Great Lakes Church

The Detours in Life: With more than 4 million public roads and only 5% of them under construction at any given time, it feels pretty unlikely that you’d get a detour. But you do… all the time. Life is the same, isn’t it? Sometimes it feels like you spend more time off-course than on it. How do we adjust to the inevitable plans in life not going according to plan?

Connected Not Present: Did you feel that? Another vibration from your phone. What’s that? Another notification on your smartwatch. We’re inundated with connection but less connected than ever before. We could know anything about everything and everyone if we wanted to. We just never stopped long enough to ask if we should.

Busier But Not Better: Remember when email was supposed to make life easier? Now we leave thousands of unread messages in our inboxes because we’re overwhelmed by the mountain staring us in the face. Life can feel the same way. The more we do, the harder it becomes to get through each day. Maybe the answer isn’t to do more. Maybe it’s time to adjust our rhythm.

When Life Gets More Expensive: Whether you’ve been around for 20 years or 80 years, you know one of the biggest adjustments in our lives has been in our budgets. Everything costs more money. What are we supposed to do? It’s scary and overwhelming to feel so financially insecure. Let’s try adjusting the point of it all—including the point of you.

How Do You Know If You’re Winning?: Success isn't just about what we accomplish, how much we earn, or how well we perform. It's about becoming the kind of person who brings joy, builds meaningful relationships, and makes others feel safe, valued, and encouraged. Discover what it really means to live a fulfilling life and how the way we see ourselves can shape the way we live.

Mind Your Mind: Translating a nutrition label is something most people do on a daily basis. We’re careful with what we put in our bodies but not so careful with what we put in our minds. Is there a way to be proactive about what we think about? Figuring out how to protect our minds should also be something we do on a daily basis.

Peace Out, Worry: Worry can become something we rehearse until it snowballs into anxiety, fear, and stress. But Paul gives us a different way forward. Instead of allowing our minds to spiral, we can learn to bring our worries to God in prayer—and experience a peace that doesn’t always make sense. When you think prayerfully, you live peacefully.

Reframing Your Thinking: Most people assume winning the lottery will change their life. The problem is they’ll still think how they think when they do. It’s why others interpret every circumstance in their life negatively. We have a framework always defining things for us. So maybe the only way to change our life is to reframe how we frame everything.

Train Your Brain: In the 1980s Apple had an amazing advertising campaign that consisted of just two words: think different. That’s much easier said than done though, isn’t it? Sometimes it feels like our thoughts control us instead of the other way around. So what do we do? The answer is important because every action depends on how you think.

Changing How You Think: What if the direction of your life is shaped by the direction of your thoughts? This talk explores the surprising connection between faith, neuroscience, and everyday thinking, offering practical ways to break unhealthy mental patterns, find lasting hope, and experience real life change from the inside out.