MinisTrey Podcast w/ Trey Van Camp

Instead of rushing past the familiar line “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” we're invited to slow down and receive it not just as a doctrinal statement, but as a personal proposal from the Groom to His Bride. Don't pass over the Passover, don't pass over the proposal, and above all—don't pass over the Person of Jesus.

Prayer is so important because it allows us to delight in God's presence, discern His heart, and depend on His power. But prayer is so powerful because it actually directs God's hand. When we pray, prayer moves our heart and will to align with God's heart and will. But it also moves God's hand to directly interfere into the affairs of humanity. And yet few of us actually believe this. Some of us fall into the trap of fatalism, falsely believing God has already set the future and our prayers won't actually change anything. Others of us fall into the trap of naturalism, falsely believing that prayer is less important than action. But throughout the scriptures, God does change his mind in response to his peoples' prayers. In Exodus 32, after receiving the 10 Commandments, Moses prays on behalf of the Israelites and God relents. In 2 Kings 6, Elisha prays for the eyes of his servant to be opened to the reality of God's power through prayer. If you track the theme of prayer throughout the biblical story, one thing becomes abundantly clear: prayer moves the hand of God to action. It's our prayers, usually on behalf of others, by which God advances His Kingdom to push back the darkness in the world around us. Put simply, God responds when we pray. By praying bold prayers that just might move God's hand to action, we practice turning our inward-focused minds, hearts, and bodies into outward-acting agents of God's kingdom.

In the middle of teaching on prayer, Jesus tells us to ask, “Give us today our daily bread,” “forgive our sins,” and “deliver us from the evil one” (Matthew 6:11–13). These requests span a spectrum: from the mundane, to the messy, to the monumental. Daily bread reflects ordinary needs we often overlook—food for the day, a safe commute, help with our to-do list. “Forgive our sins” gets messy, confronting our failures and the challenge of forgiving others. “Deliver us” points to overwhelming needs—healing from deep wounds, restored relationships, freedom from bondage. Yet Jesus makes no distinction. Bread, forgiveness, deliverance—all are gifts from a generous Father. If God truly is our Father, He wants us to ask—for small things and big things. Because asking reveals humility. It takes honesty and vulnerability to admit we need help, that we rely on His power. Prayer expresses this dependence. When we bring God the mundane, the messy, and the monumental, He responds. Not always how or when we expect. But Jesus reminds us: “Who among you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:9–11).

If the goal of prayer is to delight in God's presence and develop deeper communion with Him, few of us want to settle for a one-sided relationship. At some point in our prayer journey, we'll want to actually hear from Him. This is what Scripture calls discernment. And while prayer is about delighting in our personal relationship with God by sharing our hearts with Him, it's also about learning His heart for us and for those around us. When we pray to discern God's heart, we're asking to know God's will. But we're also asking that God would form and shape us into the kinds of people who are actually capable of accomplishing it. This means discerning God's heart is less about finding the right path when faced with a decision and more about tuning our hearts and desires to God's heart and desires. This is partly what Jesus means when He tells His disciples to pray, “Your Kingdom come Your will be done…” (Matt. 6:10). Discerning God's heart is about surrendering our will to God's. We want His will, not ours, to be done in our lives, in the lives of those around us, and in our world. Praying this way is about alignment. We want to bend our desires to God's desires. And not just for ourselves. We want to develop the heart God has for those around us as well. We want to hear from God, we want to respond to His voice, and we want to become people who carry out His will.

It's pretty significant that the one time we're told the disciples ask Jesus to teach them something, they say, “Teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). After everything they saw Jesus doing—preaching, performing miracles, healing, casting out demons—what caught their attention was the devotion and commitment Jesus seemed to have when it came to prayer. When Jesus answered his disciples' request, the first thing He told them to do was address God as a Father. “Our Father in heaven…” as the prayer goes. Many of us know it by heart, but this was a radical move on Jesus' part. In a culture full of both reverence and uncertainty about the divine, Jesus was demonstrating to His disciples a very simple, yet radical truth: God is knowable. He's not simply “up there” in the clouds, nor is He passively waiting for us to approach Him with the right words, mantra, or sacrifice. God is near, and we can talk to Him the same way a child would talk to their father. The starting point of prayer is delight. We can't develop the kind of prayer life Jesus had until we get our heads and hearts around the truth that God wants to be near us in prayer more than we want to be near Him. To truly delight in God requires a proper theology, a patient consistency, and a practicing community.

