FBC Eugene

In the hours before the cross, when Jesus could have been uptight, self-absorbed, and stressed out, he was still focused on loving and serving those around him.

So often, when we are under stress and pressure, it is difficult to keep living like Jesus. Sometimes we can even become quite the opposite!

How do we stay focused on God when life becomes challenging, even overwhelming?

We're starting a new series all about learning to see the big picture.

We’re going to look at our source, purpose, and destiny with God. When we can see these things clearly, we can see the big picture that allows us to live like Jesus in the everyday stuff of life.

Read 1 Peter 2:9 for this message.

This sermon, Pastor Ben will share more about how leadership in the New Testament church functioned and the importance of doing God's kingdom work through team work.

Throughout recent church history, the idea of relying on an omni-competent, senior leader operating like a CEO, has been a traditional element of church leadership.

As Pastor Ben will share this message, although the Scriptures allow for great flexibility in the way the leadership of a local church is organized, no such CEO type role is found. The way we do church cannot be designed to operate around a single individual, but rather we are most effective when the spiritual leaders of a local church are recognized as and function as a team.

Read 1 Peter 5:1-2, Titus 1:5-9, and Hebrews 13:17 for this message.

This message, Pastor Ben will make two very important announcements, one regarding some exciting developments in the plan for a new lodge at Camp Harlow, and a second regarding a major change in the leadership structure of our pastoral staff proposed by the Board of Elders.

In addition to these announcements, we will also look to the future and some of the ways we hope to develop all of the open property God has entrusted to us, so we can maximize our mission to serve as salt and light to our community. We believe God is leading us to continue in new ways of ministry to bless our community to draw people to himself, and we believe that what we can see today is just the beginning.

Pastor Ben will share some of these plans this message, as we start a new ministry year and continue to seek to be on mission together and be the most effective church we can be to reach more people for God's kingdom.

We’ve got one last sermon from our series on the heart-searching questions of Jesus.

In this passage, Jesus confronts the religious leaders for honoring tradition above obedience to God.

Throughout church history, there have been times and people who have called out the church when tradition usurps its proper role. Tradition can be wonderfully helpful and guiding, but it can also quickly turn to legalism.

As a church, we have an incredible history and legacy, and we must be relentless that our message is absolutely unchanging, while methods and strategy must change and improve.

Sometimes even the success of the past can become tradition that limits in the future. As we’ll see this Sunday, we must remain diligent to continually seek God to be the most effective for God’s mission here in this time and place.

Read Matthew 15:1-20 for this sermon.

In this message, we are doing our annual Community Prayer Sunday, where we hear from leaders in different sectors of our community.

Our goal is to understand how we can pray specifically for different parts of our community.

We'll have several guests sharing in this message about the needs for prayer they have in their area of leadership and influence. Our goal is to be an effective church on mission in Eugene, Springfield and beyond. Jesus said that apart from him, we can do nothing, so we believe it all starts with prayer.

Join us in this message to learn how you can be praying for different areas of our community.

This message, we’re looking at a question of Jesus which, at face value, makes no sense at all.

Jesus approaches a sick man and asks him, “Do you want to be healed?"

Why would Jesus ask this? This man was obviously struggling and in need of help. But Jesus asks him if he wants to be healed.

As we unpack this question this message, we’ll see that there’s more to it than you might think.

In a simple question, Jesus removes all barriers, motivations, and excuses, when he simply asks: "do you want to be made well?"

We’ll see how this physical example demonstrates a spiritual truth that Jesus brings healing and wholeness. And the question for us is: do we really want Jesus to heal all of us and to go there?

Read John 5:1-18 for this sermon.

In this message, we're looking at a passage where God challenges his people to go back to where they first began their relationship with Him.

We'll look at the life of Abraham to see how to respond to God's call, to re-center our lives on him as we begin this new school year.

We'll also look at how to respond to God's call by personally spending time with God, through His Word. Time with God in his Word is the fuel Christians need to grow, but for many the spiritual fuel gauge is on empty.

There are all sorts of reasons why people don’t read the Bible. The Bible can be intimidating, confusing, and overwhelming. Or maybe the intention and desire are there, but time keeps slipping away.

In this message, we'll learn about re-centering our lives on God's call and look at how to study God’s Word for yourself to be empowered to grow in your walk with God.

This message continues our series on the questions of Jesus.

People were not afraid to ask Jesus a lot of different questions throughout the Gospels. And Jesus was not shy about asking questions right back.

In this message we'll look at a familiar story in the Bible that is sparked when a lawyer asks Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"

Jesus' surprising response to this expert in Old Testament law is nothing short of mind-stretching, heart-penetrating, life-changing truth. In fact, this seemingly simple, childlike story about a Good Samaritan changes the way we see, respond, and love the neighbors in everyday life.

This message is the second and final part of Vision Sunday. Pastor Ben shares about this upcoming year as well as what might be on the horizon in the more distant future.

We believe our best days as a church are ahead of us! Jesus said that he would build his church, and power of death could not stop it.

We absolutely believe what Jesus said, and we continue to seek, pray, and plan to make the biggest possible impact for God's glory.

It is crucial for us to diligently seek God and ask his direction for our church, so we don’t become comfortable and miss what he is doing.

We want to be a church that closely follows God’s lead and is always pursuing the next wave of uncharted ministry on the horizon.

We believe that God has great plans for his people, that he is building his church, and that all of us have a part to make a difference for his kingdom.

In this message, Pastor Ben shares some exciting and encouraging news about the state of our church as well as some of what we are planning for this coming year.

In Part Two, we will look forward in greater detail, to the near and distant future of what God has for us as we think strategically about how to reach as many people as possible for Jesus.