The Branch Church

This weekend we begin a new series: Holy Spirit: Person, Power, and Presence. We’ll consider what Scripture has to tell us about the reality, mystery, and practical need for the Spirit of God in our lives. By God’s grace, we’ll grow in our understanding of what it means to be a Spirit-led people with Spirit-empowered lives.

There are no “finished products” for God to work through. Though God works through us, He is still working on us. This weekend we wrap up our Ancient Future series on the church in Antioch with one final message about ongoing change. Antioch was a place where not just new believers were emerging, but seasoned believers were being changed in an ongoing way.

Have you ever believed something in your mind and yet you had trouble living it out – as if there was a gap between how you thought and how you lived? We’ll talk about it this weekend and even see this dynamic at work in the lives of the spiritual leaders of the early church. We’re all under construction!

“When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done….” (Acts 11:23)

This weekend, we focus on what the church in Antioch has to teach us about being a person and a church rooted in grace. The presence and absence of grace impacts every realm of life — marriage, parenting, business, friendships, relationships, etc…. And then there’s the grace of God in our own lives.

This weekend, we consider what it means to worship or minister to the Lord (Acts 13:2). You might be thinking, "Really? We minister to the Lord? I thought it was just to other people!”

180 million people in more than 2,000 languages are Bibleless. This weekend we’ve asked Greg Pruett, the President of Pioneer Bible Translators to bring us a special message from the work they’re doing to translate the Gospel into every language, and bring it to every tribe and tongue around the world.

This weekend we focus on another key description of the church in Antioch that is a theme for us to lean into as individuals, and as a church.

Sometimes you have to go backward in order to move forward.

What would it be like for the confession, "Jesus is Lord" to be the lens through which we process life – with all of its wonder, complexities, mystery, and adversities? And how does this shape how we respond to others around us?

There is something else “better left said” and it’s only three words. They aren’t “I love you.” They are three words that were actually the only creed of the early church, and in fact appear in quotes in multiple places in the New Testament.

“Jesus is Lord.”

These words can actually make some people angry when taking into account what we are witnessing around us right now. For others, they can be consoling. For others, they can actually be a compass helping us to navigate our way forward. And for all of us they are “saving” words in more ways than appear on the surface.

It is better left said, and often.

Jesus says in Matthew 18 to be humble like a child.
This weekend, our Kids Ministry Director, Alexis Hall, teaches us what it means to have complete dependence and trust in God. Being reliant on God to tell us who He is and who we are. This means realizing who’s who -- who is the child and who is the parent.