How do you experience God's presence when your family is complicated? Sunday, August 4, 2024 Genesis 27:1-29

A conversation with Jennifer about worries, the future, and how do we deal with any of it.

How do you experience God's presence when the future seems uncertain? Sunday, July 21, 2024 Genesis 15

How do you respond to bad news?

How do you deal with changes in your relationships?

How do you experience God's presence when relationships change? Sunday, July 14, 2024 Genesis 13:1-18

How do you experience God’s presence when life changes? Sunday, July 7, 2024 Genesis 8:20-22, 9:1-17

A conversation with Jen and Josh on how do you deal with fear? We reflected on the previous Sunday's message on "How do you experience God when you are afraid?"

How do you experience God’s presence when you are afraid? Sunday, June 30, 2024 Genesis 3:1-24

How do you know God’s will for your life? Sunday, June 23, 2024 Ephesians 5:6-21 Quotes Socrates says: “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” Buddha: “Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure a…

How does God help you make a good life? Sunday, June 16, 2024 Luke 11:14-36 Quotes Hippocrates: “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” Jean-Paul Sartre (zhaan paal saar truh): “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” Viktor E. Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that sp…

How do you know you belong? Sunday, June 9, 2024 Matthew 4:12-25

How do you create a legacy that matters? Sunday, June 2, 2024 John 12: 34-50 Quotes Taylor Swift: “No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.” William Shakesspeare: “No legacy is so rich as honesty.” Lionel Richie: “‘Let the music play on’ would be my legacy.”…

Who does God call you to be? Sunday, May 26, 2024 John 8:1-19 Quotes Wayne Dyer: “Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances.” W.E.B DuBois: “A true and worthy ideal frees and uplifts a people; a false ideal imprisons and lowers.” Brené Brown: “You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love a…

How do you improve communication? Sunday, May 19, 2024 Acts 2:1-28 Quotes Rowan Williams: “Bad human communication leaves us less room to grow.” Rita Mae Brown: “Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.” Buddha: “Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.”…

How do you create a meaningful life? Sunday, May 12, 2024 Luke 8:1-18 Quotes: Aristotle: “The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Buddha: “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the lif…

How do you have energy for what is important? Do you ever feel like your energy is in short supply and one more thing and you feel leveled? Sunday, May 5, 2024John 1:1-18 Quotes Mother Teresa: “Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.” Dylan Thomas: “Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of…

How do you love well… especially when others and situations don’t make it easy? Do you ever feel like the world is lacking love, compassion, understanding, respect, etc? Do you ever get frustrated with the way people treat one another, the way you’ve been treated or how you respond to others when they aren’t easy to be around? Sunday, April 28, 202…

How do you find yourself when you feel lost? Sunday, April 21, 2024John 10:1-18 Quotes “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other.” - John 13:34 “Why do you see the splinter that’s in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but don’t notice the log in your own eye?” - Matthew 7:3 “Do not judge and you will not be judged. D…

How do you move forward in life? Sunday, April 14, 2024 John 21:1-8 Sayings of Jesus: “Why do you see the splinter that’s in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but don’t notice the log in your own eye?” - Matthew 7:3 “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.” John 8:7 “If you forgive the sins of any, they will be forgiven.” John 20:23 “Love…

How do you heal a broken heart? Sunday, April 7, 2024 John 20:19-23 Quotes: India Arie: “For me, the healing process starts with graciousness and forgiveness.” Leo Buscaglia: “Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keep you from hope …

How do you find happiness? Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024 Luke 24:1-12 Isaiah 25:6-9 Sayings of Jesus: “You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.” - Matthew 22:39 “...be wise as snakes, and innocent as doves” - Matthew 10:16 “Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its…

How do you change your relationships? Sunday, March 24, 2024 Luke 22:1-27 Quote A.J. Levine says: “Sacrifice was a way of sharing a meal with God… And it had many functions, because there were many types of sacrifices: thanksgiving offerings, freewill offerings, dedicatory offerings, festal offerings, and yes, sin offerings… In eating the meat, the…

How do you create a better life for yourself? Sunday, March 17, 2024 1 Thessalonians 5:10-28 Quotes Marcus Aurelius: “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” Harriet Beecher Stowe: “The past, the present and the future are really one: they are toda…

How do you change your day when things feel out of control? Sunday, March 10, 2024 Colossians 3:8-17 Quotes Ralph W. Sockman: “True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be.” Simon Sinek: “Humility is being…

How do you stay away from negativity? How do you not let other people’s negativity affect you? How does gratitude impact your perspective? Sunday, March 3, 2024 2 Corinthians 4:1-18 Quotes Walter Brueggemann: “There is a generosity of the spirit in the gospel, a generosity not overpowered by our fears… It is this gospel based generosity that will s…

How does gratitude change what is important to you? Sunday, February 25, 2024 1 Corinthians 10:14-33 Quotes Psalm 24:1“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants too.” Henri Nouwen: “When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving a…

How do you practice gratitude when life is hard? Sunday, February 18, 2024Matthew 15:21-39 Quotes Henri Nouwen: “The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.” “Perhaps nothing helps us make the movement from our little selves to a larger wor…

How do you not get stuck in drama? Sunday, February 11, 2024Acts 8-26 Quotes Viktor E. Frankl: “When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.” Chuck Palahniuk: “People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas, their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes c…

How do you not let things hold you back from a good life? Sunday, February 4, 2024 Matthew 19:13-30 Quote Henri Nouwen says: “To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.”

