are ordinary, repetitive, and quiet.
In this message, Pastor Joel talks about two ways to sustain a flourishing life of discipleship in the midst of the ordinary.