Elements City Church Podcast
About
Available on
Community
515 episodes
We live in the culture of busy, of noise, of many voices and distractions - in the land of constant connection and our A.D.D. culture that swirls nonstop around us. And yet, the life rhythms of Jesus invite us to find more of our identity and purpose in him through the practices we see him engage in: solitude and silence. They aren’t for the faint of heart - but they will greatly reshape the heart of a disciple within you.
Our lives are cluttered — so much so that we may have unintentionally crowded Jesus out of our daily lives! By embracing a lifestyle of simplicity, that is, removing anything from our lives that prevents us from pursuing the things we most value, we can create space in our lives and in our hearts for a deeper relationship with Jesus, and a better ability to see and meet the needs of others.
Following Jesus as an act of resistance to our cultural push toward hurry and hustle. We’re invited to live more into the pace of slowly following our Savior. Most of my greatest mistakes tend to come when I’m in a hurry. We’re invited into living more and more like Jesus. Adopting his rhythms and practices. As you study his life, we see that Jesus was busy, but never hurried. As His followers, we're called to walk in the way of love and one simply can not love in a hurry. Within a hurried culture - the practice of slowing helps us recenter ourselves in order to grow our connection with the Lord and to love others well.
Thank you to all who served folks somehow and in some way this Serve Weekend! I love how our church rolls up its sleeves and serves. With the Super Duper Big Game this weekend, we took a break from our normal in-person Sunday night worship services and instead took a time-out to recap our vision via an online service. Lyle and Jack unpack our vision more - with the help of a hot wings challenge...things got spicy! Check it out
If we say we follow Jesus, we have to follow the way of Jesus. From looking at the life of Jesus and the Scripture, we can see that the Jesus 'way' is to gather in order to scatter to reach people not connected to God. We are to be Jesus outside the walls of this church. Be the church that Jesus sends and that takes the love of Jesus to others.
As we pursue our vision we want to cultivate the culture of our church to focus on creating hearts that REACH, EQUIP and SEND. These values will be the flavor of how we live out the great commission and great commandment Jesus gave the church. We also want to grow our generosity in order to live into our dream for the future we believe the Lord is guiding us toward. It will take you, me and us together!
Cultivation is something we all have done, can do. But it’s also something we know takes time and effort. At the heart of cultivation is: intentionality. Friends: we want to encourage us - help us grow in cultivating our relationship with God and our relationships with others with the love of Christ.
As a church, we believe we are commissioned by the Gospel to make disciples. What is the Gospel? Why is it good news? And what role does discipleship play in all of this? Hear how truly experiencing the Gospel and the presence of God positions us to invite others to join us in experiencing the same. This is the heartbeat behind our call to not only be disciples ourselves, but to make disciples as well.
We want to live in such a way that we earn the right to invite people closer to Jesus and into next steps with Him. We want to wake up and walk through our days, continually on the look out for how we can extend an invite to folks versus keeping folks at arms length, extinguishing them and writing them off. We don’t follow ‘cancel culture’, instead, we build a grace filled one that champions people so they know God is for them and available. We invite. = This is Us.
The new year is here, so we’re kicking it off with some worship and prayer as we launch into 2023. Let’s pause, reflect and seek the Lord’s best for ourselves and our church in this new year.
Merry Christmas friends! Today as you gather with folks - we pray that you enjoy the conversations and connections. We invite you to hit pause somewhere in your day to remember once again, the reason for the season. Worship along with us from your home and listen again to the Christmas story from Luke 2 and a few thoughts from Pastor Jack. *after the devotional: pull up the David Crowder Christmas album (track 9) “Your Praise Goes On” and as a family take a moment to let your praise join in…
In Matthew chapter 1 we notice a character of the original nativity - his presence is there, though silent throughout the Scriptures - but it’s the message conveyed to him that helps us see something spectacular about God and all he wants us to know through Christmas! God is FOR us. God is WITH us.
The Scriptures use the motif of darkness and light to describe the Promised One - the coming of the Messiah and the activity of God. It was Jesus who said “I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” It’s God’s light that changes things and it’s His light that will never be overcome! It's the Light of God we remember at Christmas.
We live in the shadow God’s generosity. We are the beneficiaries of the greatest gift ever given in our Savior. God is so generous to us! What if generosity became more of a natural reflex for the followers of Jesus – it would not only change your heart, it would greatly impact the world!
As we conclude our series through 1 & 2 Thessalonians, we see Paul reiterating the importance of putting into practice the things he modeled for the Thessalonians during his time with them. Looking at the rhythms established by the early church fathers, we see five practices that one can turn into habits that will help us stand firm and grow in our spiritual formation.
We live in a culture that allows great freedoms; but there is also growing opposition to faith and tradition of faith and the teaching of Scripture - it will bring rising heartache and pushback. We are to stand firm & hold fast. We’re to be people that love like Christ. People full of conviction and compassion. People who hold to truth and grace.
