The Church’s season of Advent is all about getting ready for the coming of our Messiah on Christmas.  But this is not a new idea… the prophets of old, like Micah and Isaiah, predicting the coming of God’s Messiah.  In this series we match the prophets’ words with popular Hollywood Christmas movie as we countdown to Christmas.

As the old saying goes, there are only two sure things: taxes and death.  Death affects all of us, yet we hardly talk about it in any real or substantive way.  In this series we take some of the sting out of death by talking about it openly and honestly.  We explore the importance of human life, how to care for the dying, and how to die well.

God is in the habit of setting people free.  A huge chunk of the Bible is about liberation… God’s people set free from slavery in Egypt, and set free from slavery to sin and death.  When it comes to our relationship with money, we need to be similarly released.  Imagine if we were set free from financial constraints, misunderstandings, debt, and bad habits and released to be generous.

God has ordered our world with a particular rhythm: six days of creating, one day of rest; time with others and time alone; gathering for worship and being sent out into the world in service; giving and receiving.  We’ve been told that we should keep all these things in balance.  But balance is a myth.  A better approach is to celebrate the way God has ordered the world for our benefit and pleasure.  This is the Rhythm of Life.

Change happens… whether we want it to or not.  This is exactly the way God made the world, with darkness and light, sleeping and waking, hot and cold.  In John 12:24, Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  Change is certain.  The question is, Will we resist it, or are we willing to be changed?

The New Testament book of Romans is the most sustained, robust theological argument in all of Paul’s writings.  At once deeply theological and wise as well as sensible and practical in its application for the life of faith, Romans plumbs the depths of the human heart and speaks to the reality of human existence.  Part argument and part conversation, it remains a crucial guide to getting involved with the living God.

The Bible is more available now than at any other time in human history.  And yet we are less familiar with what it says than at any other time in human history. But there is a growing hunger for the word of God.  Every month in the U.S. half a million people do an internet search on “How to study the Bible.”  This series will help us think about the Bible as food for the soul.

Every miracle has two parts: divine initiative and human responsibility.  Of course God doesn’t need our help, but how extraordinary that nevertheless God invites us to participate… to walk on water, to turn water into wine, to feed the hungry, to make an impact on the world.  Come discover the miracle of your life!

This two part series follows the fantastic story of Easter with a reality check: in spite of the miracle of the resurrection, as humans we are prone to doubt and failure.  The good news is, so were some of Jesus’ first disciples, yet he included them anyway.  It turns out God does not condemn us, but forgives us and invites us to go deeper in faith, trusting Jesus with our whole lives.

When we were kids, we couldn’t wait to grow up so that we could do all that stuff that only adults get to do.  Now here we are, and maybe we’ve realized: being grown up isn’t always so easy.  Expectations are high.  Temptations are real.  Yet this is our call: to grow up into mature followers of Jesus… and no better time than the season of Lent to pursue spiritual maturity in Christ.

During our February series we told the Timberlake story – of how we got here, of God’s call on our lives, and about where we’re going next.  Using the story of the 12 Israelite spies from the book of Numbers, we talk about how God leads us to face the giants and to go into God’s future with boldness and faith.  Come dream with us!

In our annual sermon survey, the most requested topic, more than death, heaven, sex, and marriage combined, was anxiety and peace.  Whether the monsters are real or not, sometimes we’re afraid.  But God can help us.  In this series we open the Bible to discover how to let go of fear and instead find peace.