On Easter Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. By rising from the dead and walking out of the grave, Jesus defeated the three main enemies of humanity: sin, Satan, and death. It's good news for all of us, but only if we're willing to accept it. In Matthew 11, Jesus responds with judgement towards those who consistently reject Him and His miracles. But by the end of the chapter, Jesus extends an invitation for those willing to repent. By laying down our pride and putting our hope in Jesus, we find Him gentle, lowly, and willing to give us rest.

Fickleness might not be one of the seven historically recognized deadly sins, but it is prevalent in our community and it is deadly. All of us shy away from difficult conversations, give up at the first sign of discomfort, and loosen our commitments when we're inconvenienced. But in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before his crucifixion, Jesus models what faithfulness looks like. By bringing our pain, fears, and discomfort to God in honest prayer, we allow him to hear us and align our hearts with his will. This is how we allow the Spirit to bear the fruit of faithfulness within us.

Of all the deadly sins, envy is one of the most damaging and undetectable. We casually look down on those who are more successful than us, we ignore the bitterness that takes root in our hearts towards others, and we slowly begin to see the people God has called us to live in community with as enemies rather than family members. But as dangerous and elusive as envy is, the gospel gives us a way out. In James 3, James gives practical instructions to those struggling with envy: “if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don't boast and deny the truth… the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace.” (Ja. 3:14, 18). We can make space for the Spirit to grow the fruit of Peace in our lives by practicing gratitude and honor. When we give thanks for what we have, we learn contentment. When we choose to honor instead of envy others, we experience peace.

Most of us probably wouldn't consider ourselves “gluttons.” But when we look at how we spend our free time, how we respond to boredom or hardship, or what we do for “rest,” we likely find ourselves giving into excess and impulse. By definition, this is gluttony: consumption without contentment. To find happiness or satisfaction, we often chase cheap impulses, or what some call “pseudo-joys.” But this problem isn't new. Jesus calls it out when the crowds followed him after they ate the five thousand loaves and fish that he gave them. “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” Instead Jesus reminds the crowds, and us, that He is the Bread of Life that satisfies our deepest desires. This is the fruit of joy. By practicing both fasting and feasting, we can slowly train ourselves to resist gluttony and instead embrace the true joy that Jesus offers us.

At the top of the list of the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is love. But as simple and cliché as it sounds, love is one of the most difficult fruits to embody. And what most often prevents us from loving others well is greed. One of the seven deadly sins, and one of the most difficult sins to free ourselves from, greed prevents us from loving others and serving God sacrificially. We express our greed either by hoarding our resources, ignoring those in need, or controlling what we get in return for our generosity. To combat the greed that naturally grows inside of our hearts, we must learn to submit ourselves to the work of the Holy Spirit. By acknowledging our weakness, and by pursuing self-sacrifice, we allow God to grow the fruit of love within us.

One of the sharpest and most consistent criticisms God gives against His people throughout the scriptures is the sin of neglect. As God's people, the Israelites were chosen as a nation among nations to bring God's light to a dark world. God's people were always supposed to care for the poor and marginalized, and to bring the good news of God's Kingdom to the lost around them. But rather than care for them, they often neglected them. In Isaiah 58, God's people wonder why their prayers and fasts haven't been acknowledged by God. God's response is that they fast in vain; their focus is only on themselves while they neglect those in need around them. Instead, God describes a holy and honoring fast as one that leads to care for their neighbors. When we fast, we have an opportunity to direct our attention and our prayers away from ourselves and toward others. We use our bodies to cry out to God on behalf of those who have needs in our cities, communities, and neighborhoods. In our hunger, we identify with those who don't have food in abundance like we do. We align ourselves with the poor and needy among us. From those with deep physical, relational, and emotional needs to those who have the ultimate spiritual need: reconciliation with God through the power of the gospel.

Fasting is hard because it's a form of self-denial. We suddenly become aware of our weakness, frailty, and imminence. It's a reminder that our bodies need sustenance to survive, and without food, we'll eventually die. But just like our bodies need food for life, our souls need God. David knew this well when he fasted and pleaded with God in Psalm 69. As he denies his body food, he learns to confess his needs before God and redirect his trust back towards Him. Like David, we too are powerless to accomplish our deepest desires and weak when it comes to uprooting the deepest sins in our lives. We all have needs that only God can meet — prayers we need answers to, sins we can't overcome, and decisions we need God's will revealed for. To help us redirect our trust in God and to confess our needs, we fast.

