This summer we have asked a lot of questions for you to wrestle with. What is God up to? When God enters earth, what do we see Him doing? How can we join God in what He is doing? Why do we do church? What is church all about? What is our role in church? We said the God of the universe, for thousands of years, has been running to people to redeem them. We see this when . . . Read More »
The Chicken and The Egg
So this summer we have been having a lot of fun here at MRC. We have been working through a series on the church. If you think about what we have been doing with this teaching, we have been asking some pretty specific questions, and these questions are a really big deal. Actually, these questions aren’t really that big of a deal at all but how you answer these questions is very, very important. The way I see . . . Read More »
What We Believe #3 God is Pushing Back the end of Time
As we continue in the sermon series about where to find God and how to actually act out being the church, I’ll bring you today’s message about the mission of Christ being so important that God is literally pushing back the end of time. I don’t know about you, but any time I had heard Ken or Sam speak about God pushing back the end of time, I thought of it as a big picture, end of the . . . Read More »
Being a Disciple Maker and Some Fishing Tips
So this summer we have been in a series about the church and I think it’s been a ton of fun so far and I think it’s been a really powerful time for us to dive into some penetrating truths about us as a church…about who we are, what we do, and why we do it. We have really been pushing in one very specific set of questions. How do you view the church? How do you do . . . Read More »
What We Believe #1
The God story over thousands and thousands of years is about God running to people to redeem them. It’s the story of the universe. In a letter he wrote, Paul said this: By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was . . . Read More »
Practically, How Do I Join God in What He Is Doing?
Where does our community find God? That’s why every local church in every community is so important. The series we are in is called, ‘Finding God.’ We are talking about church, the presence of God and our role in all of it. We started with the story of Jesus going to a party to hang out with what the church people of His day called, ‘notorious sinners.’ When Jesus heard their criticism, Jesus shot back: “It is the . . . Read More »
What Could Be
Over the last few years we have taken the summer and studied a book of the Bible. Quite frankly it’s something that I look forward to every year. Over the past few years we have studied some of Paul’s letters, and James…and this year I was really gearing up to study 1st and 2nd Peter with you all. I enjoy picking the scriptures apart like that…but that isn’t the direction we went this summer…instead we are jumping into . . . Read More »
At A Penn State Game, what do you see?
Where does our community find God? That’s why every local church in every community is so important. The series we are in is called, ‘Finding God.’ We are talking about church, the presence of God and our role in all of it. Last week, we jumped right into scripture. We read about a party that Matthew, the tax collector, hosted for Jesus. The church people of Jesus’ day lost their minds because, to use their words, Jesus was . . . Read More »
What are you willing to do?
So today we are wrapping up our series on integrity. The big concept or theme of the entire series was that who we are matters more than what we look like, and we spent a lot of time talking about how challenging that really is in the culture that we live in today. I loved using the imagery a couple of weeks ago with you of walking upstream…the world, the people, just our culture in general pulling one . . . Read More »
God Enters Earth and Runs After the Notorious Sinner
27 Later on as Jesus left the town he saw a tax collector – with the usual reputation for cheating – sitting at a tax collection booth. The man’s name was Levi [this is Matthew]. Jesus said to him, “Come and be one of my disciples!” 28 So Levi left everything, sprang up, and went with him. 29 Soon Levi held a reception in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax . . . Read More »