Commons Church Podcast

Brad Jersak writes: “What is God like? Toxic images abound: God the punishing judge, the deadbeat dad, the genie in a bottle—false gods that need to be challenged. But what if, instead, God truly is completely Christlike? What if His love is more generous, his Cross more powerful, and his gospel more beautiful than we’ve dared to imagine? What if our clearest image of God is the self-giving, radically forgiving, co- suffering Love revealed on the Cross? What if we had ‘A More Christlike God’?” That’s it. That’s our imagination as a church. To become a community that looks like Jesus, so that we can serve a God who looks like Jesus, and prepare to participate in a kingdom that looks just like Jesus. As we launch into our second year together as Commons Church we want to take the start of the season to refocus our community, theology, and participation on Jesus.

Brad Jersak writes: “What is God like? Toxic images abound: God the punishing judge, the deadbeat dad, the genie in a bottle—false gods that need to be challenged. But what if, instead, God truly is completely Christlike? What if His love is more generous, his Cross more powerful, and his gospel more beautiful than we’ve dared to imagine? What if our clearest image of God is the self-giving, radically forgiving, co- suffering Love revealed on the Cross? What if we had ‘A More Christlike God’?” That’s it. That’s our imagination as a church. To become a community that looks like Jesus, so that we can serve a God who looks like Jesus, and prepare to participate in a kingdom that looks just like Jesus. As we launch into our second year together as Commons Church we want to take the start of the season to refocus our community, theology, and participation on Jesus.

Brad Jersak writes: “What is God like? Toxic images abound: God the punishing judge, the deadbeat dad, the genie in a bottle—false gods that need to be challenged. But what if, instead, God truly is completely Christlike? What if His love is more generous, his Cross more powerful, and his gospel more beautiful than we’ve dared to imagine? What if our clearest image of God is the self-giving, radically forgiving, co- suffering Love revealed on the Cross? What if we had ‘A More Christlike God’?” That’s it. That’s our imagination as a church. To become a community that looks like Jesus, so that we can serve a God who looks like Jesus, and prepare to participate in a kingdom that looks just like Jesus. As we launch into our second year together as Commons Church we want to take the start of the season to refocus our community, theology, and participation on Jesus.

Prayer is perhaps the most precious and most under-utilized gift we have. For a multitude of reasons, people who follow Jesus often struggle with it. And the more capable you think you are, the bigger the struggle. Perhaps this is because we fail to see the deep practicality of prayer, the deeply connected way it can reorder our lives. Perhaps we need to look at life, and ourselves, in a new way. In this series we want to imagine the Lord’s prayer as five questions we can ask daily. We want to take the practice of talking to and being with God, and see this way as something solid and tangible, something daily, something that matters to our experience of life. If you have grown a little stale in your personal prayers, this series promises to re-energize what is most basic. Prayer is more practical than you ever dreamed.

Prayer is perhaps the most precious and most under-utilized gift we have. For a multitude of reasons, people who follow Jesus often struggle with it. And the more capable you think you are, the bigger the struggle. Perhaps this is because we fail to see the deep practicality of prayer, the deeply connected way it can reorder our lives. Perhaps we need to look at life, and ourselves, in a new way. In this series we want to imagine the Lord’s prayer as five questions we can ask daily. We want to take the practice of talking to and being with God, and see this way as something solid and tangible, something daily, something that matters to our experience of life. If you have grown a little stale in your personal prayers, this series promises to re-energize what is most basic. Prayer is more practical than you ever dreamed.

Prayer is perhaps the most precious and most under-utilized gift we have. For a multitude of reasons, people who follow Jesus often struggle with it. And the more capable you think you are, the bigger the struggle. Perhaps this is because we fail to see the deep practicality of prayer, the deeply connected way it can reorder our lives. Perhaps we need to look at life, and ourselves, in a new way. In this series we want to imagine the Lord’s prayer as five questions we can ask daily. We want to take the practice of talking to and being with God, and see this way as something solid and tangible, something daily, something that matters to our experience of life. If you have grown a little stale in your personal prayers, this series promises to re-energize what is most basic. Prayer is more practical than you ever dreamed.

Prayer is perhaps the most precious and most under-utilized gift we have. For a multitude of reasons, people who follow Jesus often struggle with it. And the more capable you think you are, the bigger the struggle. Perhaps this is because we fail to see the deep practicality of prayer, the deeply connected way it can reorder our lives. Perhaps we need to look at life, and ourselves, in a new way. In this series we want to imagine the Lord’s prayer as five questions we can ask daily. We want to take the practice of talking to and being with God, and see this way as something solid and tangible, something daily, something that matters to our experience of life. If you have grown a little stale in your personal prayers, this series promises to re-energize what is most basic. Prayer is more practical than you ever dreamed.

Prayer is perhaps the most precious and most under-utilized gift we have. For a multitude of reasons, people who follow Jesus often struggle with it. And the more capable you think you are, the bigger the struggle. Perhaps this is because we fail to see the deep practicality of prayer, the deeply connected way it can reorder our lives. Perhaps we need to look at life, and ourselves, in a new way. In this series we want to imagine the Lord’s prayer as five questions we can ask daily. We want to take the practice of talking to and being with God, and see this way as something solid and tangible, something daily, something that matters to our experience of life. If you have grown a little stale in your personal prayers, this series promises to re-energize what is most basic. Prayer is more practical than you ever dreamed.

We've all heard about the battle of Armageddon and yet in the Revelation it's almost over before it begins. War is a false climax. It is grace and peace that win the day just as God has always promised.

Clearly Revelation is calling us to be awake and aware in our world, but when it comes to these characters wrapped in riddles what does it mean to be watchful? Are we fearfully waiting for the right/wrong person to emerge or should be aware of the cycles of empire that dominate human history?