In Psalm 63 David is a King on the run. His wealth, power, and possessions have all been stripped away and he finds himself in a desert, fleeing for his life while his own son tries to kill him. And yet, in this season of pain, David's deepest longings are satisfied by God's presence. Though most of us today won't experience our lives endangered in a desert, we will find ourselves in seasons of desert pain at some point or another. But unlike David, our impulse to avoid pain prevents us from experiencing satisfaction in God as we often seek comfort in our “cheaper desires.” To help us refocus our attention to God, train ourselves to find true satisfaction, and experience more of our union with Him, we practice fasting.

To become the 4th soil, we need to become people with both courage and clarity in sharing the gospel. But most of us are too consumed by fear, shame, and confusion, and our attempts at becoming effective evangelists fall short. We fear losing friendships and facing rejection, we're ashamed of the offensiveness of the way of Jesus, and we're confused by what the gospel actually is. Timothy, Paul's pastoral protégé, dealt with many of the same problems. In 2 Timothy 1, Paul gives an encouraging reminder to Timothy and to us: the power of the gospel comes from God who saves us from death and gives us new life. While it's God who ultimately saves people, it's our job to sow the seeds and trust in the power of the gospel.

We live in a pivotal moment of our culture. Societal upheaval, corruption, and fear create the potential for another major shift in our society, either toward ruin or renewal. And while the world around us gives in to panic and distraction, the call for the church remains the same: endure hardship. In 2 Timothy 4, this is the command Paul gives to Timothy and his church as they wrestle with the same issues we wrestle with today. Like soldiers, farmers, and athletes, the church's job is to stay committed to our task, be aware of the season we're in, and commit to finishing the race God has called us to. Here at Passion Creek, our aim is to become the 4th soil by enduring hardship through the practice of prayer.

We are living in the 4th quarter—a time of urgency and opportunity to consecrate our lives and become the fourth soil. Drawing from Mark 4, the call is to resist distractions, align ourselves with God's Word, and bear lasting fruit. Today, we focus on the chokehold of deceitful desires and how self-control, powered by the Holy Spirit, frees us to live as God intended. Modern culture has shifted from a “should” society to a “could” society, glorifying self-indulgence while leaving us more broken and dissatisfied. Through the lens of scripture, we see the destructive power of unchecked desires—whether in Esau trading his birthright for stew, or Paul's warning in 2 Timothy 3 about people becoming lovers of self and pleasure over God. Desire, though not inherently evil, becomes destructive when disordered or directed away from God. Paul's exhortation to exercise self-control teaches us that spiritual maturity requires both mastery and mystery. While we actively train ourselves to resist sin (mastery), we rely on the Spirit's power to transform our hearts (mystery). Fasting emerges as a key practice to cultivate this balance, helping us reorient our desires toward God and find true fulfillment in Him.

We live in an urgent time. With the church in decline, deconstruction increasing, and people abandoning their faith in droves, followers of Jesus need to know how to navigate this cultural moment. And Jesus offers us an answer. In Mark 4, he tells a parable about a man who plants seeds in four different types of soil. Most of the seeds are fruitless, except in the 4th soil. Our goal at Passion Creek is to become this fourth soil. We want to be a church that hears God's Word, receives it, and bears fruit. We do this by resisting the worries of this age, deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things, and instead reorient ourselves around God Himself.

Every Christmas, we embark on the journey of Advent, reflecting on the hope, peace, joy, and love brought by Christ's first coming and ultimately brought to the full at His second coming. But love—especially God's love—can be the hardest to understand and accept. This teaching explores God's profound love through the four Gospels, using a poem, a prophecy, a purpose statement, and a parable.

In this Advent message from Luke 2, we explore how chronic anxiety has gripped our society, robbing us of playfulness and joy. Drawing on insights from Luke's account of the shepherds, Pastor Trey VanCamp reveals that joy is not just an emotion but a motor—a driving force that sustains us in the tension of the “already, not yet” of God's Kingdom. By embracing joy as both a miracle and a muscle, we can navigate life's challenges with hope and resilience. This teaching encourages us to “rejoice always,” grounding our joy in Christ and looking forward to His ultimate return.

