This past weekend we heard from guest speakers, Josh & Che Gardner, about the mission of God for our city and surrounding region. They challenged us to consider that if there are 70K people in Cheshire County and 3% (generous number!) are followers of Jesus, that still leaves 67,900 people who are "far" from Christ. Josh and Che encouraged and equipped us with tools for how to share the story of God with others. Listen to Josh's message from our Sunday service.

We concluded our series through the book of Second Peter by looking at the encouragement to continue to grow spiritually. It’s really easy to get stuck or feel like we're not making progress. The reality is that we’re always being formed whether intentionally or unintentionally into someone. Peter’s prayer is that we would continue to grow in likeness of Christ.

This past Sunday we continued in chapter 3 of 2 Peter by looking at the timing of God. Specifically, we looked at the reality that God’s timing is not like ours and He operates in different ways than we do. This section was Peter’s response to the early church who were eagerly waiting for “The Day of the Lord,” a time when Jesus would return to put all things right, restore brokenness, and bring judgment upon the guilty. 

This past Sunday we started chapter 3 of 2 Peter. In this section, Peter continues his call to believers to be on guard against the message of false teachers, specifically “scoffers.” He appeals to them in “remembering the basics” of the Christian faith so that they can live lives of holiness and actually follow the way of Jesus. 

This past weekend, Jeff Ebert spoke on the post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus to the two men on the Road to Emmaus. He highlighted the fact that these men were in a state of hopelessness and despair until they experienced the risen Jesus. Jeff encouraged us to not let our circumstances dictate our ultimate hope, and to respond to Jesus wherever we find ourselves on the journey.

On this special day,  we looked at the story of Mary Magdalene and how she was given an upgraded understanding of Jesus on that first Easter morning. She went to the tomb looking for the crucified Jesus and walked away encountering the Risen Lord. After Mary encountered Jesus, two important things happened... First, she immediately was compelled to worship Him, and second, she was commissioned to go and tell others about Him. This has always been the response for all who truly encounter Jesus. Is it yours?

In this episode we picked back up in 2 Peter to continue exploring a biblical view of human sexuality and ethics. The big idea is that Christianity gives us a compelling and healthy sex ethic that leads to freedom, not oppression. The modern sex ethic claims to be safe, healthy, liberating and empowering, but underneath, it carries a destructive lie. As followers of Jesus, we must look to him in order to find ultimate freedom, liberation, and restoration.

In this episode we look at what the Bible has to say about singleness from Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church. In our passage, Paul is answering some real questions that people in the Corinthian church had about sex, marriage, divorce, and singleness. After all, the church was made up of followers of Jesus, and Jesus was single, so they wanted to know what it meant to practice the way of Jesus in these areas. 

Over the past few months, we have been going through the letter of Second Peter. This was a letter written by the Apostle Peter to a group of churches in what is now modern-day Turkey. The motivating impulse for this letter came from a group of false teachers who had infiltrated those churches and were becoming popular and leading a lot of people away from the faith. 

One of the main areas of teaching and practice Peter was criticizing them for was the area of sexuality. Operating in the background of everything Peter is saying and teaching is a biblical view of human sexuality and human ontology, which is the study of what it means to be human. 

On Sunday, Albie talked about the inspiring life of St. Patrick. He highlighted several things including the fact that Patrick was raised in a Christian home, was captured by pirates, sold into slavery, escaped, and eventually returned as a missionary to the Irish people. He unpacked some of the ways in which Patrick is a model for followers of Jesus when it comes to sharing our faith.