Nucleus: The central and most important part of an object, group, or movement, forming the basis for its activity and growth.
Jesus gave his disciples a mission to tell the world about him and to help people become disciples. We still have that same mission today, and we summarize it by saying that at Grand Valley, our mission is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus. This week, we focused on the second part of that statement: How can we live in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ? And how can we have a guilt-free approach to discipleship?
Nucleus - Into a Growing Relationship
Nucleus: The central and most important part of an object, group, or movement, forming the basis for its activity and growth.
Jesus gave his disciples a mission to tell the world about him and to help people become disciples. We still have that same mission today, and we summarize it by saying that at Grand Valley, our mission is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus. This week, we focused on the second part of that statement: How can we live in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ? And how can we have a guilt-free approach to discipleship?
Nucleus - What's at the Centre?
Nucleus: The central and most important part of an object, group, or movement, forming the basis for its activity and growth.
Nucleus is a series all about our church. It's about what drives us and shapes us as a community that is devoted to following Jesus and revealing his love, light, and presence to everyone around us.
Jesus gave his disciples a mission to tell the world about him and to help people become disciples. We still have that same mission today, and we summarize it by saying that at Grand Valley, our mission is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus. This week, we focused on the first part of that statement: How do we lead people to Jesus?
Your Failure Is Not Final - The Father's Embrace
There are two other characters in the parable of the prodigal son; the father, and the older brother. Jesus shifts the parable to focus on how the father embraces, restores, and blesses his wayward son when he returns. But then Jesus goes one step further, and contrasts the behaviour of the older son, who was physically present with his father, but just as relationally distant.
But here's the bottom line: No one is beyond the reach of God's love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, and redemption.
Your Failure Is Not Final - Review and Own
Failure is unavoidable in life, but as we grieve what has happened, we have a unique opportunity to review what has happened and learn from our failures. Moving on too quickly from our failures denies us the opportunity to grow our character.
Part of growing our character, requires owning our portion of what led to the failure or mistake. It's only when we own it, that we can address it.
Your Failure Is Not Final - Let Yourself Grieve
Failure is unavoidable in life. Despite our best of intentions and no matter how hard we work, there will always be times in life where we experience sorrow, loss, grief, and failure. But that doesn't have to be the end of the road; this Sunday we began a series on the Parable of the Lost Son, and we're exploring how failure affects us, and what we can do to move forward.
Throughout the Israelite's history, suffering and grief were constant themes, but instead of hiding their sorrows away, they expressed their grief and allowed God to meet them in their grief.
(Re)Start - (Re)Start your Habits
When God makes us into a new creation, he gives us a new purpose of being his witnesses and his ambassadors to the world. So how do we do that on a practical and tangible basis? Paul instructed the church of Philippi to "work hard to show the evidence of your salvation" (Phil 2:12). This means that we have a part in changing our behaviours and our lives to reveal Jesus to the world.
Changing our habits and our behaviours is hard, but not impossible.
(Re)Start - (Re)Start your Purpose
Everyone of us has something that we determine to be our purpose in life. Maybe it is your family, your work, your hobbies, or something else. But how could our lives be different this year if we decided to find our purpose through our relationship with Jesus instead?
When the Holy Spirit works in our lives to make us a new creation, it leads to a new purpose. Paul describes the big picture of that purpose in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, but it's still up to us to discern and discover our own personal purpose that will fit within the bigger purpose.
(Re)Start - (Re)Start your Faith
At the start of a new year, we often make decisions about what we want to change in our lives. But we all know that change is hard. Whenever we try to change, we're living in the tension between the momentum of our current lives to stay the same, and the pull toward what we want to do or become. Change is managing this tension.
We're starting this series by talking about what pulls us toward making a change in our faith. Maybe it's time to start or re-start a journey of faith?
The Unsettling Solution for Just about Everything - Don't Do The Math
We all need grace. Every one of us has done something to make us 'un-right' with God. But no matter how much we try to balance the equation ourselves, we can't get there. God's grace is unearnable.
But because of God's grace and what Jesus has done, salvation solves the equation not by balancing it, but by tipping the whole thing overwhelmingly in God's direction.