Zootown Church

In week two, Pastor Scott touches on two of the things you’re never supposed to talk about: religion and politics. Our nation is divided and unfortunately that division has entered the Church and caused much harm. Yet we are called to be of the Kingdom, the New Jerusalem, which is a totally different way of looking at the World. We believe if you have to put a label such as Progressive or Conservative in front of Christianity, you’ve already missed it. But what do we do? Check out this sermon to be rocked, encouraged, and refocused on what we are called to do.

We kick off the new series “The Burbs” by talking about who we are as a Church. Right now, we are in the middle of a building expansion project but why are we doing it? We see the new building as a byproduct of the new reformation we are going through in the Church. However, every reformation has a little bit of old and a little bit of new. We can get this building done and still be the same, but we want this place to be a guidepost, a map, a light to Missoula to find their way to Christ.

Author Brian Zahnd gives a special sermon about his book "Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God"...a book that means a lot to Zootown Church. He proclaimed the extremely good news: God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God wasn't like Jesus.

“Pastor Scott wraps up his series on the fire passages by bringing it all together in one place: Judgement. Nobody likes it, for sure not feeling it, even though we do like giving it out. Judgment is a scary word to most; it feels like you’re sitting in front of a judge to be condemned. One of the issues though is we take our human perspective of judgment and put that on God, but the Bible has a different view of the final judgment. It doesn’t make it less serious, it just means the purpose of God’s judgments are different. We can’t cover it all but Scott gives it his best shot in this final episode of Fire Season.”

This week we look at two terms that don’t normally go together but have the same spiritual connotations: salt and fire. The Gospel of Mark gives an encounter where Jesus is really serious, almost scary, but Jesus always has a purpose in mind. He says “Everyone will be salted with fire, but salt is good.” Salt has many helpful qualities, but one specific with fire in that it purifies things. But how does it do it? By just being salt and doing what it does. Jesus has a purpose for our lives in the world, to bring out the flavor and purity. But are we known for that?

As we continue to look at the purpose of fire in the Scriptures this week, we piggyback off the previous week of "Purified". In order for something to be purified, it first has to be exposed for what it is. All of our lives have two different natures: a sin nature but also a love nature that is totally secure in God. The sin nature is exposed by the love of God, but for the true nature, the God nature is to be revealed. Being exposed is not a pleasant experience, just like a doctor exposing a wound can be painful. Yet it is necessary for the wound to be healed. The Fire of God’s love is necessary in our lives not to hurt us, but to heal us.

Pastor Scott does some vision casting for Zootown Church.

Guest speaker James Waddell gives a great series about the lines that Jesus will cross to meet us.

No matter what currencies are doing in the world, silver and gold have been the constants throughout time. Yet they both must be tested for their purity before they can be truly valued. In order to see the real from the fake, it is tested on a rock called the touchstone. This leaves a streak to compare it to the real gold. The gold and silver are also heated up in fire so that the dross can rise to the surface and be wiped away in order for it to be purified and shined. This week we look at these concepts to see what the scriptures mean by “God’s purifying fire.”