The Vows: Video Service

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Tending the Garden for a Good Harvest: Peace

Isaiah 54:10 “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. Galatians 5:22-23: But the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such things there is no law. As we’ve been looking at the Holy Spirit over these past three weeks, I wonder something: are you any more loving and any more filled with joy than you were before? Part of being filled with the Holy Spirit is when you are, He brings about the Fruit. He brings that love and joy that we talked about over the past couple of weeks. One of the side effects of speaking on the Holy Spirit is that the devil doesn’t like it. He would rather you serve a distant impersonal God. He would rather you not know that your very body is a temple of the Holy Spirit – that the Spirit of God resides within you with power! He hates...
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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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