Life is hard, you're not that important, your life is not about you, you're not in control, and you're going to die. These five harsh truths have historically prepared young men for the challenges of life, yet our culture seems to deny them at every turn. In Acts 28, we see Paul's life embodying these truths—trials, tragedy, and the appearance of failure—but the Gospel remains unhindered. Join us as we unpack how God works through weakness, tragedy, and loss to bring resurrection power, and how Paul's unwavering faith in Jesus can inspire us to find hope in the hardest seasons of life.

Our church gathers every Sunday at 9:15a & 11a at Queen Creek Junior High. 20435 South Old Ellsworth Road, Queen Creek, AZ https://passioncreek.church/sundays/ OVERVIEW: In Acts 20, Paul models what a church pastor should be by speaking directly to the elders in Ephesus. He tells them how he's pastored, inviting them to follow his example in humility, service, vulnerability, and courage. He also warns them that, should they neglect their calling, the people they shepherd will be vulnerable to wolves. For us today, being a part of a church means submitting ourselves to the guiding and guarding of the spiritual authority placed over us. It also means we are on guard against Satan and his schemes as he threatens to sabotage the church with deceit and manipulation. By maintaining a posture of humility and by fixing our gaze on Jesus, we can become fruitful people who resist the schemes of the Enemy and bring the goodness of the gospel to the world around us.

In the second half of Acts 19, Paul starts a riot. After confronting the false idols and spiritual powers in Ephesus, some of the local businessmen revolt. While Paul escapes and the church in Ephesus grows, just a few years later Paul has to write to them reminding them to continue following the way of Jesus intentionally rather than being formed by the idols of Ephesus unintentionally. Today, our temptation is much the same. To avoid being formed and shaped by the idols of our city and culture, we must intentionally allow ourselves to be formed into the image of Jesus by examining the stories we hear, the habits we practice, and the relationships we surround ourselves with.

As a church planter, Paul was always on the lookout for “foxes” that can ruin the good soil of the Kingdom — things like cynicism, gossip, and bitterness. But when he meets the Thessalonians and the Bereans, he encounters something different. Rather than brushing him off or blindly accepting his message, the Bereans model healthy skepticism. They are students of God's Word who orient their lives around His truth. Similarly, the church in Thessalonica is later commended by Paul because of their response to the gospel. Rather than simply believing the right things, they commit to living the right way. Today, we can learn from both the Bereans and the Thessalonians. Being students of God's Word means we have the right theology and the right practice. By reorienting our daily lives in response to the gospel, we too can become a model healthy church free of evil “foxes.”

Most of us know what it's like to receive a dream from God — we have a sense of purpose, direction, and perseverance to walk in the calling God has laid out for us. But at some point, we hit resistance. Rather than bring us through upward mobility, our God-given dreams bring us through disappointment, difficulty, disagreement, or detours. In these moments, it's tempting to give up on the dream altogether. The apostle Paul experienced this well. He'd been given a glimpse of what it would look like to participate in bringing God's Kingdom down from heaven to earth but quickly experienced every kind of setback. But rather than give up on God's calling over his life, Paul was obedient. By looking at Paul's story from Acts 9-16, we learn that God-given dreams come with setbacks. But these are always for our guiding and purging. God's “no's” guide us to a better “yes” and purge our souls from sinful passions and desires.

As good, true, and beautiful as the gospel is, there has always been resistance to it. In Acts 15, we see the natural human inclination to fight against the reality that God forgives us simply because of our faith in Jesus — some Jewish leaders began forcing extra rules on new Christians. Peter, Paul, and the rest of the apostles give a wise response to these new Christians: they tell them to guide their hope back toward Christ alone, but also to guard their lives by following a way of life. The church today faces a similar issue. We're either tempted to try and earn something that's already been freely given, or we're tempted to accept what's been freely given without reorienting our lives in response. To follow Jesus is both to receive a free gift and to reorient our lives in response. We choose to put our trust in the person of Jesus and allow his free gift of grace to transform us as we submit more of our lives and desires to him.

