You Are Going To Love The One and Hate The Other

Did you know that the practical day-to-day choices you make in life impact your spiritual life?  It’s been my experience that people often think the opposite.  Many think, ‘God will change me.  I don’t have to make choices that make me feel uncomfortable.  Or, I don't have to stop something or start something.' So, many passively wait and wait and wait for God to do something while at the same time not making any changes.  And for some, they leave the church thinking that

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Being Real Is a Gift To You and To Others

Today, we continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount called Rethinking Our Faith.  At this point in the series, a couple of things are clear.  We will have some things to rethink and unlearn in our faith.  We can see how important this sermon is to the Christian life.  And if you think about where we have already been in this series, Jesus addresses many tension points in our faith, you know, those things that we struggle to understand, or just wrestle with in our faith

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Anger. Lust. Divorce. Being honest. Revenge. Enemies.

Welcome to our series, Rethinking Our Faith.  Why should we rethink our faith?  

Because if our faith hasn’t transformed us to wake up every day with the purpose to please Jesus, we missed it.  

And we should rethink everything.  The point of the Sermon on the Mount is heart transformation.  The kind of heart transformation that changes how we live day to day.  

It’s so important to understand that when God’s kingdom is established in our hearts, it shows up practically in ou

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IF Walking With God Is Hard or Boring, Your Asking The Wrong Questions

For our first series of 2026, we are studying the Sermon on the Mount.  We are calling this conversation “Rethinking Our Faith” because Jesus challenges everything we feel, think, and believe. He shows us how to live as a follower of His, and it changes everything we may have understood about what it means to be a Christian or to live out our faith.  That means we need open hearts and minds because we have so much to learn, and maybe even more importantly, unlearn about ou

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Why Many Christians are Dazed, Confused, and Tired

Why should we rethink our faith?  Because if our faith hasn’t transformed our hearts to wake up every day with the purpose to please Jesus, we have missed it.  And we should rethink everything.

Jesus shows up and tells us what it looks like practically to live out our faith.  He shares what it looks like when God’s kingdom is established in our hearts.  We call this sermon, The Sermon on the Mount.  In this sermon, Jesus is introducing us to God’s kingdom.  And when you rea

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What Does It Mean To Be Truly Blessed?

I’m going to ask you a question right off the bat, today. I want you to think about this.  If I asked you what it looks like to be blessed, how would you answer that question?  When you think of someone who is blessed, what comes to mind?  Health?  Wealth?  Success?  Happiness?  I ask you that because today we study The Beatitudes, which are nine statements Jesus makes about when we are truly blessed.  This is how Jesus starts his famous Sermon on the Mount, and I’m just g

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Has Your Faith Changed Your Heart and Behaviors?

Welcome to our series called Rethinking Our Faith.  Why should we rethink our faith?  When Jesus shows up and teaches the Sermon on the Mount, it radically changes everything we may have understood about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  

If you have never read it, it’s wild.   It’s confusing.  And it challenges every area of our lives.  Jesus says things like If you sin with your eye, cut it out.  If you sin with your hand, cut it off.  That’s confusing because if

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How to Maximize Your Impact in 2026 and Beyond

With Christmas now behind us, it’s time to look ahead to the New Year.  There is something hopeful and exciting about the start of the New Year, isn’t there?  It’s a time to look back and reflect on the year that was, for sure, but it is also a time to look ahead, to set new goals, hopeful and good goals for the New Year.  I am already mentally preparing for what the gym will look like here in January.  This is a fun and hopeful time of year, with lots of traditions and fe

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To Walk With God, You Will Need To Embrace This One Thing

In a few days, we will be celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  It’s a spectacular moment when you allow what God has done to impact you.   Let’s read about it.   

Philippians 2:5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status

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Love Slows Down. Stress, Fear and Anger Speed Up

Welcome back to our series on relationships called The Unavoidable Adventure: Life with People, where we are learning to live and love well.  This is so important because we were created for love and connection, but it’s also challenging because people and relationships are messy and challenging.  They are that way all year long, but during the holidays, it all just ramps up on us, and the closer we get to Christmas, the more tension we may be feeling, then add how much ex

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Why Has God Placed Me In An Impossible Situation?

Relationships are messy.   You know that already.  But why?  Because people make everything better, and people make everything harder.  And that includes us.  We can make relationships better and harder for those around us.  And the clear command of Jesus is that we love others well.  That’s why we are talking about the unavoidable adventure of people.  

We talked about the ‘us’ part and the ‘them’ part in relationships.  Let’s quickly recap the ‘us’ part.  

First.  We all h

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Wondering Why You Aren't Experiencing New Life? Let's Talk.

We are in a conversation on relationships called The Unavoidable Adventure: Life with People, where we are learning to live and love well.  And as we close out the month of November, I keep wondering how many of us thought this series would go in the direction it did.  When we hear that we are in a conversation about relationships and how to love others well, the assumption is that we will talk about other people, or at the very least, we will get some new tips and techniq

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What Do I Do When I Am Triggered?

Have you discovered that people in your life can make everything better?  And have you discovered that people in your life can make everything harder?  That’s why we are in a series called 'The Unavoidable Adventure: Life with People.'   Life with people can make your life better and harder.  And in this series, we are trying to avoid the superficial talk that deals with tips and techniques on how to deal with people.  We are trying to figure out the real source of why rel

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New Life Means A New Way To Live, See Ourselves, and Others...RIght?

Welcome back to our conversation on relationships, called 'The Unavoidable Adventure: Life with People.'  We call it that because life with people isn’t avoidable; we need people in our lives, and it isn’t easy - it’s often the most challenging area of our lives, making it quite an adventure.  This year, as we approach the holidays, we wanted to have a conversation on this challenging area of our lives that goes beyond tips and techniques, but could have some real depth, e

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The Stunning Reason We Struggle To Love Well

The Unavoidable Adventure: Life with People.  We call it an adventure because relationships are messy.  And in that mess, we discover it can be truly difficult to love others well.  So we have to ask ourselves, Why is it a challenge to love others well?

There are two parts to this series.  Part one is what we talk about on Sunday morning.  Part two is our midweek class that takes us deeper and gives us time to talk it out.  In this series, we want to avoid the more superfic

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