Please turn with me to Acts, chapter 2. Last week and today, we are hitting on two points of what we could consider to be some of the core DNA of our church. Namely personal ownership of your faith.  What we mean by that is that as a church, we want to be more than just “Sunday Christians.” The Bible describes a way of life that lasts Sunday through Saturday. It influences every decision we make, every relationship we have, […]

Please turn with me to Acts, chapter 2. Last week and today, we are hitting on two points of what we could consider to be some of the core DNA of our church. Namely personal ownership of your faith.  What we mean by that is that as a church, we want to be more than just “Sunday Christians.” The Bible describes a way of life that lasts Sunday through Saturday. It influences every decision we make, every relationship we have, […]

Please turn with me to Acts, chapter 2. Last week and today, we are hitting on two points of what we could consider to be some of the core DNA of our church. Namely personal ownership of your faith.  What we mean by that is that as a church, we want to be more than just “Sunday Christians.” The Bible describes a way of life that lasts Sunday through Saturday. It influences every decision we make, every relationship we have, […]

Please open your bibles to Matthew chapter 6. If you’re new with us in the past couple months, my name is Matt Heerema, and I am one of the pastors here. I’ve been out of the pulpit since the beginning of May so that we could allow some other voices to preach, and so that I could focus on a few other areas in ministry. I’m grateful for that time off, but I’m even more grateful to be back, and […]

Not long ago I heard a report about my extended family. One family member had deeply hurt another family member years ago. An abuse situation. When I heard about this recently, I had three responses: When you see or experience extreme injustice, do you know HOW and WHAT to pray?Here’s a prayer from the Bible, King David, where he is essentially cursing some people.Psalm 58:3–8 CSBThe wicked go astray from the womb; liars wander about from birth. They have venom […]

Guest speaker Dave Lennander shares from his experience of God’s faithfulness.

A year and a half ago my wife and I were struggling with health trials.  So I wrote out my thoughts like a prayer to God. I’m going to read you a portion of my raw and unfiltered prayer from 20 months ago. “Lord, you know my heart and my weaknesses.  I am sick and tired of this trial.  I am losing heart.  I want relief and rest and comfort.  But where is it?  Where is my rest?  You’re not […]

This summer we are going through a series of teachings about praying the scripture. And today we are going to talk about praying for God’s deliverance using psalms, specifically using psalm 34 as an example. Talking about God’s deliverance, we often think of praying for God to end our trials or protect us from life dangers, which is good and necessary in our prayers. The question is, is there anything more than ending our trials when we pray. If there […]

What has been your experience with prayer? Has prayer for you been positive, negative, or just neutral? How might you like to change your attitude and relationship with prayer?  My name is Dave Bovenmyer and I’m a pastor here at Stonebrook, currently coaching several community groups and doing pastoral counseling.  Having served as a pastor for almost 50 years, I’ve learned a few things about prayer.  My early experience with prayer was that it was largely mindless. “Come Lord Jesus, […]

Philippians 1:1-11 Welcome & Prayer Text Background As we prepare to dive in, let me give you a little historical context. Paul wrote this letter to the church at Philippi from prison in Rome (AD 60). This was the first church that he planted in Europe, and was composed primarily of Gentiles. He planted this church 10 years earlier (AD 51) on his second missionary journey. This church was full of generosity and loyalty to Paul (v7), and this church […]