Being missional isn’t first about doing a whole bunch of new things but about doing what we already do with an eye toward blessing others. Well, there’s nothing we do more than talk. And that’s even more true if we include emails, texts, etc. But what are our intentions in all of those words, and what effect do they have? What if we took this thing that we do more than anything else and sought to bless others through it? What might it look like? How might God use t? And how can we become such a people?

Eating and drinking are among the most foundational and common things we do. But what if they point beyond themselves to redemptive realities and, as a consequence, are some of the most powerful missional habits we can develop?

If God answered all your prayers from this past week, how many people would have come to saving faith? How would people in your church have been blessed? How would your city be better? If we struggle to answer these questions, is it possible that our prayers are inadvertently deepening our self-centeredness rather than helping to free us from it? We reflect on these and other questions as we consider “missional prayer” in our latest sermon.

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul writes that we are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Similarly, in Titus 2:14, Paul writes that Jesus “gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” A central reason that God saved us so that we would be a people who zealously do good works. But how does God equip us to do those works? We consider this question and others in this week’s sermon.

A central part of our vision at Missio Dei is to love L.A. – the beautiful, glorious, and broken city where God has placed us and to which He has called us. But what does loving L.A. require of us? What does it mean for us to be a church not just in L.A., or even just for L.A., but with L.A.? How can we be a “counterculture for the common good?” To hear thoughts on these and other questions, you can listen to our sermon from this past Sunday, the 3rd in our Vision Series.

Before the Church is an instrument of God’s shalom in the world, it’s meant to be a display of God’s shalom in the world – a new community that reflects the love of God in its life together. But what would such a community look like? We wrestle with that question in the second sermon in our Vision Series.

A scholar once identified the “anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness” as the root anxiety of the modern age. Whether that’s historically and sociologically accurate, the question of meaning and purpose is a universal human question that we all wrestle with. We all want to know that we matter. In the words of the acclaimed writer David Foster Wallace, “We are all dying to give our lives away to something.” But what should that something be? To hear thoughts on these and other related questions, you can listen to our sermon from this Sunday, the first in a 3-part series outlining our church’s vision.

How do you we find contentment in the midst of disappointments and regrets? What’s the secret to happiness when we find ourselves in what feel like the cul-de-sacs or even the dead-ends of life?

One of the recurring statements throughout the Psalms is the call to “Praise the Lord.” But why does God call us to do this? Is it because He’s some sort of insecure narcissist who needs to have His ego stroked? Shouldn’t whether I’m a good person or not be all that matters and not whether I praise Him or love Him? And besides, what about Him deserves my praise anyway?