This Sunday, Pastor Jon Tyson continued Missional Formation, where we are exploring what we believe are the “core competencies” of living life on mission with Jesus. We began our final three weeks of this series on Sacrificial Mission by looking at the distinctive of Disciple Making. The vision of our church is that everyone in our church is sharing the Gospel, seeing people come to Christ, and discipling them into the Kingdom of God. Discipleship, particularly in the West, has become associated feelings of frustration, over dependence on programs, and general confusion around what it actually means to both be discipled and disciple others. In light of this, we have to recover a Biblical standard for discipleship, and receive a fresh vision for multi-generational discipling like we see modeled by Paul in 2 Timothy 2:1-2.

This Sunday in our Missional Formation series, Pastor Sam Gibson spoke on the distinctive of Crucified and Consecrated, focusing on the discipline of fasting. Living a crucified and consecrated life allows believers to put to death their fleshly desires and makes space for Jesus to resurrect His desires in us. Building a lifestyle of fasting is one of the most effective and powerful practices that brings about this transformation in our lives. Yet, while many Christians know they should fast, they often don’t understand why or how best to approach this discipline. More than just abstaining from eating, fasting is an intentional act of surrender that positions us to receive more of God.

This week, Pastor Jon Tyson continued our sermon series on Missional Formation by teaching on the distinctive of Communitas and the discipline of core accountability through Romans 16:1-16, which uncovers the communal structure of the Early Church and challenges us to rethink community in light of God’s Kingdom. Jesus’ vision for the Church is more than just a group of people who are formed by their own preferences and opinions, but a people unified by shared mission. 

This week, Pastor Suzy Silk continued our sermon series on Missional Formation by focusing on the distinctive of Discipling the Deficits and the discipline of confessing sin as keys to being counter-formed from the ways of the world into the ways of Jesus. Pastor Suzy called us to walk in freedom by regularly inviting the Holy Spirit to search our hearts, confessing specific sins regularly, and committing to accountability in a trusted group. Confession and obedience lead to greater freedom, intimacy with God, and the increased ability to reflect His image in the world.

This week, Pastor Al Gordon from Saint Church in London continued our Missional Formation series with a word on Space and Risk. As followers of Jesus, it is mission critical for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. As God’s work continues to accelerate on the earth, we must be a people who are willing to not only make space for the Holy Spirit’s leading, but take hold of every risk He puts in front of us both as individuals and as a body of believers.

This Sunday, Pastor Suzy continued our Missional Formation series by unpacking the distinctive of Radical Daily Pursuit through the discipline of feasting on the Word. Often without meaning to, we can lose sight of why God wants us to spend time reading the Bible. This discipline is not meant to be driven by doing things for God so that He will be pleased with us, but out of a desire to commune with the God who desires to commune with us. 

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Missional Formation series with a teaching on the first of nine distinctives and corresponding disciplines of Church of the City’s radical minimum standard for discipleship. We believe compelling missional disciples are marked by three things — tangible presence, counter formation, and sacrificial mission — and the distinctives and disciplines we will be diving into this season make up how to practically live these out in our day to day lives. The first distinctive, sitting under tangible presence, is Revival and Awakening, and the discipline is contending prayer. 

This Sunday, Pastor Jon kicked off our new sermon series on Missional Formation with a teaching on setting a new radical minimum standard for discipleship. He challenged us with a powerful reminder: the true measure of a church isn’t found in its programs or teachings, but in the hearts of its disciples and their commitment to obeying Jesus’ great commission. Pastor Jon called us to elevate our expectations for discipleship, and approach it as a response to God’s love for us, instead of using willpower or performance. As we experience His love, we are transformed and empowered to love Him back.

This Sunday, we closed out our God Comes Where He’s Wanted Series with guest preacher and friend, Zach Meerkreebs, with a teaching on cultivating the altar of the region. Only when we are heartbroken over our region, as Jesus was heartbroken over Jerusalem, will we begin to prayerfully build the altar of our region through Christlike confrontation, conscreted confidence, and faithful contending. 

This Sunday, Pastor Sam Gibson continued our God Comes Where He’s Wanted series with a message on cultivating the altar of the Church. Pastor Sam acknowledged there is often pain and hopelessness tied to conversations about the Church today, while offering a hopeful vision of restoring corporate spaces of seeking God through tearing down false altars, building up spaces for God’s presence, and tending to those spaces as unified bodies of believers.