Author Archives: pastorbrian1986

One of the most challenging areas in our spirituality is to live for Jesus everyday, all the time. It’s easy to be on fire and passionate about your faith when you are on a mission trip, a retreat, during a major holiday, or a big personal event in your life such as a wedding andContinue reading “Everyday Living”

Church, this Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, the most important week in our church calendar and our Christian existence. I encourage you on Sunday to come with eyes anew to hear the story, feel the excitement, but also be aware of what is brewing behind the scenes of this celebrated entrance of JesusContinue reading “on Palm Sunday”

Friends, it is supposed to be a time to start planting and begin thinking of spring and renewed life. However, as my temperature gauge measures that it is 11 degrees outside those thoughts may need to take a back seat for another week or so. Whenever the temperature is warm enough and we begin plantingContinue reading “Bearing Fruit”

We have begun a new journey. Our overarching journey has always been to know Jesus more and be found falling in love with Him each and every day. However, our purpose is to have our theology stretched during this time in such a powerful way that we can continually become mature, courageous Christians. One bigContinue reading “The Kingdom of God”

We have had a great sermon series looking at Jesus’ charge to His followers, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” One of the key phrases occurs after the charge, “For all the law and the prophets hang on these commandments.” During our journey we’ve looked at who we are as a church and who we areContinue reading “Loving your Neighbor”

We are just wrapping up a very challenging series: Tough Questions of Christianity. I will this series beyond most series that we have preached on has stretched me and challenged my understanding of the gospel in many ways. I hope we don’t back down from tough questions of our faith but rather we look atContinue reading “On Tough Questions of the Faith”

Advent Devotional: Scripture: Micah 5:2, ““But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans[b] of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel,whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Bethlehem? Why there? Of all the great cities of the ancient world to have theContinue reading “Advent Devotional no. 2”

Part of our hope during this Advent season is to have our hearts changed to reflect more and more of who Jesus is. We will post Advent devotionals throughout the season, and we encourage you to also look for other Advent resources as well. Advent Devotionals for 2016 Day Two: Isaiah 40:1-5 “40 Comfort, comfortContinue reading “Advent Devotional No. 1”

As the dust continues to settle from last week’s presidential election one overarching truth has been the dominant force in the societal narratives these days: our country is extremely divided. We have the left digging their heels in, and the right not wanting to budge either. Words such as anxious, fearful, and nervous can beContinue reading “on Heaven”

We come to a somewhat awkward topic: stewardship. Before we dive in more fully let me be clear what we mean by stewardship: the proper and efficient way to manage resources for the maximum amount of good. In getting back to the previous sentence, stewardship feels awkward when we treat it as a sales pitch.Continue reading “On Stewardship”

Many of us have politics on our minds during these days. We are walking in fear and trepidation as we fully don’t know what will happen on November 8th or in what direction our country we go. Here are a few reminders for the days and weeks ahead: Look to rise above all the noise.Continue reading “On Politics”

We live in a crazy time to be the people of God. In many moments it seems that our world is spinning out of control, chaos and violence rule the day, and we often have more questions than we do answers. God chose us to witness to Him during these days, and I cannot thinkContinue reading “on 4 Prayers a Week”