Epiphany

" (Hebrews 1:1...) God has spoken to us in many ways throughout history. But in these last days days, He has spoken to us by His son, whoom He appointed heir of all things, and through whoom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of His glory. What does that mean? If God is light – Jesus is the bright. If God is water – Jesus is the wet..."

Who is Jesus?

"Born as a man – and yet also God among us. .His brilliance astounded those around Him and silenced his critics He name is Jesus"

Why Did Jesus Come?

"Ed shares the importance of why Jesus came as humanity to be amoung us "

O Come Emmanuel

"His name is Emmanuel – God is with us. Why would God come and be with us? What was He after? The gospel story is really the story of the Creator – God, taking responsibility for what happened to creation. It's the story of the creator – God, bearing the weight of our own problems on His shoulders. It's the story of Jesus coming to take what we caused... "

The Power of Forgiveness

"It's Thanksgiving. What better time than now to talk about the importance of forgiveness in our lives. Here are some thoughts on how to make your time around the table with uncle Tom and sister-in-law Gurtrude great! God knows who your relatives are... and He put you smack in the middle of it all - into that mess! Why? Probably because there's something about you that just ticks God off... God puts people in our lives because he knows that they develope us... "

The Tension of Caring

"What should we be doing as followers of Jesus to try to bless the world around us, lift hurting people, aide people in need, and help bring healing - socially and economically to those less privileged. We all want to help people, but we get stuck over a couple of issues. We don't always know how to help. Where do you start to help a world that's jammed with injustice? What do you do? We don't know how to see the hurting and really let them touch us without us feeling guilty that we have anything!"

Restoring The Fallen

In light of recent events within the evangelical Christian community, Ed shares from scripture and his own life about restoration.

Daring To Care

"I wanna talk with you about these ideas of love , compassion, and mercy. These things come from another place. They help us as believers to be “other-centered.” It's not natural for us in a fallen world because we tend to be “takers” rather than “givers” because we want all the marbles... "

Growing Up In Grace

"Growing Up In Grace "

Breathing With God

"I really think we need to fight for, contend for, and figure out ways of living transformed lives. Where our expression of faith is not just about letting our gift be on parade, or trying to find our annointing that we think will make us be more important in the world. But that we understand that God wants to fill our lives, annoint our lives with His presesence so that we can be great single people, great moms, great dads, great married folks--people who work with a little different spin on it, a different intention from the heart. And that we actually work through our stuff, and we are different... "

Reordering Your Life

" At some point everyone of us has to step back and decide what it is we believe about the world that we are in. What’s really going on here? People have to decide whether or not they believe there’s a God!
"

The Disciplines

"IWhat is God actually trying to accomplish in the world and why are we here? Why do we do church? Why do we gather together? Why do we do stuff like praying and reading the Bible? When God was creating the human race, what did He have in mind? Are we giving Him what He's after in our lives...?"

The Art of Giving

“Philippians 4:19 is an interesting text that calls us to trust God in this arena of our financial provision. You might try to think it’s talking about spiritual needs, but really if you look at the context, there’s no way you can say that. Actually, he’s talking about God getting engaged and involved with us in this arena of provision: jobs, salary increases, bonuses, ideas for new kinds of endeavors that can produce wealth or increase in your life. God will actually get in the mix of that in your life…”

Show Me The Money!

"I wanna talk about your money. I think this touches all of us in a way that we need to think thru… “

Facing Change

“Life is full of seasons (Ecclesiastes 3:1). The only thing that never really changes is the fact that life is full of change. You can fear change and resist it, or you can embrace it. Change is coming! It’s inevitable…”

Have A Good Day

The scripture says, Jesus said to them, "go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation!" Everybody say "go!" We still have to own this as believers, the idea that we've got to communicate with others outside of ourselves, the claims of Jesus. You know that we are living in a culture where everybody is saying "don't talk to me about anything because you're perspective is only valid to you. Don'y try to communicate that to me. Let's all just get along and be tolerant of each other." And so, at the very heart of this call to go into the world that we are in and communicate with people something more than what they value or think about is a bit of a challenge. Even though I think we need to do it respectfully, we still need to do it. And we need to figure out how we can own up before God to this idea that there's a message that we have and a life that we have that we're supposed to communicate to others.

The Life of Faith

"I want to talk to you a little bit about taking charge of your life and what that looks like..."

Who is God?

"Last time we were chatting we were talking about knowing God. We are not just embracing a bunch of ideas about God. We are facing the actual being of God..."

Knowing God

"What does it mean to know God? I mean how is it that we come to know anything?"

Father's Day

You know Father's Day can be both a bitter and a sweet thing...

The Future is Coming

Sometimes people ask questions like "will anyone remember me when I'm gone? " In Judeo Christian thought there has always been this idea that each one of us was created to matter...

Priorities

Here is a great question:
With all the areas we have to deal with in life, from God, to kids, to marriage, to our employment, to family to ministry, how do we deal with it all without becoming overcommitted or burned out? (more...)

