New Life Downtown

How are we to live as the people of God in a wicked and immoral world? As bad as our world is, we have every reason to think that Corinth was far worse. Yet Paul does not rail against "culture at large", but instead instructs the church on how to embody a different way. But this Way-the Way of Christ-is one that seems like foolishness at best, and scandalous at worst. And yet, the so-called folly and scandal of 'Christ crucified' is such good news for us. Find out why as Pastor Glenn Packiam kicks off this new series through 1 Corinthians.

The name by which Israel most commonly referred to Yahweh, The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, links three generations grandfather, father, and son, all with very different faith journeys and all with extraordinary challenges and 'dysfunctions' in their lives. Dr. Steven Todd gives a biblically-rooted and experientially-tested exploration of what it means to be an inter-generational church. As we embrace this kind of community, we find that God is known to each generation and through each generation to the other.

We want to love well, but many of us have been deeply hurt, making it hard for us to open ourselves to love at all. Even hearing that "God so loved the world..." can be hard because we cannot imagine a love like this. The trick is that we cannot receive love unless we are vulnerable, but we cannot be vulnerable unless we know we are loved. What are we to do? Who takes the risk of love and becomes vulnerable first? Jesus did. Pastor Glenn powerfully reminds us that we are not loved because Christ came; rather, Christ came because we are loved. And because Jesus became vulnerable, as a baby who would grow up to be rejected and crucified on a cross, we can now become rooted in love. We can live from Love and no longer for it.

Is it possible to have joy in our world of sorrow? We often feel like our only choices are to fake it, to manufacture it, or to become cynical about joy. As Pastor Glenn Packiam unpacks the promised hope in Isaiah, we begin to see that joy is a gift, a startling surprise to our dead end. In Jesus the Messiah, God announces to the world that it is not over, all is not lost; joy is breaking through like green shoots out of a dead stump. As we turn our face toward Christ, the source of Joy, instead of making idols out of the things that joy comes through, we begin to believe that Joy indeed is coming.

The angels announced "Peace on earth" at Jesus' birth, but when we're surrounded by violence, broken relationships, and anxiety, it's hard to know how peace is really here. Pastor Glenn Packiam contrasts Caesar's peace-- the Pax Romana-- and they way he brought it through external force with the peace that Jesus brings. Peace is not the absence of trouble but confidence within it that we are being held together by God. Best of all this peace comes to even the lowliest ones-- the shepherds. We find peace as we see how we are favored in God's eyes.

We don't like to wait. Yet there are times in life when we are forced to wait. But what do we do when we feel like God has forgotten us? We need a way to mark time that reminds us of our hope. Pastor Glenn Packiam explains that this is the heart behind the Christian Calendar-- to mark time around the life of Christ. For Christians, our hope in the present and our hope for the future is God-with-us. Discover how this keeps us from despair, from trying to take matters into our own hands, and from trying to earn our way with God.

In this final week of the series, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see that this journey has been leading all along to a Table. So many of us are exhausted because we've been taking in what does not satisfy & cannot sustain. But at the Table, Jesus offers us Himself. It is here that we give thanks for the grace of our rescue, of the coming restoration of all things, and of the real presence of Christ with us. Discover the mystery and the gift that is offered to us in the Eucharist.

Most of us live in tension. On the one hand, we like the idea of others

believing we've got life figured out. While at the same time we long for

authentic and transparent relationships where we don't have to hide.

Pastor Brad Baker shares the centrality of personal and corporate

confession in the life of believers. He answers the question, "How does

living in a rhythm of confession help form us into the people of God?".

Listen and be challenged to live genuinely before God and others.

We all know we should read the Bible, but, if we're honest, it can be difficult to make sense of it. Pastor Glenn Packiam describes five common ways to misread the Bible, and then invites us to discover instead the Great Drama of the Scriptures in five 'acts.' The call to write our own story is exposed as a sham as we see the beauty of being drawn into God's Story-- a Story of God putting His good but broken world back together again.

This series is about discovering a faith that is larger than ourselves, a faith that we participate in but do not posses. The Spirit works through sacred practices that keep us tethered to our Story and our Identity as the People of God. As Pastor Glenn Packiam teaches on water baptism, he reminds us that baptism means a new identity and a new family. Discover what it means to take your baptism seriously, to believe your new identity in Christ and to embrace your new family of brothers and sisters in Christ, letting our baptism trump all other markers of identity and community.