It’s no secret, one of the results of the pandemic has been a rapid decline in church attendance (both worshipping in-person and remotely) and in overall church-life involvement across the country. More and more people seem to be looking upon the church as either irrelevant to their walk with God or just not that important. So, it begs the question, what’s so great about the church, and why does our involvement in church-life really matter? How can each one of us build a vibrant church community?

On this Reformation Day Sunday, special guest Dr. Paul Copan speaks to us about the priesthood of all believers. We’ll rediscover the treasure of having the Scriptures in the language of the common people and be encouraged to see how every honest vocation can be pleasing to God and seen as an act of worship.

How can we nurture a heart for God and a heart for missions when we lose heart? How can we affirm our commitment to the Lord when it seems like everything around us is giving way? In this message, guest preacher, Pastor Julian, teaches us how the Lord’s mercy, power, word, and glory can strengthen our resolve.

We’ll look at the Apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” and discover how God wants to use our weakness to reach the world for him. Join us this Sunday as we learn how to face the painful, unpleasant, and often debilitating areas of personal weakness with God’s strength and hope in our lives.

Isolation. Loneliness. Alienation. Especially in this time of social distancing, what do we do when we feel like we're all alone in the world? Even when we’re surrounded by lots of people, we can still be lonely. How do we handle the weight and grief of loneliness? This week, we’ll look at another famous story of grief and hope and what it can teach us about our stories.

To be human is to experience shame. To different degrees, every person is fighting a battle with shame. Shame is a universal experience, but what exactly are we experiencing? Moreover, is there healing for our shame? In this message, we’ll be looking at Jesus’ encounter with the Woman at the Well and learning together how Jesus begins to heal us and free us from our shame.

No one gets a pass on grief and we all feel the burden of loss. Sometimes we don’t know how we are going to get through and it seems like God has abandoned us. We’ll look at someone who endured great suffering, but ultimately found hope in a God who never forgot her.

There are times in all our lives that call for courage. In the second part of our series, “Grief and Hope: Stories of Suffering and Endurance,” we consider the grief of religious oppression and the need for courage. We’ll be looking at the story of Daniel’s three friends and the fiery furnace and seeking to learn from them the path to true courage.

In this message, we look at the story of Joseph and learn how to face the bitter grief of betrayal with forgiveness and peace in our hearts.

In the final message of the series, Overlooked Vices, we consider the seriousness of laziness. What is laziness and why should we take it seriously? We’ll be looking at the wisdom of Proverbs and, of course, the gospel of Jesus to grow in our diligence and to develop a biblical theology of work and rest.