Mother's Day

Ever since the Fall of man there has been a kind of battle of the sexes going on where the men try to one-up women and vice-versa. God never intended that to be. He intended that there be a mutual respect and honor for each other.

So let’s start some controversy with the question:

We always call God Father, but could we call him mother?(more...)

The Importance of Conversation

I want to talk w/you this morning about a truth I discovered years ago that was very surprising…it has to do with what we say about God, about others, and ourselves, and about the circumstances we find ourselves in.(more...)

When I Fail

When a person crosses the threshold of faith there is a change of heart about sin…we no longer want to…not deep inside!
Sin is only pleasurable for a season…and, as a follower of Jesus, your season is over! (more...)

Resurrection 2006

The RESURRECTION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT HOLIDAY FOR THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH…no resurrection – our faith is in vain.

Why?
To find out we need to go back to the beginning…(more...)

Sin Free Pt. 2

We were talking about SIN a couple of weeks ago…
Rom. 6:14
For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

The wonderful news for all of us is that God has made a way for human beings to be free from destructive beliefs and behaviors—we do not have to live our lives bound up and out of control.

Last time, I was iterating 5 perspectives that will help a person walk out from the influence of prevailing sin...(more...)

Sin Free

Rom. 6:14
For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

I want to talk about SIN this morning. WE ALL KNOW IT HURTS US. BUT what exactly is IT? How do we live sin free? Some have intimated that a sure way is to obey every precept of the law.

We have no shot to win over sin IF we think OBEYING LAW is the key!

Rom. 7:7-8
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead...(more...)

Salt and Light

.Matt. 5:13-14
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Here is the million-dollar question…How?"

The Good Life

...I went shopping late last night trying to find the best cake I could.
I ended up at one grocery store that had some pretty nice cakes…this was the BEST.

My son's BIRTHDAY CAKE from Merrit’s bakery was much better…but this one is GOOD.

Pathalogical Do-gooding

...With so many voices telling you what to do, when and how to do it, at some point you need to say ,"wait a minute, I need to make some choices for myself. Choices that will keep in mind all the responsibilities God has given me."

Don’t surrender your ability to hear from God to someone else.

What's it Worth to You?

"What if the quality of life we live isn’t pre-determined…what if we can do things that actually improve our lives, that upped the good in our lives? There is a belief pervading our culture (though it is never stated overtly) that things that are meant to be (or are God’s will) will sort of just happen..."

Dealing with Stuff

"…So, everything that exists is GOOD. All we see is good, but here is the brain freeze. Evil does not exist. What is it then? Evil is something that good things suffer. EVIL IS BASICALLY CORRUPTION."

The Incarnation Tension

"Here is a huge question to ask yourself…
Do I believe it? Am I really a temple of God? Or is this just a bunch of contrived chatter?"

Dealing With Offense pt. 3

"Here is reality: We live IN A FALLEN WORLD and life here is hard. Kindness is rare. Human love is bankrupt. And we sit right in the middle of it as representatives of Jesus Christ = his ambassadors... We are to be His forgiveness demonstrators. We are to be God-samplers."

Dealing With Offense pt. 2

"I felt I opened a can of worms last week when I spoke on the topic of forgiveness... Let me say at the onset that forgiveness DOESN'T mean justice is abandoned or that people shouldn't be responsible for their actions or that we are to submit to continuing abuse."

Dealing With Offense pt. 1

"There's something about the Old Testament we kind of like. If you've got enemies, then you just kill them..."

One of the most difficult things in the Christian faith is to learn to forgive. Jesus came to Earth to teach us to not only relate to God but to each other. Join us as Ed discusses how and why we are to forgive.

Read the Bible

Why we read the Bible, and how it draws us closer to and into greater relationship with God.

The Will of God

What if you matter as much to God as anybody "important" in the Christian world? Join us as Ed talks about God's will for your life and his hidden purpose in your life.

Why Did Jesus Come?

Jesus' authority on earth was to grant eternal life to His followers. Join us as we discuss God's heart in sending Jesus and how that heart compels us to be different.

Be Transformed

Join us as Ed talks about the "different-ness" of the believer and how a life lived differently can draw people to Christ.

Meat and Milk

Why is it important to have a balanced diet of scriptural milk and meat? Join us as Ed talks about being spiritually balanced.

Don't Be a Conehead

We are called to be in this world, but at the same time live differently than those around us and the way Jesus looks at life is different than the culture we are living in. Join us as Ed shares on ways to be "different" in a world that is calling for us to be just like it.

Give Thanks

In a society where life is becoming continually more hectic, it is important to remember to always be thankful. Join us as Ed talks about why we, as believers, have reason to give thanks.

Why the Organized Church

Why do we need the organized church? What is its role in modern society? Join us as Ed discusses how we fit into God's plan for the world today.