The Vows: Video Service

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Life Together: Encourage One Another

These days there is a growing trend of “spiritual but not religious.” Another way of saying it is: “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” While I agree that I hear from God in different (sometimes unusual) ways, and often while I’m running alone, that is only one small segment of my spiritual life.  The truth is those who think they can live the Christian life apart from others are simply deluded.  I’ve heard an illustration that fits; a pastor went to the home of a church member who hadn’t been to worship in a while, one of the “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian” crowd.  The man invited the pastor in, and they went and sat in front of the fireplace. Silently, the pastor took the fireplace poker and pulled a hot coal out of the fire and onto the hearth.  As they watched, it slowly changed from red hot to white to black as it cooled off.  Without saying a word, the pastor again took the poker and slid the coal back into the fire.  Im...
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Embracing Grief and Loss

5th message in our series: Putting the Pieces Together: a Journey toward mature discipleship*. Where were you when President Kennedy was shot? When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded? When the September 11 terrorist attack happened? We are in our 5th message in our series: Putting the Pieces Together: a Journey toward mature discipleship. Today we are exploring the topic of embracing grief and loss. The events I mentioned as I opened are certainly giant focal points of national grief and loss; not only did most of us experience them, but we remember them vividly. Besides national events, many of us have experienced devastating losses, such as the death of a child, premature death of spouse, disability, divorce, rape, emotional or sexual abuse, irreversible cancer, infertility, shattering of a life-long dream, suicide, betrayal, let down. But those aren’t the only things that affect us. We all experience so called “insignificant losses” such as graduating high school/college ...
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Christmas Eve: Jesus is Hope, Love, Joy, Peace

Throughout Advent, as we have been preparing for Christmas and for Christ’s return, we have been focusing on the four words of the Advent candles: Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace. Today, as we celebrate Christmas Eve, we lit the most important candle, the Christ candle. And as we light the Christ candle, it is only fitting that we would focus on Christ and his place within this wreath. Jesus Christ is not only the center candle for his obvious central role in the Christmas story, but his spot in the center of the wreath is because he is the fulfillment of all of the candles. We began Advent with hope. Fitting, that Hope Church would focus on hope. For a people caught in the “in between” times, Micah’s prophecy includes these words of hope: But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:7) In the Old Testament, when you find the word “hope” it is almost always characterized not simply as “hope” b...
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