Westwinds

For a lot of people, the Holy Spirit feels like the most confusing part of Christian faith.

God the Creator makes sense. The story of Jesus feels tangible. But conversations about the Spirit can leave us somewhere between skeptical, uncertain, and quietly confused.

This week, we explored what happens when we stop treating the Holy Spirit as a strange theological idea and start seeing the Spirit as the power behind the entire Christian story.

Because maybe the question isn’t whether the Spirit is present.

Maybe the question is whether we’ve become open enough to notice.

Power is complicated.

Most of us have seen what happens when power is abused. We’ve experienced it in institutions, workplaces, families, churches, and sometimes even in ourselves. We know how easily power can become control, self-protection, image management, or the ability to get our own way.

So what happens when Jesus tells his followers, “You will receive power”?

This week, we explored the surprising contrast between the power we know and the power of the Holy Spirit. From Babel to David to Rome to Pentecost, Scripture tells a story about power that gathers, controls, and protects itself - and a radically different power that moves toward vulnerability, shared responsibility, and love.

For a lot of us, judgment feels more threatening than hopeful.

Even if we believe God is loving, the idea of standing before Jesus still stirs up fear, anxiety, shame, or the instinct to hide. Somewhere along the way, many of us learned to imagine judgment as getting caught instead of getting healed.

This week, we explored one of the most uncomfortable lines in the Apostles’ Creed:

“He will come again to judge the living and the dead.”

But what if judgment has never been about humiliation or rejection?

What if it’s about restoration? Protection? Mercy?

What if the problem isn’t judgment itself—but the kind of God we imagine standing behind it?

Where is Jesus right now?

Not the Sunday school answer. Not the theological answer.

The real answer.

Because a lot of us live as though Jesus mattered once, will matter again someday, but feels strangely absent in the middle of ordinary life.

This week, we explored one of the most overlooked lines in the Apostles’ Creed:

“He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”

What if the ascension wasn’t Jesus disappearing?

What if it was his coronation?

And what if heaven isn’t far away at all—but breaking into the world around us in ways we’ve stopped noticing?

Episode Summary

For a lot of people, the ascension feels like a strange footnote in the story of Jesus. The cross makes sense. Resurrection feels important. But the image of Jesus ascending into heaven and sitting on a throne somewhere “up there” can feel distant, abstract, or disconnected from real life.

This week, we stepped into that tension and asked a deeper question: where is Jesus right now?

As the message unfolds, the ascension becomes less about Jesus leaving and more about his ongoing presence, reign, and work in the world. Not someday. Right now. And maybe the invitation of faith is learning to notice where heaven is already breaking into ordinary life.

Key Takeaways

The ascension is not about Jesus disappearing—it’s about Jesus reigning.

Heaven is not just a future destination, but God’s present reality breaking into our world.

The kingdom of God often shows up through ordinary acts of love and self-sacrifice.

Humans were always intended to partner with God in bringing flourishing to creation.

Faith means learning to see God at work in everyday life.

Key Moments

[02:09] The question underneath the creed: where is Jesus right now?

[07:24] Why Psalm 110 becomes so central to the early church

[11:17] Jesus’ ascension as coronation, not disappearance

[18:13] Heaven as God’s dimension woven into our present reality

[22:12] Why Jesus ascended so his presence could fill every space

[27:44] An airport shuttle driver and an ordinary moment of grace

Scripture References

Psalm 110

Genesis 1

Daniel 7

1 Corinthians 15

Revelation 5

Reflection Question

Where might heaven already be breaking into your ordinary life—and have you slowed down enough to notice it?

What do you do with a belief that doesn’t sit right anymore?

For a lot of people, hell is one of those ideas. It raises questions, discomfort, even distance from faith. Not because people don’t care—but because what we’ve been handed doesn’t always make sense.

This week, we stepped into one of the most debated lines of the Apostles’ Creed: “He descended into hell.” Instead of trying to define it or explain it away, this message moves in a different direction—looking at how Jesus actually talked about hell, and what he was trying to awaken in people.

Because it turns out, the conversation might not be about where you go when you die. It might be about how you live right now—and whether fear or trust is shaping your life.

What does it actually mean to believe?

Not just what you believe—but how you believe.

In this message, we explore a part of the Apostles’ Creed that many people struggle with, including the idea of the virgin birth. But instead of trying to explain it away or prove it logically, we take a different approach.

How did the first followers of Jesus come to believe something they couldn’t fully understand?

And what does that mean for us today?

This message invites us to move beyond faith as a set of ideas—and into something more lived, more experienced, and more honest.

What do you do when your view of God no longer works?

Many of us find ourselves in a place where parts of our faith feel unclear. Some things we’ve let go of. Some things we’re still holding onto. And somewhere in the middle, we’re trying to figure out what to do with what’s left.

In this message, we explore a simple but challenging idea: what if we’ve shaped God to fit our preferences, our experiences, or our culture?

Using the opening line of the Apostles’ Creed—“I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth”—we’re invited to reconsider a bigger, more expansive vision of God. A God who can be known, but not controlled. A God who is present, powerful, and beyond what we can fully understand.

The invitation isn’t to have everything figured out.

It’s to begin learning how to trust again.

What do you think of when you think of the word "church"? A charismatic preacher on a stage? A dimly lit room with big crowd of people singing songs you've heard on the radio? A potluck with too many versions of potato salad?

What if the "church" we think of is just a newer, ever-changing iteration of "The Church" that has existed through thousands of years of history and culture? In fact, the original "church" as we know it was a small, grassroots movement––started by a dedicated group of Jesus' own friends and followers who knew him personally during his time spent on earth. A movement that spread around the world from a single geographic location, long before the modern churches of recent history.

So what was "church" supposed to be in the first place? Join us as dive into some of the oldest writings and statements of faith we know of from Jesus' earliest followers, as we consider: what does it mean to be a "church" following the way of Jesus in 2026?

What if the way we’ve imagined God… is off?

In this message, we step into Palm Sunday—a moment where two very different pictures of power enter the same city. One built on force, control, and fear. The other quiet, unexpected, and easy to miss.

Jesus doesn’t just challenge political power. He challenges how we imagine God.

If God looks like Jesus, then power, authority, and even peace may not be what we thought they were.

Lent brings us to this turning point—

where we’re invited to reconsider what we’ve believed,

and learn to see God more clearly.

What do you do when God doesn’t show up the way you expected?

In this message, we step into the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus—a story filled with urgency, disappointment, and unanswered questions. Jesus is close enough to help, but he doesn’t come. And the silence leaves people asking the question many of us have asked: Where were you?

This moment sits right on the edge of something bigger. But before anything changes, there is grief, confusion, and the weight of not understanding.

Lent doesn’t rush past those moments.

It invites us to stay with them.

To sit with the questions.

To acknowledge the disappointment.

And to consider what it means that God is present, even here.