ReGeneration Church

Wind roars through a Jerusalem room and fire settles on the faithful, who speak in tongues unknown as three thousand answer the call. Persecution scatters them like seed, yet Philip baptizes an Ethiopian by the roadside and Saul falls blind beneath a blazing light on the Damascus road. At Cornelius’s table, Gentiles burst into tongues, and Antioch sends Paul and Barnabas over the sea. Through Macedonia and Greece the message presses on to Philippi, Thessalonica, and Athens, while ahead wait chains in Jerusalem and a storm-tossed road to Rome...

Paul walks through Athens and sees a city full of idols, so he reasons daily in the synagogue and the marketplace. Before the philosophers on the Areopagus, he points to an altar "To an unknown god" and says this God made everyone so that they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from any of them. He calls them to repent in light of the man God raised from the dead, and some mock him while others want to hear more. A few, including Dionysius and Damaris, join him and believe. What are you searching for that nothing you've found has fully satisfied?

Paul and Silas reach Thessalonica, where Paul spends three Sabbaths reasoning from the Scriptures, and though some believe, jealous opponents stir up a mob and the believers send the missionaries away by night. In Berea, the people receive the message eagerly and search the Scriptures daily to verify it. When agitators follow from Thessalonica, Paul is sent on to the coast while Silas and Timothy stay behind. When you hear something new about your faith, do you accept it at face value, or do you test it against the Scriptures?

Paul and Silas free a slave girl from a spirit that has controlled her voice and her master's profits, and the men who lose money from this stir up a crowd against them. Beaten and locked in the innermost cell with their feet in stocks, Paul and Silas pray and sing at midnight until an earthquake shakes open every door and loosens every chain. The jailer, ready to take his own life believing his prisoners have fled, instead finds them all still there and asks what he must do to be saved. By morning the same chains that held them become the reason a whole household is baptized and the magistrates themselves come to apologize. What chains in your own life might God want to shake loose?

Paul and Barnabas split over Mark, and each moves forward with a different partner rather than letting the disagreement stall the mission. Paul picks up Timothy in Lystra and, guided by a vision, redirects the journey toward Macedonia instead of the path he'd planned. In Philippi he meets Lydia, a merchant who listens closely, believes, and immediately opens her home to the travelers. What she offers becomes the basis for a church that grows from that one act of welcome. Where in your life is God asking you to loosen your grip on your own plan, or open your door to someone he's placed in your path?

A dispute erupts over whether Gentile converts must be circumcised, so Paul and Barnabas bring the question to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. After hearing Peter's testimony about the Holy Spirit falling on Gentiles, and Paul and Barnabas's account of God's work among them, James proposes that Gentiles be spared circumcision but asked to avoid idol-tainted food, sexual immorality, and blood. The council sends this decision by letter to the churches, and the believers who receive it rejoice. When has hearing someone else's experience changed a conviction you were holding firmly to?

Paul and Barnabas preach in Antioch, and the word spreads until nearly the whole city turns out to hear it. Opposition drives them from town to town, yet the message keeps advancing through Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, gathering believers and enduring persecution at every stop. They return to Antioch and report how God has opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. What would it mean to trust God with results you can't control?

In Antioch, the Spirit sets apart Barnabas and Saul while the church fasts and prays, and the leaders lay hands on them before letting them go. The two travel to Cyprus and Pisidian Antioch, preaching in synagogues and facing a sorcerer who tries to block their path. In Pisidian Antioch, Paul stands and traces Israel's story from Egypt to David to Jesus, declaring forgiveness through him to all who listen. Crowds gather the next week to hear more, though some leaders stir up opposition against the message. How do you weigh personal comfort against a larger purpose?

King Herod arrests James and executes him, then seizes Peter to please the crowds, but the church gathers to pray fervently through the night. An angel frees Peter from his chains and past the guards while the praying believers can barely believe their own answered prayer at the door. Herod, struck down for accepting worship as a god instead of giving credit elsewhere, dies suddenly, while the word of God continues to spread and grow. Do you treat prayer as a last resort or a first response?