Acts 14 tells a story of Paul and Barnabas living out Kingdom principles while experiencing a tough situation. After miraculously healing a disabled man, they're hailed as gods before eventually being run out of the city and nearly killed. But even in the midst of these strange circumstances, Paul and Barnabas never abandon the Kingdom way of living. Rather than accepting the peoples' worship, fighting back against their persecutors, or quitting their mission, they exercise self-control, endure hardship, and do the work of evangelists. Today, our call is the same. Despite persecution, hardship, and the world around us vying for our devotion, we can seek the Kingdom by dying to ourselves, enduring hardships, and working as evangelists announcing the good news of the Kingdom.

All of us have different feelings and attitudes when it comes to giving money to a local church. For some of us, it's a regular and assumed part of our discipleship. For others, it's a financial goal. And for others, it's an exploitative way for churches to get more money. Regardless of how we feel about tithing, it's difficult to be a generous person who lives out the way of Jesus without a regular rhythm of supporting the Body of Christ. In 2 Corinthians, we see a picture of what it looks like to become a community that generously tithes their money for the sake of the Kingdom. The grace of God allows them to give above and beyond what might seem possible. At Passion Creek Church, we find it helpful to think of the tithe as a starting point, not a stopping point. To practice tithing is to practice letting go of control, putting our trust in God, and participating in the Kingdom work that God has called us to. Luke 19:1-10; 20:20-25; 21:1-4 2 Corinthians 8:1-4; 9:6-11

In Luke 16, Jesus tells a perplexing parable. It's a story of a dishonest manager who uses his master's wealth to serve those around him. While Jesus' doesn't praise the manager's dishonesty, he credits his ingenuity. This manager saw himself as a steward, not an owner, of his master's possessions. When we examine our own perceptions regarding our money, most of us view ourselves as owners — we are the sole owners of our money, wealth, and material possessions. But the way of Jesus is the way of stewardship. By seeing ourselves as stewards of all of the things God has blessed us with rather than owners, we're free to live generously. At the tail end of this parable, Jesus makes a startling claim: if you trust God with fiscal matters, He will entrust you with spiritual matters. Our goal is to become a church of stewards who generously give what our Master has given us to expand the Kingdom and bring others into communion with Jesus.

Like all our beliefs, the attitudes and dispositions we have toward money are largely shaped by our past – our family of origin, our cultural background, and our church experiences. In Luke's gospel, we see at least 4 different ways of viewing money. Like the Rich Fool in Luke 12, some of us believe that the good life is found when we hoard the most for ourselves. Others of us live more like the Rich Young Ruler in Luke 18; we falsely assume that God will always bless us financially as a reward for our faithfulness. Or we doubt God's generosity towards us altogether and live more like the Older Brother in Luke 15. But in Luke 21, we see a picture of someone who really trusts in the God of abundance and not in the uncertainty of wealth. A widow, giving all that she has, is commended by Jesus as a picture of what true generosity looks like. We too can reshape how we view money and the way we give by reorienting our minds around the truths of scripture, reshaping our habits to reflect generosity, and participating in a community of Jesus-followers committed to doing the same.

Fewer sins are as deep-rooted and hard to detect as greed. Not many of us would admit to being greedy or materialistic, but greed, by default, lives inside each one of us. Jesus makes this clear in Luke 11 when he confronts the Pharisees who hid their greed from others and projected generosity instead. While they appeared holy and generous on the outside, Jesus calls out their inner attachment to money. A few chapters later, Jesus makes his criticism of greed even more clear: to ignore the greed that lives inside all of us makes it impossible to truly love God and others. To Jesus, greed is a poison. And yet, Jesus offers us a solution. The only antidote to the invisible poison of greed is the visible practice of generosity. Our goal is to become disciples, not donors, who practice generosity as a way to keep our greed away from our souls. We redirect our worship towards God by holding our money and wealth so loosely that we give freely, because we trust in the God of abundance. Luke 11:33-42; 16:13-14

As our church looks ahead to the rest of the year, we want to pause and remind ourselves of the vision we started the year with: to make friends and love other people. However, most of us have realized by now how difficult this really is. Jesus holds us to a high standard by commanding us to love our enemies in Luke 6, and so does James when he tells us to confront our bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in James 3. But the gospel gives us hope. By doing the holy work of faith, dying to ourselves, and practicing agape love, we can maintain the friends we've made this year and truly love both our friends and our enemies.

When most of us think of prayer, we think of talking to God. While this definition of prayer isn't wrong, it can sometimes feel formulaic. We begin to assume that if we ask God for the right things in the right way, we'll get what we ask for. But in Acts 12 we see God's people contend with God in desperate prayer that doesn't fit a formula. As Herod begins to intensely persecute the new church, Jesus' disciples learn that following Jesus is unpredictable. But they also learn that in prayer, their true hope is in being drawn closer into the presence of the Father. For us today, though God might not answer all of our prayers, we can rely on God's presence, God's ability, and God's goodness. Prayer looks more like turning ourselves towards God's love than attempting to earn God's love. Acts 12 CSB

As one of Jesus' disciples, Peter knew what it meant to reorient his life around the love, lifestyle, and leadership of his Rabbi. He led like Jesus, and he lived like Jesus, but Peter still had to learn how to love like Jesus. In Acts 10, Peter is confronted with his next marathon: overcoming his prejudice. As a Jew, Peter believed that the gospel was only good news for his own people. But when God reveals the global scale of the gospel by showing him that Gentiles are just as loved by God as Jews are, Peter must confront his prejudice. Like Peter, all of us have biases. We classify, exclude, and judge people based on ethnicity, social status, or political tribe. But to follow Jesus means we must love everyone the way Jesus did, even when we disagree with them. Just like Peter, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we too can participate in the marathon of overcoming our biases and extending the gospel to all people.

In Acts 9 we meet Saul, a murderer and enemy of the new Christian movement. Saul has built his life around what he believes is the righteous way of God: zealously eradicating evil from the world. But then, in a moment, Saul is transformed. He meets the risen Jesus and learns that the righteousness of God doesn't come by our earthly power, violence, or force. Instead, it comes through Christ. God in human flesh, coming to take our punishment and suffer violence on our behalf. We can learn from Saul by accepting our own brokenness and inability to achieve righteousness. Like Saul, we learn that to be a follower of Jesus is to let him be a warrior for us against sin and evil. Jesus is our only hope and confidence. Acts 9:1-19 CSB

In this message, we learn about one of the first false converts of the early church: Simon. Acts 8:1-24

The final part of peacemaking involves making peace with who we really are and who God made us to be. At some point in our lives, our perspective shifts. We realize that we aren't the hero of our story in the way we thought we'd be. We make mistakes, poor choices, and few of us experience life exactly the way we thought we would. And yet, God can still redeem the lowest parts of our story. In fact, the most influential people in the biblical story all experience dramatic low points. At the end of Genesis, Joseph seems to be at his lowest point. But through his work of forgiving his past, forging new patterns, and framing his pain, God is able to fulfill Joseph's purpose. Making peace with our purpose means making peace with disappointment, failure, and regret. But it also means making peace with who we actually are today. We look back at our lives, and ahead to our future, in order to fulfill the purpose God has for us.

One of the hardest parts of our lives to make peace with is the pain and suffering that follows us. All of us experience hardship, and for some, it's the defining attribute of our lives. Whether from death, loss, infertility, chronic illness, sudden diagnoses, relational hurt and betrayal, or simply from apathy and the monotony of life, all of us have painful experiences. Making peace with our pain doesn't mean we ignore its reality. It actually means the opposite. Unlike Abel in Genesis 4, we don't allow our pain to stir up bitterness in our hearts. Instead, framing our pain is a way for us to vocalize our pain to God. We name the emotions connected to our pain, and we voice these emotions back to God. But we also declare God's faithfulness back to ourselves. Like Jesus in the Garden before His crucifixion, we use our pain as a reminder that God is still faithful and in control. And even in our lowest, God is still near.

Once we've made peace with our past, we must learn to forge new patterns. To do this requires us to take ownership for the ways we contribute to the pain of the people around us. All of us have ways of coping with pain in our own lives, and some of these coping mechanisms can be good. If we're lucky, we learn from our parents what it means to own up to our mistakes, forgive others, and resolve conflict well. But all of us also carry negative coping mechanisms into our relationships as well. Some call these negative coping mechanisms attachment styles. We learn how to get what we want from people and how to avoid pain that comes with relationships. Put another way, all of us tend to cope by becoming either peace-fakers or peace-breakers. We fake peace by ignoring conflict, pain, and hard conversations with others. We break peace by blowing up on those around us, storming off, and giving into anger and resentment. And like all negative coping mechanisms, these patterns are often fueled by lies we believe about ourselves, others, and God. By making peace with our patterns, we're intentionally confronting our flesh. We're calling out the selfish parts of who we are and refusing to let it rule over our relationships. Like the Psalmist in Psalm 139, we're inviting God to search us and know us to get rid of the offensive and sinful parts of us (Psalm 139:23-24).

All of us are shaped by our past. Where we come from, who we come from, and the way we were raised all shape who we are today in profound ways. Most of us have a basic awareness of our family of origin, but few of us have done the hard work of learning about our past to better understand who we are today. As a result, all of us unknowingly transmit the same narratives, patterns, pains, and expectations as our family before us. To make peace with our past is to return to an ancient tradition from the scriptures. Throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, God tells His people to remember where they've come from, what God has saved them from, and the promises He has made (Deut. 6:12, Isa. 46:9, Ps. 143:5). Making peace with our past means we must forgive our past. We must take intentional time to see where we come from. We learn about our family of origin to better understand where our behaviors and patterns come from, both good and bad. But most importantly, we look back in order to recognize God's providence and care for us in our lives. By recognizing both positives and negatives in our past, we're able to see how God has used our family of origin to shape who we are.

Many of us fall into the trap of believing the myth of comfort: if something goes wrong, we must be doing something wrong. We falsely assume that if we're doing the right things, we won't face suffering, opposition, or conflict of any kind. But in Acts 6, we see why this is a myth. As it grows, the early church faces conflict. There's complaining within the church and persecution outside the church. But rather than giving up on those around them or giving in to those around them, the church endures internal resistance and external persecution. By learning to abandon the myth of comfort, we too can become non-anxious in the face of resistance.

Until Acts 4, the beginning of the church experienced miraculous success. People joined the church daily, shared what they had with one another, and gained more and more favor with outsiders. But in Acts 4, all of that changes. Suddenly confronted with the gospel truth, Jewish leaders give in to their anxiety and start harassing the disciples. Peter and John are forced into court, interrogated, and threatened. But instead of toning down their message, they get bolder. Peter remains a stable non-anxious presence amidst the fear of the culture around him. Our culture is much the same today. And like Peter we also have a choice; we can either tone down our message, or get bolder in proclaiming it. By reminding ourselves that Christ is our cornerstone, we too can remain non-anxious and continue spreading the good news with those around us.

We live in a paranoid world. From the chaos, violence, and immorality around us to the anxiety, pain, and trauma inside us, most of us live in a constant state of fear. And without any hope of rescue, this paranoia leads us to either alarmism, or escapism. But the gospel story gives us a better hope. Jesus came into a world just as paranoid as ours, and he confronted the root of our paranoia; we're all stuck in spiritual slavery, sin, and sickness. And by living the perfect life, dying the death we deserved, and rising again, Jesus offers us hope. But to choose this hope takes an act of “metanoia,” or repentance. When we repent, we actively choose to reorient our lives around the reality of Jesus and his resurrection.

In Acts 3, we meet a man unable to walk sitting outside of the temple. Separated from the presence of God and others, this man was left to beg for a living. But when Peter and John encounter him, they offer more than gold or silver; they offer him healing, both for his body and for his shame. Like this man, many of us today carry shame from our wickedness and woundedness that pulls us away from God and from others. And like Peter and John, at some point we will have the opportunity to extend healing from God to others. In order to deal with our shame and heal the shame of others, we must learn to confront it.

Most of us carry unrealistic expectations when it comes to church community. We all want the perfect personality to lead us, the perfect people around us, the perfect programs to serve us, and the perfect place to make us comfortable. But few of us fail to realize that community based around these things won't feed the deep longing we have in our souls for genuine community. Instead of settling for personalities, programs, people, and places, the book of Acts invites us to see what a more true and genuine community could look like. At the tail end of Acts 2, just as the gospel movement is about to spread, we see a glimpse of this type of genuine community shared by the first disciples. Rather than settling for personalities, people, programs, and places, they commit to the teaching of scripture, deep and vulnerable community, intentional rhythms of practice, and reliant prayer for the Spirit. The goal of our church is to do the same.

