In a postmodern world, truth and love are open for interpretation and demands are often made to accept or affirm personal definitions of truth and love. For this reason, the words and actions of Jesus can seem offensive (as they often did in His day) because Jesus will not change His definitions of Truth and Love to affirm who we are. Rather, Jesus’ Truth and Jesus’ Love affirms who His Father is. Period. Full stop. No apologies.

The purpose of the Sabbath is Worship. Everyone worships something. The question is not - are you worshipping, but who or what are you worshipping? Once we enter into the practice of Sabbath; once we stop, then rest, then delight, the resulting response is worship. 

Through the Sabbath, God invites us to experience true delight. Sabbath is delighting in God’s world, his word; to delight in God, and to experience his delight in us. But our culture promotes the opposite of what God is offering us in the Sabbath. The fruit of this world is burnout and cynicism, but there’s another way – and in the Sabbath, God’s promise of rest still stands.

Sabbath is a Holy day, ascribed uniquely by God at creation and again in the Ten Commandments. It is a day to practice wrapping our best AND most broken parts around, a day that grants a weekly reprieve from the anxieties that enslave our thoughts, emotions, and best intentions. Anything God names "Holy" is a gift to His people. So let us move towards Sabbath with joy and expectation. 

Most of us live with little to no margin, teetering on the edge of burnout, unable to love God or one another fully. Sabbath is an invitation to stop this anxious, hurried pace and rest. In this ancient practice, we shift from restlessness to restfulness in all of life. In Sabbath, we remember the rhythms God practiced and embedded in all creation, trusting him to provide everything we need from a heart posture of gratitude.

From the Vision Series 2022: Follow. Jesus walked in the power of the Holy Spirit (Lk. 4v14), and the Father gives his children the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1v8, Rom. 13v13). When does this happen? How does it happen? Who is the Holy Spirit? And what does living in the power of the Holy Spirit look like?

From the Vision Series 2022: Follow. Jesus' call to follow him is synonymous with a call to community. The primary title in the New Testament to describe the community Jesus is building is "family." But for many, family is complicated. We don't get to choose our family. The family Jesus is building can also be challenging. Without community, we restrict our spiritual formation and miss out on God's design for the church. So how do we practice biblical community with all our baggage, fears, and expectations?

From the Vision Series 2022: Follow. We’re all in the process of becoming someone. Either we are actively involved in this process, or we are passive.  Jesus invites us to follow in him through the process of abiding. Before Citizens can live a communal life or a charismatic life, we must live the Christ life, which starts with abiding in the vine, being hidden in Christ, and being formed into his image.

Matthew 7:12

From the Series “Sermon on the Mount.” Prayer can feel like an impossible practice to integrate into daily life. We all have hangups and deeply conflicting emotions about prayer for various reasons. Even still, Jesus invites his disciples into a life of abiding prayer filled with asking, seeking, and knocking. But what does Jesus mean? And is there a way around the common roadblocks followers of Jesus experience when we try to obey this teaching and take Jesus at his word?