How can you find more stability in your life? James 1:5-6 Quotes Ansel Adams: “In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.” Albert Einstein: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing… Never lose a holy curiosity.”…

How do you let go of expectations? Sunday, January 28, 2024 Genesis 17:1-22 Quote Marcus Aurelius: “You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”…

How do you get through the hard times? James 1:2-4 Quotes: Marcus Aurelius: “You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.” Virgil: “Every calamity is to be overcome by endurance.”…

How do you recognize God's blessings when life is chaotic? Sunday, January 21, 2024 Genesis 1:9-31 Ryan Holiday: “Like a virus, calm spreads by contact. It spread through the air. We exude it, shedding our excess strength onto others, infecting them as they in turn infect others - not with a degrading, harmful agent, but one that builds strength an…

How do you find motivation for a healthy life? How do you know your motivations are healthy? Sunday, January 7, 2024 Isaiah 60:1-6 Matthew 2:1-4 Quotes: Ryan Holiday: “What I’ve found in my research is that realism and self-honesty are the antidote to ego, hubris, and delusion.” Brené Brown: “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy,…

How do you find healing in life? What does healing even mean when it isn’t about what we want? Sunday, December 31, 2023 Isaiah 61:1-4 Luke 2:22, 24-40

How do you stay focused on what matters? How do you not get distracted by things that aren’t worth your time? When you think of Christmas, what are the things you want to be focused upon? Sunday, December 24, 2023 Isaiah 52:1-6 Luke 2:4-16 Quote:William James: “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”…

How do you deal with people who get on your nerves? Luke 19:7-9 Quotes Jackie Kennedy: “Whenever I was upset by something in the papers, Jack always told me to be more tolerant, like a horse flicking away flies in the summer.” Tyler Perry: “You can never be upset with the people who forced you into your dream or up higher.”…

How do you enjoy Christmas when so much seems to get in the way? How do you have a meaningful Christmas when things aren’t exactly what you want? Sunday, December 17, 2023 Luke 1:41-75 William Arthur Ward: “Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” Chief Te…

How do you not let stress impact holiday celebrations? How do you remain calm in stressful situations no matter the season? Sunday, December 10, 2023 Luke 1:5-40 Quote Ryan Holiday: “So much of the distress we feel comes from reacting instinctually instead of acting with conscientious deliberation. So much of what we get wrong comes from the same p…

How do you keep going when you’re exhausted? How do you keep going when you’ve got nothing left to give? Sunday, December 3, 2023 Mark 8:1-25 Quotes: Vaclav Havel: “Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obv…

How do you keep your fears in check when they feel overwhelming? Sunday, November 26, 2023 Luke 6:1-13, 17-23, 27-31 Quote In current language Howard Thurman: “A person’s conviction that one is God’s child automatically tends to shift the basis of one’s relationship with others. This person recognizes at once that to fear someone, whatever may be t…

How do you cope with holiday pressures? How do you deal with holiday expectations? How do you handle the family dynamics, the disappointments, or the complex emotions that come with this season of Thanksgiving and Christmas? Sunday, November 19, 2023 Deuteronomy 8:14, 16-18 Luke 7:31-50 Quotes Jelly Roll: “Need a Favor”“I only talk to God when I ne…

Have you ever felt like life is stacked against you? Have you ever tried to make the right decisions and things don’t work out like you want? How do you handle those situations that leave you disappointed and wanting something different? Sunday, November 12, 2023 Genesis 40:1-23 Quotes: Walter Brueggemann says: “The world of despair believes that t…

Have you ever been mad at yourself? Have you ever struggled with liking yourself? How can you have more peace when you feel mad or are struggling with liking yourself? Sunday, October 22, 2023 Genesis 32:3, 6-7, 9, 11, 13, 24-28 Genesis 33:1-17a

Have you ever been frustrated by your expectations of yourself or others? How do you determine what are healthy expectations of self and others? Sunday, October 15, 2023 Mark 9:14-30, 33-41

What can help you ease worries about the future for yourself and others? How do you stay calm when the future is unknown? What will help you when situations seem stacked against you? Sunday, October 8, 2023 Select verses from: 1 Samuel 20:1-42

Do you find yourself too busy, anxious, or overwhelmed to enjoy life? Is your day more chaotic than you think it should be? What does it take to find peace, a calm in your current situation? Sunday, October 1, 2023 Genesis 1-3, 6-17, 20-31

Do you have regrets that bother you? Do you ever wish you could change your past? Do you ever feel like you’ve lost something in the past and wish you could get it back? Sunday, September 24, 2023 Exodus 4:1-20, 27-31

Do you ever lie awake at night worrying or feel stressed by situations during the day? Have you ever felt like your patience, your limits, your time, your peace is being tested by situations, people, maybe even God? Sunday, September 17, 2023 Jeremiah 30:3-7 Jeremiah 31:22-34