This Sunday we are going to look at some red letters telling the controversial story about Jesus, Simon the religious leader, and a prostitute. It was a very scandalous story in Jesus' day.

We will be exploring themes like acceptance, vulnerability, and the role of ritual in our faith and our relationships.

We will be exploring themes like the anger in our country these days, what it means to forgive someone, and the journey of letting go of hurt and bitterness.

We’ll look at the book of Acts to explore how ‘outsiders’ made their way into the church, and how this shaped the DNA of the church. (If you want the inside scoop, read Acts 10 & 11 before Sunday).

We’ll also look at what a little neurobiology might have to teach us about our difficulties seeing what God is up to when we’re in uncomfortable or unfamiliar settings. We will take a brief tour of world religions with some surprising encounters with Jesus along the way.

“Neighbor” is a powerful word. There is no word quite like it. There is beauty and kindness in that simple word. When you hear the word neighbor, who do you think of?

We are going to take a few weeks to think together with you about what it means to be the church together.

All this from exposure to negativity and, in particular, the word no. Of course sometimes we have to say no to make space in our lives for more important things. However, we cannot live on a diet of no. It kills the spirit. We were made for yes.

How do you deal with regret in life? How do we reconcile with people that we have hurt? Are there areas of our lives that we need to say “sorry” for that we aren’t even aware of?

We will be looking at the story of Jesus first miracle: turning water into wine at a wedding. This story will help us think through the “help” that we need in our lives and how to ask for it.

In the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, researchers who study hundreds of drivers found we actually take longer to leave a parking space if we know someone is waiting for it than we do if nobody is waiting at all. There is something inside of us that says, “This is my space.”

If drivers are in a desperate hurry picking up kids or late for an appointment and they give a little honk, researchers discovered that we make them wait four times longer. This is such a common human instinct that it has its own name: territorialism.

This happens in other arenas too. If you are at a restaurant, the longer the line of people waiting for a table or the more crowded the restaurant, the longer people linger at their table.

This is a big problem when it comes to making space for God in our lives: We have so much going on and jealously guard the boundaries of our lives that we do not have time to examine the condition of our character. We don't have time to put the kind of time that is needed into a soul friendship, to serve, to give, or to volunteer.

This Sunday, we are starting a new conversation called “Five Words to Change Your Life.” Everybody is busy, so every week, we will look at just one word God can use to change your life. It will be a season in which we make space for God.

This Easter Sunday, the word is “wow.” We are going to talk about what it is like to live in the age of cynicism, what children can teach us about wonder, and how the first Easter was all about “wow!”