I raised my family playing baseball and softball. In both the first step for fielding any ball hit into the air is always back. I must have said, “Your first step is always back” a million times. That is true in baseball and softball, but in life, all of life, our first step is supposed to be towards God. When we want to celebrate, when we are scared, when we are confused, always take that first step towards God first. Towards God and then towards others, to help, for help, or just so no one has to be alone. This is the heart of our first two core values.

"Faith is caught not taught."
"Be a loud life, not a loud mouth."
"They won’t care what you say, just what you do."

There is a measure of truth in each and everyone of these sayings. They are a reaction to the opposite extreme, when people say one thing and then either never do it, or worse, go out and do the exact opposite. But the truth is the things that we believe and value need to be named, defined, and articulated in clear and certain ways repeatedly if we have any hope of transmitting them to the next generation. But this can’t happen in isolation. It has to happen in the larger context of the rest of our lives in order to make it applicable to the rest of our lives.

Recovery means healing — it’s what you do for yourself. But resurrection is different. Resurrection means you have nothing left — that you’re dead and buried, and you need someone else to dig you out. Through the power of His own resurrection, Jesus is able to bring life back to the places where death has taken hold of us — but only if we let Him. Join us this weekend for a special message from author and speaker Blaine Bartel as he shares his own story of life from death and invites us to experience the resurrection life of Jesus, as well.

We are in week three of our series Change the World. Two weeks ago, Bri talked to us about changing the world by being a good neighbor in our communities. Last week, Tony talked to us about how being a world changer starts in the home with your family.
This morning we'll be focusing on how you can change the world by serving the Church.

As followers of Jesus, we are all not only called, but commanded, to go make disciples. We are called to be "World Changers", but where should we start? The best place for us to show and share the love of Jesus starts right where we are ... It starts at home.

We know the commandment, "love your neighbor as yourself". It’s easy to wonder though - who is my neighbor? Jesus tells his disciples that it’s not just about knowing who your neighbor is, but rather BEING a neighbor. When we start acting like a neighbor to everyone we come in contact with, we start to see the atmosphere around us change.

One of the most specific examples we have of what our faith should look like is a little child. We are meant to behave as children of God. Why can we see God as our Father and how should we live our lives because of that truth?

The current economic climate may be good, but it is anything but stable! Economic uncertainty has been the hallmark of the last couple years. How should the church and it’s people be thinking about money and wealth in our current cultural climate? God tells us through Paul that we should not think about financial stability like the rest of the world. For us, money is nothing more than a tool. Not a tool to build our kingdom here on earth, but a tool to build His kingdom for eternity. Once we exercise ourselves from our cultural thinking about money, it is amazing how much peace we can walk in, even in uncertainty.