Jesus of Nazareth is a name most of us know, but few of us know why we know it. As Nathaniel put it in John 1 after he heard the Messiah was from this nowhere town he said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth was insignificant, overlooked and undervalued. But it was there that Mary found the favor of God and Jesus himself grew in favor. Favor was found in the insignificant, overlooked and undervalued place. This week we continued with Part 2 of our Christmas series, “Unwrapping the Names of Jesus.”

We kicked off this series by talking about “Jesus, The Light of the World.” The truth is that our world is filled with darkness. Five minutes spent watching the news would reveal that. Hopelessness, loneliness and depression are at all time highs. Now more than ever, we need the message of Christmas—the light that entered the world. This week we talked about what it looks like to live with that hope, and in doing so, invite others into it.

The holidays are a wonderful time of the year full of joy and celebration. But with this season often comes much stress, busyness, and anxiety. So how do we combat those feelings and experience all that God has for us this season? One word: gratitude. This week we looked at what it means to be truly grateful in hopes of experiencing the fruit of gratitude this holiday season in a message titled, “From The Inside Out.”

When people hurt us it can make us all spiritually twisted up. We may want to forgive them in one moment and yet have God unleash his wrath on them in the next. The reality is, forgiveness is hard. It can feel complicated. But you are not alone. This weekend we unpacked a “church hurt” story out of 2 Timothy, as a prominent Bible character gives us a healthy framework for how to forgive when we don’t feel like it in a message titled, “The Fight For Forgiveness.”

This week we continued our series, Church Hurt, by talking all about the dangers of putting things in God’s place. We often put our faith and hope in things that look like God (people, gifting, church) rather than in God himself. This week we'll talk about how the church can fight against this, and also how we, as members of the body, can guard ourselves against this temptation in a message titled, “Putting (_______) In God’s Place”.

Hypocrisy is a wrecking ball, smashing souls in its path, leaving disoriented saints staggering through the rubble of betrayal. This week we looked at what God said about hypocrites, how we can give an answer for hypocrisy, and most importantly how God can heal our wounds of hypocrisy, both the ones we have received and the ones we have inflicted. Check out part 3 of our series, “Church Hurt”, in a message titled, “Plank Eye”.

This Sunday we continued our series, “Church Hurt”, which is all about healing from the wounds of toxic religion and being the church we want others to experience. This week we examined the story of the woman caught in adultery. We learned in this story that knowledge of God is not only meaningless, but potentially harmful when not aligned to the heart of God in a message titled, “Drop the Rock”.

Jesus did not come to start a new religion. He came to set us free from toxic harmful religion, but toxic religion still exists. Whether it was bad theology, manipulative leadership, or just someone falling short, it doesn’t take long until we ourselves or someone we know experiences “church hurt.” This week we looked at the shortfalls in the history of the church, acknowledged the pain many have felt as a result, and worked towards letting Jesus heal our hurts in a message titled, “What To Do When: Church Hurts”.

This week we looked to answer the question, "If church is a hospital, how do we get people there?" What we learned by examining Jesus' life, is that there's a vehicle that we can use to take people to Him, and that vehicle is called, empathy. We studied this further by looking at how Jesus led with empathy in the death and resurrection of his friend Lazarus in a message titled, “A Dose of Humanity”.

We all need healing, perhaps more than we care to admit. But what do we do when it seems far away? This weekend we studied a story in the Bible of a person who seemed hopeless, far from the healing they needed in a message titled, “When Healing Seems Far Away”.