CJ's Mic: Bible/Speaking/Poetry

Why does so much life transformation and faith formation happen at summer camp? I think it is because God gets our attention through his word, his community, and we experience the fullness of life beyond the four walls of a church! Come hear some stories from the summer!

If Jesus really did get up from death, how do I live in that new reality?  If we only talk about the resurrection on Easter, we might miss the central, radical power of the gospel to transform everything in our life!  Before you watch/listen, go to www.bibleproject.com and watch the eternal life video!

There's some words that become so "churchy" that they lose their meaning. But a lot of times, "churchy" words aren't religious at all, but have powerful meaning for revealing how God meets us in real life.  This week we explore the idea of grace and how it flips the whole world upsidedown through the message and life of Jesus.

This is the fifth message in a youth series, "Unexpected Jesus". This week we explore one of Jesus' main teachings on what he thought he came to do: to deal with the problem of evil by going to the heart of the problem.

This is the fourth message of our youth series, "Unexpected Jesus". This week we hit the turning point in the book of Mark as we are challenged to ask "who do I think Jesus is?" and are challenged to a different view of what it means to win in life.

This is the third message in a youth series called "Unexpected Jesus". We all have expectations of who Jesus is and what he thought he was doing, but in this series we are setting aside our expectations and letting Jesus show us who he really is! This week we explore Jesus' parables, stories with a purpose, and find out that for those who really hear, there's an invitation to a life-changing experience with the love of God.

This is the second message in a youth series called Unexpected Jesus. We all have expectations about who Jesus is and what he thought he was doing, whether we are religious or not religious. But Mark wants to invite us on a journey where we drop the expections and instead really experience Jesus as the hero we really need. This week we explore 4 stories of people who had encounters with Jesus and how it changed their lives (or not). Through these people we see that faith isn't blind belief; faith is letting go of our expectations and letting Jesus be exactly what we need.

It's a series! This is the first episode in a youth series called Unexpected Jesus, as we journey through Mark's gospel and ask "who is Jesus"? We all have expectations about who Jesus is and what he thought he was doing, whether we are religious or not religious. But Mark wants to invite us on a journey where we drop the expections and instead really experience Jesus as the hero we really need.

Today we explore the question, "what did Jesus think he was up to?" -- through Jesus' parable in Matthew 13:31. Because the story Jesus invites us into is the story of the king and his kingdom!

Do you ever feel like life is falling to pieces? Or even just feel the cracks forming in the dream life you pictured you'd have. Whether it is diagnoses, depression, or disappointment, all of us will (at some point) experience what it is like to be fragile. So does that mean God has abandoned us? The message of a lot of popular Christianity is that when you believe the right things about Jesus, God will bless you. But the story the Bible tells is different. It is one where our cracks reveal a greater hope, and where the breaking becomes the place where we experience Jesus and our suffering transforms into our hope!

Life is a battle and it can feel overwhelming, but the battle for life isn't won by the strongest, but by the one who knows who their enemy is and where it attacks! And the power of Jesus' cross is the way to victory over the enemy.

Where is God when everything is going wrong? Does he hear? Does he answer? His answer to our suffering was the cries of a baby one silent night in Israel...

2020 sucked in a lot of ways, but biblical hope isn't just seeing 2021 as a glass half-full...biblical hope gives meaning in the midst of suffering and a future as bright as new life. In this episode, we explore Lamentations 3 and 1 Peter 1 and see how radical, raw, and real biblical hope is. "God sees your suffering. He is not far away, he is at work, but when it feels like he isn’t, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. But clinging to hope is beautiful in God’s sight."

When Isaiah comes face to face with God's holy presence, God meets him in a surprising way. Not consuming him, but transforming him. A message from Mckenzie Towne Church, August 9th, 2020.

So many of us walk around with the idea that God is either out to judge us, is boring, or is just not good. And here's the problem: if we don't believe God is good we will find ourselves moving away from him. The Bible teaches us of a different God who relates to us in the last way we expect and leads us into a (re)new(ed) relationship with our Creator.

A raw piece that expresses the agony of the Son of Man along side the rawness of repentance, finding ourselves here again, blood stained hands of the guilty, but realizing that it is his blood that calls us forgiven.

God is here to make broken things new -- the message of Paul to Titus is that no matter how broken of a people or culture God is in the business of making new things out of broken things, and in this passage in chapter 3 Paul stops to remind us that the gospel (the undeserved kindness and mercy of God) is what gives us the power to be made new!

Christmas brings to mind many things, but at its heart is a person. Before bells and snow and hot cocoa was God incarnate, laid upon a manger.Let's go back and experience that moment again together -- through poetry -- when God broke through...