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How do you handle Halloween as a follower of Jesus? In John 17 Jesus is praying to the Father and he asks the Father to help us live in the world but not be of the world. But what does it really mean to be in but not of? And equally, what is the difference between having faith in Jesus but not the faith of Jesus? Halloween is a great case study for what it might look like to be in the world but not of the world.

God has a vision for your life. It is a vision not for what you could or should do on your own with your own strength. His vision is to partner with you in His plans to redeem the world. His vision is for us to live deeply connected to Him so that we can carry His kingdom life and goodness to the world around us.

If you grew up in a family that didn’t attend church, communion can be an odd and confusing thing. If you grew up in different streams of the church, communion may have been talked about with different language and emphasis on either being symbolic or on mystical substance. In this message we are unpacking how communion fits within God’s big beautiful vision for humanity through the body and blood of Jesus.

As his torture and death loomed, Jesus gathered his closest friends and followers together for a meal. It was during this meal that Jesus begins to express to them what he most deeply wants them to know. John 14:1 opens with Jesus telling them not to be troubled or afraid and that they can trust him. It is fear that blocks our ability to trust God with our lives. Those fears are rooted in lies that we end up putting our trust in because they are more real to us than anything else. God’s vision for us is to learn to trust him, but to trust him we need to know what he is really like.

How does God engage with the dark and broken reality of the world and it’s people? Does he wait until we fix things up a little, tidy up the rough spots and make ourselves a little more presentable before He enters the picture? The story of scripture paints the picture of a God who isn’t intimidated or afraid to enter into dark and broken places. In Jesus, we see this vision of God’s carried out in scandalous and breath taking ways. Jesus interacted with, touched and spent time with the unclean and defiled of society and they did not make him unclean, he made them clean. That is the story you’ll hear from our friends Scott and Nicole. They are a living testimony that God’s vision for us is a lot bigger and more beautiful and expansive than we could ever imagine.

Often when we talk about vision it is centred around what we are doing, what our church is doing and how it is going to do it. We use big bold statement to talk about what we are doing. This opening to our vision series is different. The Holy Spirit was nudging us with a different starting place—His vision, Jesus’ vision, the vision of the Father for humanity to be deeply connected to him. His vision to live with us in unbroken intimacy and love. In order to get our vision for him right, we need to see his vision for us and the world around us first.

What are you hungry for? What are you chasing after? The whole bible is a unified story that finds it’s climax and purpose in Jesus. Even obscure passages in the Old Testament have deep connection to Jesus, his heart for us and how it is in him that our deepest needs are met.

Many of the Psalms are a retelling of the story of the Israelites, a story that is being passed from one generation to the next of God’s character and presence at work. These stories were meant to be passed along from generation to generation so that people would not forget. What are the stories that you are passing along to your children or grandchildren?

The Psalms are filled with references to God’s presence and the joy of his presence. But what does that really mean and why isn’t that real for many of us? There is another famous verse from the book of Nehemiah (8:10) that declares the “joy of the Lord is our strength.” What if the joy of the Lord isn’t something we muster up, but something we become aware of as we learn to live more connected to him? What if his joy isn’t connected to us trying to be joyful in him, but it is connected to his capacity to work all things for good in every situation.

Have you ever felt dry, depleted or stuck? Maybe like you’re drinking water, but it isn’t quenching your thirst, its dirty water. Jesus offers us clean water, fresh water and living water. He offers us life in the midst of dry barrenness. His invitation to us today is to stop digging our own wells and reconnect to Him.

When the writer of Psalm 121 said “I lift my eyes to the mountains” what would he have actually seen in the mountains? Were they just beautiful scenery or was there something else on the mountains that might have been promising protection, blessing and prosperity for life?

What would it be like to know that you are completely safe and not need to worry about the need to protect yourself? The Psalms are filled with descriptions about God as a refuge, but what does that really mean for our real lives and how can we experience the refuge and safety of God?

The Psalms were the prayer book of Jesus and the hymnal for the church for millennia. In Psalm 23 David makes a statement that we often overlook about God’s goodness and love. It pursues us all the days of our lives. He’s not pursuing us with his anger or frustration or condemnation. He is pursuing us with his goodness and unfailing love.

What is it that God sees in Abraham? The Sunday school answer is often “faith” is what he saw. True. But what does it look like to be a person of faith? In this message we are exploring how Abraham was meant to be SALT on the earth and how that connects to Jesus’ statement that his followers are the SALT of the earth. But what does it look like to be SALT. It looks like being someone who learns to Stop. Ask. Listen. Trust.

Genesis 9 contains one of the most puzzling and mysterious stories in the Bible—the “uncovering of Noah’s nakedness” by his son Ham and Noah’s curse of Ham’s son. What is happening in that story? How does it connect to Jesus and the Canaanite woman who comes to him begging for deliverance for her daughter? Are generational and bloodline curses real? What is the good news of Jesus about them?