Message Date: July 3rd, 2022

We begin our series in Jesus’ parables here, with a study of the ancient “Wolf of Wall” street. There’s a lot of good we can learn from this bad example: What kind of managers will WE be of the wealth God has entrusted to us? Will be faithful, or greedy? Do we use money to show that it - or God - is our master? This parable is about more than money; it's about the Gospel itself. 

Message Date: June 19, 2022

Jesus’ harshest words in all of Scripture are here, and they're for the Pharisees: religious leaders who know their Bibles, who believe they’ve learned the lessons of the past; they've deconstructed, yet they didn’t recognize God when they were face to face with Him. 

Would we recognize Jesus if we met Him? Would we know His voice? Or, have we become content - like the Pharisees - to criticize all the people we think we’re smarter than? 

Jesus' warning is a crucial one for the Church to hear, as He has much to teach us about God's wrath, our blindness and our arrogance. It’s a warning to both conservatives AND progressive about the dangers of remaking God in our image, leaving Him unrecognizable.

#hell #wrath #judgment #Pharisees #Woe #Deconstruction #Jesus

Message Date:  June 12, 2022

It seems we’re flooded by stories of prominent pastors and church leaders who abused their power, exploited people, and disqualified themselves from ministry. Jesus called them “whitewashed tombs” and “wolves in sheep’s clothing” - in our day we might call them narcissists. All their effort to appear righteous, important, and busy is a distraction from the fact that they’re really corrupt, greedy, narcissists.

Why are our churches such a magnet for people like this? In this message, in addition to a study of this sixth “woe”, we paused for a group conversation about what churches and leaders need from each other. (The discussion portion of the study was not recorded.)

Message Date: May 29, 2022

Do you know the difference between a gnat and a camel? Does your church? 

In this week’s WOE, Jesus is upset because of the tiny problems the Pharisees can’t tolerate, and the major problems the Pharisees won’t bother with. They “strain out a gnat and swallow a camel”. They ignore the big problem, because of the tiny problem they find shocking.

In Jesus’ ministry, we see that time after time, He dealt with the camel - the major issue - and doing so resolved the tiny problem in the process. In the same way, the Church needs to be unshockable. How do judgmental, intolerant people become unshockable? What needs to happen before we can judge the difference between gnats and camels?

#Gospel #Unshockable #LGBTQ #GayChristians #SBC #SouthernBaptists #Hypocrisy #Tolerance #Intolerance #DoubleStandards #Sinners

Message Date: May 22, 2022

Consumerism tries to cut the costs of discipleship, while Jesus tells us to count the costs. And so in our day, consumer Christianity may be the single biggest threat to Christians and churches in our culture, and we need a solution that’s counter-cultural. In this message we propose an ancient strategy that’ll keep consumerism in check. 

#consumerism #ConsumerChristianity #membership #CarryYourCross #CountTheCosts 

Message Date: May 15, 2022

Scripture: Matthew 23:15

For people in the Church today who don’t see themselves as “evangelists” there’s good news, and in this messages we learn there’s a better way to introduce people to Jesus than the colonialism that many of us have come to think of as ‘evangelism’.

#evangelism #mission #missional #ambassadors #BillyGraham #Babylon #Exile #Colonialism #DecolonizeFaith 

Message date: 05/08/2022

Scripture: Matthew 23:13

In Jesus’ first ‘woe’ Jesus confronts the Pharisees who had become the self-appointed gatekeepers of the Kingdom of heaven in their culture. They turned people away, and failed to enter as well. 

In the same way, the Church must stop saying, “no” to people to whom Jesus has already said “yes”. In this message we learned reasons to be glad our unity is in the hands of Jesus, not the Pharisees. While they turn away people who aren’t attractive, popular, or powerful, Jesus welcomes the Body despite our scars, our joint pain, and even a few amputations. 

Message Date: May 1, 2022


This is the first message in our series: “Woes: Seven things the Church must stop altogether because Jesus says so”. In it, we’ll turn Jesus’ seven woes into positive statements about what He wants the Church to do and be in our culture. This time, we learn why we need to stop assuming that the greatest problems facing the church are "out there" somewhere - like they have nothing to do with us, or our practices.

The situation between Russia and Ukraine is an opportunity for the Church to consider how we are tempted by, or fearful of, the power of the powerful. In this message we're reminded of what God promises to those who follow Jesus - that the same power that raised Him from the dead on Easter morning is, and will always be, at work in us. The Church need never fear Caesar (or Putin) nor should the Church be tempted to cooperate with them because Jesus is a different kind of king, and His is a different kind of kingdom. Resurrection power is truly the greatest kind the world has ever, or will ever, see. 

(Message date: April 10, 2022) 

In this final study, we explore the end of Ruth's story, and reflect on how she should be remembered. Interestingly, Ruth isn’t included on most lists of the great heroes of the faith; but why not? She's every bit as faith-filled as Abraham, as driven as Moses, and as devoted as David. Not only has Ruth given us invaluable lessons on how to trust God during times of suffering, but she’s taught us about the God-given importance of women - and the folly of excluding them - in the community of faith.