Many of Jesus' interactions with the lost happened over a meal. In Luke 7:34, Jesus is accused of being “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” The Gospel of Luke illustrates this well: In Luke 5, Jesus is described dining with tax collectors and sinners at a man named Levi's house. Jesus is anointed by a sinful woman while eating at a Pharisee's home in Luke 7. And when Jesus forgives and restores Zacchaeus, the Jewish tax collector in Luke 19, he first invites himself over for a meal. Bottom line: Jesus' proximity to those living counter to the way of God was scandalous to the self-righteous and life-giving to the self-rejecting. Again, if seeking and saving the lost was his mission, then sharing a meal with them was his method. As Jesus' disciples, we're instructed to do the same. By practicing hospitality, we create a safe space for those opposed to the way of Jesus to encounter and experience the love of God. We don't affirm people's sin, but we do affirm that they're loved and valued image-bearers of God.

The intro music is too loud but bear with us! We talk a lot about leadership, going to 2 services, and hosting strangers.

If “loving your neighbor as yourself” was the second most important commandment in the scriptures according to Jesus, then it's something we should make a regular part of our day-to-day life. But in our hyper-individualistic and self-serving culture, few of us actually get to know the strangers we interact with on a daily basis. Jesus and his disciples faced similar issues in their day. Loving their neighbors was difficult because of boundary lines and discrimination that occurred between Jews and Gentiles. Later in the biblical story, the early church faced violent opposition and persecution due to their commitment to King Jesus. And yet, the more meals they shared with their “enemies,” the more their enemies became friends. Over time, those friends became part of the family of God. Henri Nouwen defines hospitality this way: “the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.” People will always expect our hostility until they experience our hospitality. By getting to know the neighbors in our lives, even our actual neighborhood neighbors, we create spaces and opportunities to serve those around us and demonstrate the love of God.

When the people of God are described throughout the Bible, they're most often described as a family. And when family gathers for dinner, they share more than just a meal. They share life, stories, laughter, questions, tragedies, and celebrations. Throughout the scriptures, the people of God use meals to mark this kind of fellowship. The art of eating together with those we're close to is a lost one. Meals have been commodified and looked over as nothing more than a relieving break from the mundanity of work at best, or an inconvenient break in our daily rhythms at worst. We might enjoy an occasional date night, birthday celebration, or holiday feast, but the regular practice of sharing life at a table is one that fewer and fewer people in the West are participating in. For Christians to recapture this lost tradition, we must intentionally make space in our schedules to be hospitable toward those in our community. Feasting regularly with other followers of the way encourages us, strengthens our bonds, and nourishes our souls. But there's also a shadow side to community. Without love, grace, and intentionality, we can fall into the trap of familiarity, codependency, resentment, and idealism.

All throughout the Gospels Jesus is described eating, feasting, and partying with common people. Jesus is almost always going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal. The early church adopted this practice as well. The book of Acts tells us that the first followers of Jesus made it a regular habit to break bread from house to house, eating with “joyful and sincere hearts.” And as the meals spread, so did the gospel. But for Jesus and his followers, a meal was about more than just food; it was a means of grace. Meals were a way for the Son of God to come near people and offer conversation, friendship, and healing. Every dinner shared with a sinner was a way for God himself to extend a merciful hand of salvation to those who least deserved it. This is why the communion was often shared as part of a full meal. When we partake in communion, we're eating a meal together. We're reminding ourselves that through his sacrifice, fellowship, and hospitality, God has cleared a space at his table for us. Taking communion is our way of feasting with our Savior.

When it comes to developing deep friendships that form and shape us into the image of Jesus, one barrier often stops us: preferences. Rather than commit to a community of people who hold us accountable and build us up, we find it easier to surround ourselves with others who think like, act like, and approve of us. But the people of God have never flourished this way. In Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, God institutes a set of practices and behaviors (the 10 Commandments) meant to shape and form his people into his image. And when Jesus starts his earthly ministry, he chooses 12 unlikely men who wouldn't normally get along to reorient their lives on him. For us today, becoming a community of practice means putting aside our preferences, committing to each other no matter how different we are, and reorienting our lives on Jesus.

One of the hardest but most rewarding features of any healthy friendship is vulnerability. We get the most out of our relationships when we allow ourselves to be fully known and truly loved. And yet, few of us actually experience this type of freeing love. Instead, we live in private shame over our weaknesses, wickedness, and woundedness. But the gospel frees us from fear and shame. By learning to practice vulnerability with those around us, we become capable of deep and valuable relationships. To get the most out of our friendships, we move from proximity to vulnerability.