Posts from 2025 (Page 2)

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Spiritual renewal is the Holy Spirit’s work of bringing about spiritual transformation in God’s people. It’s when spiritual lethargy is replaced with life, and indifference is replaced with a holy zeal. On Sunday, we saw a beautiful picture of spiritual renewal as we looked at the example of King Josiah in 2 Chronicles 34-35. Spiritual…

Dear Brothers and Sisters, We kicked off the new year of ministry this past Sunday! Moving from our previous Called to Flourish vision into the new Path to Discipleship, we want to maintain the momentum in the church to take the various components of discipleship deep into who we are as a church. Attached are two documents toward this end. The Fall Ministry Events details…

A couple weeks ago, we had some nasty thunderstorms in the area pouring down rain and flashing lightning everywhere. I sat up in the middle of the night scared about the house because of my experience in Texas with hurricanes; we had boarded up our windows for good reason down there! Eventually, I…

Dear Brothers and Sisters, The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest history-changing, world-shaking event ever to take place. The coming and going of political leaders, the rise and fall of empires, the most momentous events of our day all pale in comparison to the resurrection of our Savior. This Sunday we conclude our series Follow Me on the Gospel of Mark–and…

Dear Faith Community Church Family, This Sunday we turn our attention to the death that brought us life in Mark 15:33-47. Here, our crucified Savior cried out in anguish as He breathed His last, and He was whisked away to a tomb before the Sabbath began. I encourage you to take time this week to reflect on that time before the story turns to Easter morning. Jesus’…

Dear Faith Community Church Family, Our God is both Creator and Redeemer. Our very existence is dependent upon him; our salvation is equally dependent upon him. The gift of being and the gift of forgiveness are from him and to his glory. One God-given avenue to glorify our triune Creator is through art. I’m sure many of you have seen it already, but we now have a…

Hold up your favorite index finger about an arm’s length in front of you. How many fingers do you see? For me (Jonathan), I see a main finger and a transparent one, and I’ve long enjoyed splitting apart and smushing together these finger images. In fact, my superpower is that each of my eyes creates a secondary image, a condition called diplopia (double vision)!  …

Are we there yet?   Where are we even going?   One day, I decided to take a snowboarding trip out to the Rocky Mountains. Loaded up with my snow gear and bundled up in my snow clothes, I set out toward the Rockies with only a vague sense of how to get there. Many hours flew by and the sun set, and I decided to pull over into a nearby motel somewhere right of nowhere. The…

What do you want to be when you grow up?   Last week, we began our four-part series on four ethical questions – Do? Be? Go? See? – to help understand complex issues in our world. “What should I do?” is where these issues can often start and end, but our second question, “Who should I be?”, opens up opportunities for further investigation.   If you live in America,…

Dear Faith Community Church Family, The love of God is never-failing. In contrast, our love for God waxes and wanes. Our love for God is stronger at certain points in our lives than at other times. While our greatest desire should be to love God with all we are, we frequently fail in this. The good news is that we have a God whose love for us is stronger than steel, and…

Dear Faith Community Church Family, We continue our Mark series with Mark 16:26-42, the passage dealing with both the prophecy of Peter’s denying Jesus and Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. Truly and well did Jesus speak when He said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” How often can our best intentions run ahead of our ability to serve the…

Dear Faith Community Church Family, God’s work of redemption under the old covenant and his work of redemption through Christ in the new covenant are not two paths of salvation. God did not change his mind about how he would bring salvation to the world before sending Jesus to this earth as our Savior. The old covenant pointed to the coming of Christ; the new covenant has…