Theology of Sex

There’s no shortage of oversimplified narratives about gender, sexuality, and marriage. These days it seems that everyone’s opinion is the right one and if you don’t share that opinion, you’re the enemy. But what is actually true? What do we do when confronted with difficult questions and even more difficult situations? How do we love our neighbor without compromising what is true? For something as complex as gender and sexuality, we need something far bigger. Far richer. Far more nuanced. We need a theology of sex.

This series spends seven weeks unpacking God’s design for gender and sexuality in an effort to understand ourselves, love our neighbor, and live out our mission.

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Sermons:

New Year, New Building

Christmas Gathering 2015

On December 20 our entire family of churches gathered for one city-wide Christmas Gathering.

|giv| 2015

Every year we use Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday momentum to rally our church to the gospel origins of Christian generosity and incarnational ministry. Because Jesus gave himself, we give ourselves in response. This series will take 3 weeks to orient our church family around the idea of church planting in Lexington and Knoxville. Find out more about our efforts to plant these churches here.

What's Killing Me

At the beginning of each year, our culture focuses all its effort on bettering itself. Losing weight, eating better, and making better choices are on most people's mind as they seek to establish a better year than the one before. Often, the things that most interfere with our joy are internal. Things like anger, lust, and anxiety constantly seek to entrap us, ensnare us and make a ruin of our life and vitality.

This series takes a look at common hang-ups and frustrations that most people deal with, and discover together how the good news of Jesus frees us from them.

E-BOOK

To accompany this series, we've created an interactive e-book. The e-book contains inventories to help you work through the series on a practical level.

Sermons:

|giv| 2014

Every year around the holidays, we participate in something we like to call |giv|. We spend time talking about what God did in |giv|ing us Jesus, and then spend time |giv|ing in return. Through the years, we’ve looked for needs in our city and our world, and then partnered together to help meet those needs. Through the years, we’ve done things like…

• |giv|ing shoes to people without them
• |giv|ing money to plant churches in India
• |giv|ing hoodies to people in the cold in Columbia
• |giv|ing Christmas presents to kids in the Yucatan peninsula
• |giv|ing safe houses to children rescued out of sex slavery
• |giv|ing to plant a church in inner-city Columbia.

Because He gave, we |giv|. It’s that simple.

(Part of the Luke series)

Sermons:

#Ferguson, Race & the Gospel

Man Sunday

Mother's Day 2014

Abide

A deep spiritual life is something many people desire, regardless of their background. Even many people who claim to be non-religious consider themselves to be spiritual people. Jesus tells us in the gospel of John that we get to abide in him. What does that mean? How do we approach our relationship with Jesus in such a way that we are regularly abiding in and enjoying him? And more specifically, how do things like prayer, fasting, and rest contribute to a healthy spiritual life? And more practically, how should we incorporate those things into our lives without simply adding unnecessary pressure to ourselves?

Sermons:

Glory Thieves

In our culture, we have a tendency to downplay the gloriousness of God. We tend to think God thinks like us, talks like us, and is nonchalant like us. But the truth is that in terms of his holiness and character, God is very different than us. Speaking of God's holiness, author A.W. Tozer writes, "It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God’s power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine." And if God is the one with all the glory, we are the glory thieves. Much of what we do is centered around redirecting the honor due God, and attempting to redirect it towards ourselves. This is why we talk about ourselves, tweet about ourselves, take selfies of ourselves, and all-in-all worship ourselves.

Luckily, God doesn't just leave us to our own devices. God's response to us as glory thieves is just, gracious, and, well–glorious.

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Sermons:

Grassroots Kingdom

All throughout history, God has been forming a people for Himself–a people to put His love and glory on display for those around them. This culminated in Jesus instituting the church, God's grassroots kingdom–a beautiful and unexpected plan for transforming the world. What started with a few dozen disciples has spawned into millions upon millions of people all over the world. Jesus is building His church. He's advancing His kingdom, and although he doesn't need us, by His grace we are invited right into the thick of it. Welcome to the grassroots kingdom.

book

As part of this series, we've produced a book to give additional information and application for the teaching.

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Sermons:

|giv| 2013

Giving something means taking what is yours and giving it to others, free of charge. Christmas is the celebration of how God gave his one and only son so that we could be forgiven, free of charge. So each year for Christmas, we rally together to respond to what God has given us:

• by |giv|ing shoes to people without them
• by |giv|ing money to church planters in India
• by |giv|ing hoodies to people in the cold in Columbia
• by |giv|ing Christmas presents to kids in the Yucatan peninsula
• by |giv|ing safe houses to children rescued out of sex slavery
• much, much more.

Because He gave, we |giv|. It’s that simple.

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Sermons:

The Good Life

What will truly deliver The Good Life? Can we get there by buying new things? Experiencing new things? Being respected by more people? Accomplishing more feats? Making more money? Most anything we do or say is built on the premise that everyone deserves The Good Life.

The bible doesn’t tell us we shouldn’t search for happiness, but rather that we’re not searching hard enough. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon tries to find The Good Life in most any way possible. He attempts riches, wisdom, pleasure, accomplishments, respect, and most anything else we could think of–and comes up empty. He discovers that the truest Good Life is not found in things on earth, but in seeing everything in light of eternity.

A Guide to the Good Life

As part of this series, we published an accompanying study guide.

Sermons:

A Green Van & Duct Tape

So much of our church history has had a raggedy flavor to it. We’ve had skittles given as offerings, broken-down church vans, and a church-wide policy to split duct tape in order to save money. So much of our story includes throwing stuff together the best we can, then asking Jesus to put the pieces together.

But to be honest, we wouldn’t change a bit of it if we could. In so many ways, God has used the raggedness to keep us focused on the things that matter–being a Jesus-centered family on mission.

For six weeks we're remembering where we came from and reminding ourselves of the type of church family God has called us to be.

Videos:

Series Intro

Family as Change

The Gospel for Everyone

Family as Light

Jesus is Better Than Idols

Disciples Through Relationships

Sermons:

Ordination 2013

The Gospel & Homosexuality

How should believers in Jesus interact with the issue of homosexuality and those who identify as homosexual?

Stand-Alone: The Goodness of Gathering

Treasure Hunting

Money is on most of our top five lists for the things we least like to talk about. We don’t like people knowing how little we have, how much we have, or how much we wish we had. Scripture, on the other hand, talks about money a lot. The interesting thing is, it’s almost never only about money. Jesus didn’t talk about money so that he could take up a bigger offering. Instead, he used the subject of money to help us discover important things about ourselves. Money is important to talk about, not because we should necessarily have more or less of it, but simply because it shows us what we love—what we care about the most. Jesus says that where our treasure (money) is, there our heart will be also. So you can discover what you care about most by figuring out where your money most naturally flows to. In other words, your treasure shows what you treasure.

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Sermons:

Outlier*

He’s influenced more world leaders, inspired more art, and had more biographies written about him than any other person in human history. Yet, during his life, he was homeless, never had any kids, never ran for political office, and never traveled more than a few hundred miles from his hometown. How does this happen? What was it about a simple carpenter from Nazareth that has altered history forever?

Sermons: