This week good friend John Rozzelle, from Cru, leads us in a discussion about his experiences talking about God with students, friends, and total strangers. This practical teaching aims to assist us as we live as Christians in a post-Christian world. Our friends may have little to no knowledge of the Bible, but we share a lot in common. We all have problems, deal with pain, live this life bound to a single body–and yearn for the eternal. If you ever feel stuck in how to talk about Jesus to someone else, this is a great listen. Please bear in mind, being more interactive (but still in our small low-tech church!) some of the audience participation can be hard to hear.

Acts 5:12-42 – Louder! Everything in Acts is getting louder. More healing, more imprisonment, more beauty, more conflict. A battle over the soul is ringing in the ears in Acts 5. But to the twelve apostles, the way of Jesus, what this passage calls "the Life" is louder than death. In a family oriented service, today we will try to first see what the Life Jesus offers is to us–then challenge our reactions. Are we avoiding the Jesus Life because it is impractical, risky, or threatening? Then we'll ask how it is that we handle the loudness of this world. It's pressures and critiques of us. When faced with increasing volume, we tend to double-down, bend, or break. The question isn't whether one of these is better than the other – the question is to what or whom do we cave toward when the going gets tough? Because above all, this text reminds us that we are not able to following Jesus on our own merits. It is only with his guidance, being held up by his outstretched hand.

Acts 4:32-5:17 – Let's contrast this weeks story of Ananias and Sapphira with someone like David. David did FAR worse things than withhold some income from a piece of land from the church (For instance, he slept with his general Uriah's wife Bathsheba, and then had Uriah killed). Why then, does scripture seem to show that David's sins are forgiven, but Ananias and Sapphira are judged for their sins? In one of the most challenging aspects of Christianity, we look today at the pardon of sins for the repentant due to the save mercy of God (fulfilled through the death of Jesus Christ), versus the judgement of sins for the prideful and unrepentant.

Acts 4:5-37 – A key theme in Acts 4 is the boldness of the growing movement of Jesus followers. How do we get this bold faith? If we trace backward through Acts, we find a community of people with common purposes, vision and values together practicing of new way of life. This text gives us a paradigm for this called “cornerstone” living. And as we trace back through the story, we can understand this life of discipleship, or “practicing the way of Jesus” as being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing what Jesus did. Unfortunately, we didn’t travel with Jesus for three years like the disciples–but Luke knows that–and here he gives us helpful descriptions of new believers in Jesus who boldly practiced the way.

Acts 3:1 - 4:4 – This week's teaching is part of our new "family" service which we'll hold every five weeks. Kids are downstairs with parents, and the whole service is geared interactively to involve everyone as much as possible. Today Jon helps us make sense of the unique power of the Gospel by looking at the story of the Holy Spirit's healing of the lame beggar through the faith of Peter and John. We'll see how the good news that Jesus brings (the Gospel) is experienced, shared, and recognized in this passage and how God's main intent throughout the entire Bible is to rescue us by asking us to allow him to transform our hearts.

Acts 2:37-47 – Often the image of the early church shown in Acts 2:42-27 is held up as an ideal for the church. "They shared everything in common" they were "devoted... to the fellowship", the early church "sold their possessions and gave to anyone who was in need". To be sure these are a wonderful witness that did help the church "find favor with all people" in the surrounding area. Our problem is that we pull these verses out of context. We read them as a product we ought to mimic without realizing the key is found in process that led to this portrait. When we can live into this story, this process, and yearn to live a life of repentance and hope, this passage promises we will find that God's will paint a unique and equally beautiful portrait of our community. Maybe it will even look like the Acts 2:42-47 church, though it took a different approach to get there than we could have ever imagined.

Acts 2:14-41 – This week Tabatha Leady joins us to share a message of hope and encouragement from Acts 2. Here we read of Peter's first sermon. A notes-free sermon he shared at 9 a.m. from a balcony overlooking the temple courts immediately following the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the followers of Jesus gathered in the Upper Room. Lifting up the story arc of Peter's life, and the message he shares Tabatha guides us through brokenness to joy in the salvation, comfort and peace given by Jesus.

Acts 1:12-2:13 – Pentecost! A story of the fiery presence of God equipping and enabling the early church for mission. But first – Peter leads the followers of Jesus by seeking a replacement for Judas among the apostles and restoring the Twelve to wholeness by following the Holy Spirit in prayer, praise, scripture, and even casting lots to navigate through woundedness to healing. Today, we'll examine how the Holy Spirit speaks to us, and how the spirit of the Devil seeks to distort Jesus's voice. How do we listen to the right voice? Next we look at how this sets the stage for the fiery presence of God to alight on the community in the upper room and enable the Holy Spirit to speak through them, paying particular attention to the statement that each person who hears them proclaiming the "wonders of God" hears it in their mother tongue. What does it mean that Luke gives the church a story that shows the power of Jesus to reach others by speaking the language of home?

Acts 1:1-11 – Jon introduces a new series where we will be going verse by verse through the book of Acts. He examines the main characters, setting and chief aims of the book: the witness of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God through the work of Jesus Christ. The challenge this week is to consider our own witness by asking 1) Whose Kingdom do we desire? 2) How do we see our role in the Kingdom? When these two questions are answered by the Word of God–we will find balance in scales of our life through the saving power of Jesus. We will begin to see the Holy Spirit dwelling in fullness and power in our bodies, as they become homes for Jesus. We will change, we will grow, we will depart from sin and we will persevere from heartache as we see we are in one accord with the Apostles in Acts, the aims of the historic orthodox Christian Church, and most of all with the Spirit of Jesus himself.

Luke 24:33-53 – Concluding our three-week series on the basics of our Christian faith we're focusing on Community. The 40-day period following Jesus's death and preceding his resurrection is a time when Jesus visits the disciples in the flesh to physically live out the Gospel he has taught and led them in for 3 years. After they miserably misinterpret the Messiah, Jesus gives them a "Second Act". Through his grace and forgiveness to the likes of Peter, Thomas, the disciples on the Road to Emmaus and others he forms the beginnings of the grace-based community of Jesus, the Church. Today we'll look at how this grace-based, gospel-centered community–a community that lives in a Second Act and gives Second Acts to others–ought to transform the way we think of the church.