Motion Church

Motion Church | Victor, Week 1: "Victory Question"

Kicking off a brand-new series called Victor, this message starts with an honoring of two longtime leaders — including Motion Church's very first youth pastor, who began serving "16 years ago" and is, as Pastor Andy puts it, "still serving with all his heart." It's Mother's Day too, and Shelly gets her well-earned shoutout.

Then into the heart of it: life isn't a fairy tale. "If you don't know this by now, sweetheart, Cinderella, this ain't a fairy tale." Adversity is guaranteed for everyone — "the rain will come... at some point you're going to go through a storm." The real question isn't whether trouble comes, but how you respond to it. "I think that there are two basic mentalities that you can have. You can be a victim, or you can be a victor."

Scripture doesn't leave us guessing about which one we're called to be: "We are more than conquerors through him... not through your effort, not through your talent." As Jesus said in John 16, "in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation... but take heart, I have overcome the world."

The difference between a victim and a victor comes down to one thing: the question they ask. Victims ask "why" — why me, why now, why is this happening. Victors ask "what" — "God, what do you want me to see in this struggle?" Even David swung between the two in Psalm 22, moving from "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" to praising God in the very same psalm. Even Jesus, in Gethsemane, asked "let this cup pass from me" before landing on "nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."

And here's the encouragement: it's okay to visit "Whyland" for a moment — "we can pass through, we can make a day trip, maybe, but that's not where we live... we're making our way to What land."

The message closes with a powerful image: "Seeds don't grow unless you put them in the ground. Muscles don't grow unless they're torn." Nothing in your life is wasted — "we don't lose. We learn." So the question for Motion Church is simple: "Are we going to be victims or are we going to be victors?"

Motion Church | Walk, Week 4: "Meet in the Middle"

Can you accept someone without approving of everything they do? This week's message — introduced through a "Name That Tune" country music bit — takes its title from an old 90s country song: "We meet in the middle of that old Georgia line... If we give a little, there's no road too long."

The subtitle for today's message says it all: "understanding the difference between acceptance and approval." It's a two-layer conversation — how we, the church, interact with the world outside, and how we treat each other inside the body of Christ.

On reaching outside: the Pharisees treated people as clean or unclean, but "their hands were clean, but their hearts were filthy." Jesus modeled something completely different — he called Matthew the tax collector and immediately "Jesus is hanging out at Matthew's house," reclining at the table with "tax collectors and sinners," before Matthew had cleaned up his life at all. With Zacchaeus, Jesus didn't wait for him to get it together either — "hurry and come down for today... not tomorrow after you get everything cleaned up." The takeaway: "we accept them, even if we don't approve of the way that they live." As one pastor put it, "people want to belong before they believe."

On unity inside the church: "What it does not look like for a church to be in unity is to have all of the exact same thoughts, beliefs, ideas — that's not unity, that's robotic." Drawing from Ephesians 4 and Psalm 133, the call is to walk "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love." Too often, "we major on minors and minor on majors" — fighting over things like baptism methods while agreeing on everything that actually matters eternally. The challenge: "swallow our pride and strive for unity over spiritual superiority."

The message lands on Jesus' prayer in John 17 — "that they may all be one... so that the world may believe that you have sent me." When the church chooses unity, it becomes the kind of place people actually want to be part of — instead of "a lateral move" that looks just like the dysfunction they're trying to leave behind.

Walk outside with acceptance. Walk inside with unity. Meet in the middle.

Motion Church | Sisterhood: "Locally Grown"

"Welcome to the sisterhood, where we are gonna fill your cup up."

This special women's gathering kicks off with a theme of "locally grown" — and a celebration of how women grow together in community, in faith, and in friendship. Tonight's big idea: "how can we locally grow as women in Christ together in community"? The answer comes down to one thing — sharing our story, sharing our testimony.

Shelly opens with a hilarious, heartfelt rundown of growing up in what she calls an "over saved home" — Bibles in every room, a "Jesus lamp" with eyes that followed you down the hallway, a cordless phone with a cord that didn't move past the school desk in the middle of the house, and a mom who insisted "if you do something wrong... God's gonna tell me." For years, Shelly didn't think she had a testimony because, as she puts it, "I just thought I had to go do a bunch of bad stuff and come back to Jesus to have a testimony." But her mom set her straight: "Your testimony is God's faithfulness in your life, protection in your life."