As we move into 2 Thessalonians, we see Paul wants to comfort the Thessalonians Christians that, contrary to what has been said in their church, the second coming of Christ has yet to occur. Paul gives more details as to what will happen before Jesus appears again in an effort to bring peace and stability to the church. What will bring us this peace? It’s not having knowledge of the return of Jesus, it’s having a love for the truth of God — so much so that we spend our days seeking to put this truth into action in our lives.
The Apostle Paul wraps up this first letter to the church in Thessalonica with a reminder that as followers of Jesus we are enfolded into the family of God with familial responsibilities and we are to live into 3 key family practices. Joy, Prayer and Thankfulness are to mark our lives. When these three qualities are present, believers will be vibrant witnesses to a needy world.
Continuing his discourse on Christ’s return, Paul warns the Thessalonians that unbelievers will be caught completely unaware at the return of Christ. He exhorts the Thessalonians to live in such a way as to always be ready for the Lord to appear. As those who have placed their faith in Christ, their love for Jesus gives them a hope that they can ensure they are prepared for the Lord’s coming. How, then, should we live in order to be prepared — like the Thessalonians — for the second coming of Christ? By utilizing the spiritual armor that already belongs to us in Christ, we can exercise our faith, love, and hope to live as to please God until Christ comes again.
Paul always taught people about the future—that salvation in Jesus carried a promise of eternal life. He told his audiences that the same Jesus Christ who died, arose, and ascended - would one day return. So, if we're around when that happens, what happens and if we die, what happens next? Friends, because of Jesus, we get to live with hope always and forever...
Paul is instructing these early Christians to withstand the pressures of the culture around them when it comes to their behavior around sexuality and in their work life. They are to live in order to please God and not just please themselves. They are to follow the ways of Jesus over cultural norms. They are not to settle in and be molded by the culture around them, but rather, they are be revolutionary in how they live.
God used Paul as an encourager to the Church in Thessalonica. Not only was Paul concerned about their safety; but he was also concerned about their spiritual growth. So he let his concern motivate his heart to stir into active encouragement for the people of this church. How can God leverage you to encourage more around you?
Paul reiterates his thankfulness for the church in Thessalonica — this time, because they readily received the Word of God as it is. This leads us to ask ourselves, do we readily receive God’s Word as divine revelation? Is it something around which we pattern our lives, despite any hardship we may face in doing so? When we do so, however, we will find our greatest joy — just as Paul did — comes when we disciple others and see them put the Word of God into practice in the same way we have.
We see the Apostle Paul model and call us to live with 4 key motivations as followers of Jesus. He speaks about these in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and tonight we examine how we’re to imitate these in our here and now moment. We’ll examine some questions that help us check how our motivations might be in alignment or out of it.
The Apostle Paul writes back to a church that he began to encourage them about remaining faithful amidst opposition and persecution. He celebrates what he’s hearing about indicators that mark their faith as authentic and genuine. Faith lived out loud will have signs of authenticity and will have an impact that radiates outward.
A vision statement describes what an organization aspires to be. And as we pursue our vision here at Elements we will be an inviting community of Jesus followers commissioned by the gospel to make disciples by cultivating relationships that reflect the love of Christ. Join in with us and let's chase the dreams God has for us together.
Vision checkups are important for all of us to make sure we’re seeing clearly and can chase after all that comes our way in life. They are also imperative as a church - to circle back and make sure we are staying focused and that we have the clarity we need most. That we don’t allow ourselves to get distracted or fuzzy on what we’re called to be about. This Sunday is about helping us understand the WHAT we’re all about at Elements.
As we conclude our series we’re reminded again how anxiety can sideline us if we’re not careful to fight back. We will all battle it at times, but the Lord has given us Prayer and Praise to reset our perspectives and help us influence our minds to experience His peace that He promises to give when we look to him. We don’t want to get so fixated on our problems that we forget the powerful presence of our God.
We each have lenses/filters through which we interpret our experiences, and typically those filters fail to see reality accurately because our own brokenness distorts and fosters our cognitive biases, …often creating false narratives that dictate how we respond and behave in the world. But for those who follow Jesus, our Heavenly Father wants to give us new lenses — God’s filter: through which we can interpret life rightly. YOU CANNOT CONTROL WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU, BUT YOU CAN CONTROL HOW YOU FRAME IT.
After we begin to recognize the enemy’s lies and replace with truth. We will next need to drill down further to create new neural pathways that can guide God’s truth deeper into our thought life and the narrative we live by. Repetition creates ruts, so utilize repetition of God’s truth to your advantage. Meditation and rumination upon the truths of Scripture can bring the healing and hope that we long for in our thought life.
