God still speaks to unlikely people in unlikely places.

4 Practical Tips to Hear God Speak to YOU:

“For no word from God will ever fail.” - Luke 1:37 

This Advent, we are praying that we'll keep our focus on THE GIFT in the midst of all the other gifts.

The greatest gift we can offer Jesus is who we are becoming.

An Advent Prayer: Lord God, we want to keep our focus on THE GIFT, and to become more like Jesus during this Advent season. Please convict us of sin and reveal how we need to change. Holy Spirit, we invite you to change us from the inside out. Lord Jesus, we want to offer you the gift of our surrendered and transformed hearts this Christmas. Amen.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus invites us to:

The freedom, healing and transformation which we all need – the spiritual awakening and liberation for which we long is not found in a program, but a person. His name is Jesus.

How is Jesus inviting you to trust him? How are you choosing to respond?

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." - Matthew 16:24-27 

The fruit of spiritual awakening is a new Community, new identity and new mission.

AA Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Wesleyan Covenant Prayer: “I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed by you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine, and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”

The goal of the Gospel is communion with God in Christ by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

AA Step Eleven: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

"Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” - John 4:13-14 NIV

This week's worship gathering looked a little different as we welcomed guests Carl & Alyssa Adkins and invited them to share more about Alyssa's recovery journey and sobriety, what it's like to walk through recovery with your spouse, and how to invite your kids into the process.

We also held some space to walk through Alcoholics Anonymous Step #10: "Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it"

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." - Romans 12:2

Step Six: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Step Seven: Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Celebrate Recovery, Principle 5: Voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask Him to remove my character defects.

The Gospel invites us to be active participants in a process of transformation that can only happen by God’s grace and power working in us.

The goal of the Gospel in us is our complete transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ – now and for eternity.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” - Romans 12:1-2

The Serenity Prayer written by Reinhold Niebuhr: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.

The Gospel declares that confessing our sins is necessary for our healing, forgiveness, and transformation in Jesus Christ.

“Bland confession is like taking a shower with your clothes on: you avoid the embarrassment of nakedness, but it’s hard to get clean. Often in church groups the only sins that get confessed are vague and respectable — almost virtues...Where the practice of confession is superficial, the experience of grace will be superficial." - John Ortberg, Steps

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." - James 5:16

There is no path to freedom and wholeness outside of vulnerability. Yet, we spend most of our lives choosing to be invulnerable. 

What did vulnerability and in-vulnerability look like in the life of King David? Let's dive in together.

"Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.