Venture Church

Ending this series with a bang! "Acts: When God Sparks A Movement" has been a great time of learning and exploring the book of Acts for Venture Church. Learning about the early church and all the things they had to go through at the beginning, seeing the power of the Holy Spirit and reading the acts of the apostles has been very building for our faith. As you listen to this week we hope that you are left empowered to know that it just takes a spark to start a fire. Share God's story by sharing your story. The power of the words comes from His Spirit and He will change lives, just be obedient. We hope you enjoy this week in capping this 8 week series.

When you don't have access to the one thing you want it can be frustrating at times. We find in the Bible many times where God promises that when we call He will answer. That He is by our side all the time in life. Accessibility is one of God's specialties. Being faithful in all His ways, He sent down His spirit when Jesus ascended and provides instant access to Him. This week diving in the book of Acts, we follow Paul to the city of Athens and hear about His great journey. Tune in this week to see the story of Paul and hear the truths about the accessibility of God.

Bacon Sunday! This morning at Venture for a creative element we passed out freshly cooked bacon. Not just because we thought it would be awesome, although c'mon it really is, but mainly because where the book of acts leads us today is a very important day for the whole world at the time of this chapter. Everyone is included. Our word this week is inclusion for one purpose, God extends his love to everyone in this chapter. We go into the history of what God was doing up until this moment to leave us with a wonderful thing that God has invited us to be a part of His kingdom. All of us.

We apologize for a a delay in the recoding process occurred. The audio recording starts about 5 minutes in right where Chris, our pastor, is talking about who Saul is. He gives his history and his background of how he got to where we pick up in chapter 9. Transformation is one of the best words to help describe the story that encompasses the book of Acts. Transformation is what Jesus brings and why the Gospel is preached still to this day. Jesus didn't die for some small reason or thing. He died so that we could be transformed from our dead way of life in darkness walk in a fresh and newness of life. Seriously life changing. I hope you enjoying learning about the transformation God brings through Jesus.

As the story progresses in the book of Acts, the conflict starts to build. Where we ended last week in a miracle and Peter and John being bold, we pick up in the next couple of chapters with Stephen standing up for what's right. If Jesus is worth following, then He is worth following no matter what. Stephen encounters the same opposers to Christianity that we learned about last week except they are more persistent in their "law." Through Stephens bold actions and threat to the church the remaining christians scatter. You don't want to miss this week's vital part of the story of Acts!

It's happening. The truth about Jesus resurrecting from the grave is spreading. In just two chapters we see the number of Jesus followers going from about four thousand to fifteen thousand! We see, by the power of Jesus, a crippled man healed of his physical limitations to being able to run around. We see most importantly, the BOLDNESS of what happens when we listen to Jesus and let His spirit speak for us in times of need. We see when we are bold for the sake of Christ He always has our back and our best interest in mind. After all, he did die for us, in our place so that we can spend eternity with no suffering or pain. Listen in this week about the boldness of the apostles of Jesus.

God is definitely sparking a movement and this is just the beginning. Acts chapter 2 is one of the biggest moments in the new testament because Jesus' promise before He ascended heaven became true! The Holy Spirit came down, A.K.A. the Helper, and changed things on that day and still is rocking people's worlds to this day. The Holy Spirit is Jesus' promise that He said is His spirit moving around and living inside of us. That may sound a bit sketchy but the truths behind it are filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That's the fruit of God's spirit. Tune in this week to learn about God's spirit and how vital it is for us to know him and to be baptized for this wonderful gift he has given us!

There are many books of the bible that we can find life lessons from, learn about history, and also see the character of God throughout it all. Acts is one of the books of the bible that is filled to the brim with stories and adventures of the early church exponentially growing because God is real, He is alive and has an infinite amount of love for the people on this earth. That's why we are taking eight straight weeks to cover the whole book of acts and learn from the stories and many life changing truths that are found in this book. Tune in this week to part one of this series, "Wait."

This week we are capping off this series with more than just some pointers on how to pray. Prayer builds our faith more than we know. It is a vital piece of our relationship with God. The past two weeks we've covered a multitude of truths about prayer, but we end this series with one that sums up what God really wants from us. God doesn't just want some time with us, He wants our lives. Much like a couple just getting married, going from just spending time together to spending their lives together, we see that God wants us to spend our lives with Him. Tune in this week for a challenging message about prayer.

Prayer can be a tough thing at times especially when we are used to conversations always being two ways. When we look at the bible we see Jesus praying to His father often. This week at Venture we want to share the humbling truths about prayer and the help Jesus gives us on this topic. First thing is first... We need to know who we are praying to. God is always there and always listening. Let's listen in and follow Jesus' example of prayer.