From there, Shelly tells the story of her one (and only) homegrown bell pepper — the result of 45 days of watering, bug-checking, and effort — which she refused to share with anyone, even her own family. "I did not share what I watered, and what I grew with the people that I care about." But God used that moment to speak to her: "You share your story. And you share with others what I've done for you... We want everyone to taste the goodness of God."

Drawing from Mark 5, the story of the man freed from demon possession who was sent home to "tell your family everything the Lord has done for you," the message lands on this truth: "Your personal testimony and your personal experiences mean more to people than any fact." And no matter how different each story is, "there's one thing that's the same in every story, is that we are all sinners in need of a savior. And that is what matters the most, and that's what brings us together."

A night of laughter, honesty, and women sharing their own stories — because every story matters, and every story points back to him.

Motion Church | Walk, Week 3: "Walk This Way (Not Like an Egyptian)"

When you're sandwiched between an army and the sea, what does it look like to walk the path God has called you to?

Continuing the Walk series — yes, the title is a nod to that 80s classic — this week heads back to the Old Testament for the story of the Exodus, where the children of Israel find themselves trapped: "they're between an Egyptian army and a wet place." But God parts the Red Sea, and the Israelites walk through on dry ground while Pharaoh's army is swept away behind them.

Here's the principle drawn from it: "When you walk the path that God has called you to, he will provide for you." And here's the detail easy to miss: "They walked from slavery to salvation on dry ground. They walk from bondage to freedom on dry ground, and the invitation stands for me and you to do the same thing."

This isn't just an ancient story — it's personal. From the moment you take that first step toward God, "God starts to take care of things that you didn't even think about." Things you didn't think you could ever walk away from — habits, attitudes, relationships — start losing their grip. "You didn't think you'd ever be able to walk away from that situation, but look at you now."

But there's an important distinction: "God will always provide for the needs that you have. That does not mean that he provides for the wants that you have." As Jesus said in Matthew 7, "how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?"

And provision doesn't always come the way we expect — sometimes it comes through people. "When you are walking the right path, God will put the right people on your path." Some of them are dry ground when you're stumbling. Some are an umbrella in the storm. "We need each other to accomplish all of the things that God has called us to accomplish... you cannot do it alone."

Also covered: a heartfelt moment of prayer and solidarity for the McAllister family, a longtime part of the Motion Church community, as the church walks together through "good, bad, ugly... whatever comes."

Walk the path. He'll provide for the needs you have — and the people you need along the way.

Motion Church | Walk, Week 2: "Walk This Way... At a Different Pace"

What does it look like to walk through life with both purpose and compassion — at the same time?

Continuing the Walk series, this week picks up right where we left off with Jacob, who "wrestled with God and he didn't kill me." That encounter left him with a limp — and a completely different way of walking through life. "Jacob had an experience with God, and he walked differently after that experience."

This week we dig into two seemingly opposite ideas: walking at a pace of purpose, and walking at a pace of compassion. Can you really hold both? Looking at Jesus and the woman with the issue of blood, the answer is yes — Jesus was fully on mission, yet "he was walking at a pace of compassion," stopping in the middle of a crowd for the one person who needed him.

On purpose: "Your purpose is found in the person who was willing to give his life up for you on the cross and then expects you to go and do the same." Walking out that purpose isn't complicated — it's about living a life that honors God, as Romans 12 puts it, presenting your life as "a living and holy sacrifice... which is your spiritual service of worship." As Paul writes in Ephesians 4, we're called to "walk worthy of the calling with which you were called."

On compassion: that limp Jacob carried wasn't for show — "he didn't limp because it was stylistic… he limped because he was hurt." And that's the point. Our own limp — our past, our pain, the moment God met us and changed everything — isn't meant to make us look down on people still walking where we used to walk. Instead, "your limp is a reminder of where you've been, and that you should have compassion for people who are walking like you used to walk."

Also in this episode: a celebration of what God's been doing at Motion Church — Palm Sunday, Easter, and 23 baptisms in one week. "Can we never take that lightly?"

So — let's walk this way: at a pace of passion, and a pace of purpose, simultaneously. "At the end of the day, people are our mission."

Motion Church | Walk — Week 1: "Walk This Way"

One night. One wrestling match. One limp that changed everything.

