WestGate Church Teaching

During this very special service, we celebrate the present and future of our church, along with the installation of Jay Kim as our new lead pastor. Steve Clifford is joined by special guests Dan Kimball and Isaac Serrano - two local church leaders and dear friends of WestGate - who each share some reflections on this unique season and encouragement for our entire church community.

PART 2: David drops by to talk with Steve about the incredible life of Lesslie Newbigin, who Steve argues is one of the most important theologians and missionaries of the 20th Century and one whose life offers many lessons to modern Christians - if we will just have eyes to see and ears to listen.

PART 1: David sits down with Roxanne Robbins, who founded the Christian non-profit Tukutana, which serves many of the most vulnerable people in Uganda (and East Africa). Roxanne shares how she went from running Division 1 track at Auburn University to working in a refugee camp in Uganda, then living in Africa, helping orphans, and then eventually starting her own non-profit. It’s the kind of story only God can write. She also shares about a spike in teenage pregnancies in her region caused when young Ugandan girls were sexually assaulted during the pandemic lock-downs. She’ll share Tukutana’s plans to tangibly help these new teenage mothers and their babies - and how you can join and help, too.

As we venture into the New Year, we have an opportunity to look back with perspective and look forward with hope. As we look back, we see much exhaustion and loss. Truth is, we all feel a little burnt out, weary, and beaten down. But God offers us a way forward, an accessible and transformative path leading to vitality, strength, and renewed purpose. In this teaching, we'll explore practical ways to move from burnout to wholeness and consider God's invitation to "be still and carry on."

It’s a DOUBLE EPISODE. (Look people, we all know that Double Stuffed Oreos are the best). In the first part, David sits down with Melissa Hung and Finny Abraham - who head up WestGate Church’s local compassion team. They share their favorite stories from the things they saw this past year. Then at (37:00) - David interviews Jeff Hudgens. After losing his father in the Vietnam War when he was young, Jeff turned to alcohol and cocaine to cope with the loss and pain. But a decision to go and visit the crash site where his father was killed when he was shot down in Laos changed Jeff - and eventually thousands of Laotian lives, too. Hear his incredible, redemptive story.

One of the more mind-blowing aspects of Jesus - reflected on not only by sages and writers throughout the ages, but also by the writers of the Bible - is His humility. For the God of the Universe to come down to earth is one thing, but then to spend His time serving and helping other people is quite another. And Jesus did not just serve the wealthy and powerful - but also the very poorest and most vulnerable. This week, Finny Abraham reflects on this aspect of Jesus, and how it can be the basis of inspiration for us to serve others with compassion as well. And in the process of serving the “other” with compassion, we can show the world what God is really like.

It’s week 1 of our annual Compassion Immersion series. This week, Keivan Terhrani, WestGate Church’s Global Compassion Pastor, stops by to share some amazing stories from around the globe. Private helicopters flying trained Haitian doctors (from the Haitian University we support) right to the front lines to save lives after the earthquake in Haiti. The incredible story of one of our supported Afganistan missionaries whose life was saved by a US serviceman from a Taliban bombing. And how COVID wrecked havoc, but also opened doors in places that traditional have been hostile to Christianity.

The early church faced tremendous difficulties. There were racial divisions, financial shortages and massive political fighting. In some ways, the same problems that plague our modern society. And yet this rag-tag group of ordinary people changed the world, in part because of their commitment to follow and live a life like Jesus of self-sacrifice and compassion. The early church cared about all the lost, hurting, broken and marginalized people - even risking their own lives, reputation and jobs to do so. And this is our invitation today, too. In the first week of Compassion Immersion 2022, we take time to hear stories from our Global Compassion Pastor Keivan Tehrani about the incredible work God is doing around the world. Stories of forgiveness, healing, provision and redemption. And in the process, we get to celebrate an extraordinary God who still works in and through ordinary people to do the extraordinary.

Happy 2022 everyone! After being knocked down - but not out! - by the Omicron variant, David storms back to talk with Jay Kim about this week’s (amazing!) passage in Luke 8. The story of the woman in Luke 8 shows us a woman who had deep faith that Jesus was, indeed, the Messiah AND showed us her desperation. But we don’t always have both. Desperation without faith leads to despair and faith without desperation leads to stagnation. We talk about whether we’ve seen people (and ourselves) trending more toward “despair” or “stagnation” - why this is - and how to arrest that.

This week, we examine a curious story in Luke 8 (also found in Matthew 9 + Mark 5) about a woman who comes to Jesus with a significant problem - she has been bleeding for 12 years, and no one can help. As Jesus passes by in a teeming crowd, she makes her move, believing that if she even just touches Him, then she will be healed. And she is. But that’s not the end of the story. And as we examine it, we find that this story reveals a lot about her, about Jesus and...us, too - especially about what it means to be people who are full of faith AND full of desperation at the same time.