Jesus’ resurrection on Easter opened the eyes of many people to a future with God and each other which many could not have imagined, and that God-given future is still opening up before us! Can you imagine what Christ has in store for us, his disciples, his church today? This Easter season is the time to let the reality of the resurrection shape our vision for our future. Despair and hopelessness died on the cross; our future has been reborn with the rising of the Son. We are resurrection people - We are called to resurrection living!

Like icebergs, much of our spirituality lies beneath the surface. Our spirits have frozen deep within them issues over desire, trust, control, self-truth, power, and worldviews that need the fire of Jesus to melt away our locked-up souls. Take Jesus’ warmth to your core. Each week, a new oxymoron will be help us realize how Jesus turned everything upside-down by taking people of the Bible beneath the surface, to the depths of their souls. Why not go deeper in your discipleship this Lenten season too?

Jesus was an advocate for the heart of God, which is for the people of God. He is still for all people, a diverse bunch of clumsy-yet-beautiful people of different races, cultures, beliefs, faiths, genders, and sexual orientations just doing our best to be human. Jesus was a person who reached for the outsider and brought their voice and perspective into the fold. He inspired change and sometimes provoked resistance. That’s what happens when you throw up the doors of the sanctuary. So come one, come all; our doors are open to you as well!

Every Christmas, the same cast of characters comes to the manger, and their story is retold … Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and wise men. But what about all the rest? What about all those secondary characters who walk on stage for only a moment -- Simeon, Anna, Chief Priests, Teachers of the Law, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Mary’s family and friends, the throngs of travelers, and the innkeeper’s family? Why aren’t any of them in our nativity scenes? Undoubtedly, they too struggled with questions for God. It is time for their stories (and ours) to come out of the shadows. There is room for all at Christ’s nativity.

In vivid, sometimes grotesque pictures of the future, the Book of Revelation portrays the triumphant finale of God’s just rule throughout the creation. John’s description stretches our imagination, fuels our anticipation, and comforts us as we await the final curtain call. The words are mysterious for those who don’t know how to make sense of them. Join us for this series and we’ll aim to make sense of it all together.

This series helps people to look at what it means to live a life of faith in the real world. Our faith is not supposed to be something to be kept safe within the church, but to be taken beyond our comfort zones to the scary, unknown places of our world. Time with God should not be limited to one hour on Sunday mornings; God wants our spirituality to be a 24/7 reality. It’s time to face our dragons; it’s time to move beyond.

Like the acorn which slowly grows to become the mighty oak, Christianity has grown into a mighty movement, with a great many denominational branches. Despite our diversity, all of the branches share the same roots of Judaism and the same trunk which is Jesus Christ. In this series, we will learn about church history, theology, and Christian spirituality, seeing what it is that makes each branch of our Christian family unique. Our aim is not to convince ourselves that United Methodists are better Christians than others; rather we seek to learn from our brothers and sisters of other denominations so that our faith might be enriched and that we might be more authentic and faithful as disciples ourselves. Thank you, Lord, for your church - each branch has beauty all its own to offer!

We were not saved on Easter morning so that life would simply go on as usual. God has prepared the way so that our world would be transformed with magnificence! Just imagine what wonderfully, fantastic lives God intends for us. We have been saved! We have been equipped! We have been empowered! Now it is time for us to not just pray it, but to live it – “Thy kingdom come!”