Motion Church kicks off a brand-new series called Walk — a multi-week journey through stories from Scripture that ask a simple but searching question: how are you walking? Not just with your feet, but with your life. "A walk doesn't just describe what you're doing. It describes who you are. It's the direction of your heart, your life, the way that you carry yourself — all of it is encompassed in this idea of a walk."

Week 1 takes us all the way back to Genesis and one of the most fascinating encounters in all of Scripture. Jacob — son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham — was a man carrying the weight of a complicated past. On the eve of a terrifying reunion with his estranged brother Esau, alone in the dark, Jacob was suddenly wrestling with a stranger until daybreak. By morning, he had a new name and a permanent limp. And here's the point: "When God touched his hip, he walked differently. When he had an encounter with Jesus... he walked differently."

The message for us is just as straightforward. "If you have an encounter with Jesus, if you give Jesus full reign of your heart and your life, there's something about your life after you come face to face with the Son of God that should be different." 2 Corinthians 5:17 says it plainly: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. The new has come.

So what does that different walk actually look like? It's not a rulebook. It's a set of principles — because your walk with God is going to look specific to you. But the first step is walking in different places. Different locations, different relationships, different habits on social media — anything pulling you away from the person God is calling you to be. "Jesus changed them. They didn't change him." That's a pretty big difference.

And it's not just about what you're walking away from. Proverbs reminds us that a fool rushes toward folly, but a wise person walks away from it. The goal is to punch in a destination and head toward something better. Philippians 4:8 sets that address: "Whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, worthy of praise — think about these things. Walk toward these things."

As the series kicks off, three questions close the message: What about your life is different since you encountered Jesus? What are you walking away from? And what are you walking toward? "Set that as the direction, the coordinates. Punch that address in the GPS of your heart. Let's walk towards that."

Motion Church | Easter: "Does the Offer Still Stand?"

What happens when you show up with an expired coupon? You already know the answer — and so does God.

This Easter at Motion Church, we're looking at the Easter story through a slightly different lens: redemption. What does it really mean to be redeemed? And is the offer of salvation — purchased at the highest price imaginable — still available to you today?

The answer is a resounding yes.

The Bible defines redemption as "the act of God buying back or rescuing humanity from slavery to sin and death through the costly sacrifice of Jesus Christ." Romans 3 makes it clear: every one of us has sinned and fallen short, leaving us with a debt we can never repay on our own. But God, unwilling to leave his prize creation in that condition, set a plan in motion — sending his own Son to satisfy that debt once and for all.

Jesus didn't just come to show us what it means to be human. "Jesus, from the moment that he entered into humanity, had a purpose, and that purpose was to redeem humanity." The cross was the cost. The empty tomb is the guarantee. As the disciples discovered on the road to Emmaus, the resurrection isn't just a miracle — it's the proof that the offer holds. "The resurrection guarantees your redemption. The offer still stands."

And here's the thing about this offer: it doesn't come with an expiration date. God doesn't go out of business. "He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end… the offer stands from generation to generation." The coupon never expires — but you and I do. "It's a tailor-made offer that's just for you that doesn't expire, but you do."

So the question isn't whether the offer is still good. It is. The question is: what are you waiting for?

"Redemption offers freedom. Redemption offers peace. Redemption offers belonging, purpose, healing for the hurting, and being made whole to those who are broken. Redemption offers eternal life."

Don't let your coupon go unredeemed.

White Flag Series | Week 4: All Out of Options — Motion Church Podcast

This is it — the final week of the White Flag series, and it closes with perhaps the most relatable expression of surrender yet.

Over the past four weeks we've looked at surrender from every angle. Week one: surrender costs something — namely, your rights. Week two: surrender gives something — rest for your soul. Week three: the hard question — have you actually surrendered, or are you just looking the part? And now, week four brings it all home with this: surrender is when you're all out of options.

The image is simple. Think about two armies in battle. One side reaches the moment where they realize — there's nothing left. No ammunition. No strategy. No path forward. And the only option left is to wave the white flag. Not because they want to. But because they finally understand there's no better choice.

That's the version of surrender that tends to hit closest to home.

The message anchors in John 6, where many of Jesus' own followers walked away after hearing hard truths. Jesus turned to the twelve and asked, "You don't want to leave too, do you?" And Peter — impulsive, complicated, human Peter — said something that still rings with power today: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

That's someone who has run out of options and found the best one.

The story of the rich young ruler in Mark 10 adds the contrast — a man who came to Jesus asking the right questions, checked all the religious boxes, and still walked away sorrowful because he wasn't willing to let go of the one thing Jesus put his finger on. He thought his options were good enough. He refused to surrender. And he left empty.

The message is also deeply personal — not every road to surrender looks like rock bottom. Sometimes it's quieter than that. Sometimes it's just the slow realization that everything you were told would make you happy, satisfied, and full... didn't. You checked the boxes. Hit the benchmarks. Achieved the status. And still felt empty. That emptiness isn't a dead end. It's an invitation. Because when you're out of options, you're actually eligible for the best option.

And from a 7-year-old boy named John Mark in Haiti with almost nothing, to someone in America with every option available — two completely different people, two completely different paths — both found the same answer.

"If you feel like you're out of options, you're really just opening yourself up to the best option."

White Flag Series | Week 3: White Flag or White Lie? — Motion Church Podcast

This week in the White Flag series, we pause for the hardest question of the entire series. Not what surrender costs. Not what surrender gives. But something far more uncomfortable:

Have you actually done it?

This message, delivered by Pastor CJ, lands right in the middle of the series with a challenge most of us aren't ready for. It's easy to love the idea of surrender. It's easy to raise your hands in worship, know the right songs, say the right things, and show up on Sunday. But as Pastor CJ puts it — our hands are raised in worship while our hearts are still on the weapons.

There is a massive difference between inviting Jesus into your life and giving Jesus your life.

The title says it all: White Flag or White Lie. Because if we're being honest, most of us don't surrender to God — we negotiate. We bargain. We manage our relationship with God in a way that quietly keeps control in our own hands. And some of us have gotten so good at looking surrendered that we've convinced ourselves we actually are.

Grounded in Matthew 16:24-25 and Galatians 2:20, this message walks through what it truly means to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. It unpacks the dangerous illusion of control — the calendars we fill, the timelines we set, the futures we map out — all while holding a steering wheel that doesn't control the road. Life, eventually, exposes the illusion.

But the most powerful moment comes from the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus himself showed us what real surrender looks like — honest enough to say "Father, take this cup from me" and surrendered enough to follow it with "nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done."

Church, surrender begins when preference ends.

This is a message for anyone who has been doing it their own way for too long. Anyone chasing success but feeling no peace. Anyone climbing ladders while their soul still feels empty. Because God doesn't bless the life we build for ourselves — he blesses the life we surrender to him.

God is not looking for perfect people. He's looking for surrendered ones.

White Flag Series | Week 2: Get Yoked — Motion Church Podcast

What if surrender isn't as hard as you've been making it?

Week 2 of the White Flag series digs into what may be the most clear and freeing picture of surrender in all of Scripture — and the word "surrender" isn't even mentioned in the passage. Found in Matthew chapter 11, Jesus extends one of the most well-known invitations ever spoken: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

But before diving in, the message tackles something we all do — we overcomplicate it. We do the "Jesus plus" thing, holding onto habits and patterns that don't line up while still claiming the name. We play the "if God will, then I will" game, making deals we never intend to keep. Or we just keep telling ourselves when I'm ready, then I'll surrender. Sound familiar? Jesus basically says — even a child can figure this out. Don't let your adult mind talk you out of it.

Going line by line through Matthew 11:28-30, this message unpacks three powerful truths:

Come to me. Surrender begins with a single step toward Jesus — not a cleaned-up, polished version of yourself, but exactly as you are. Broken, burdened, and all. This is where life actually begins.

Take my yoke upon you. In Jesus' day, a rabbi's "yoke" was his set of teachings and principles that his followers lived by. Taking Jesus' yoke means patterning your life after his. And here's the thing about a yoke — you are never pulling the load alone. You are yoked to an all-sufficient Savior. The work, as Jesus declared from the cross, is already finished.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light. If your life as a Christian feels impossibly heavy and hard, there's a good chance you're relying too much on yourself. Because surrendered living isn't burdensome. It doesn't mean there are no problems — Scripture is full of trouble. But it also promises an ever-present help, a way of escape, grace that is sufficient, and a Savior who has already overcome the world. You trade your limited ability for his unlimited one. You give up $37.22 for an inheritance. That's not a bad deal.

The question at the end of this message is a simple one: What are you waiting for?