WS Update: Stories of Jesus | Parables
Starting on Sunday, our new summer sermon series is based on the Parables of Jesus. These short, intense stories of God’s kingdom show us much about how Jesus views the world. Parables like these are a literary genre unique to Jesus, and they are meant to simultaneously reveal and hide the truth. Revealed to those…
WS Update: Chasing
As the classic hymnist writes, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it // prone to leave the God I love; // here’s my heart; O take and seal it; // seal it for thy courts above.” For those who have strayed from the truth or fallen into destructive patterns, hope remains for them to be…
WS Update: Healing Prayer
Next Sunday, we will focus on James 5:13-18 that explains the historic role of healing prayer in the church. James calls the elders of the church to pray for the sick by faith, anointing them with oil. We will talk about the role of prayer, the struggles of waiting for answers, and the disappointments when…
WS Update: He Gives More Grace
Sometimes the hardest thing for a Christian to do is to simply submit to God. It’s easier to know more about him, pray, serve, trust, and even ask for forgiveness. Our pride, whether it’s about independence or control, is a barrier to a relationship with him. To humbly put our will under his will, however,…
WSUpdate: Why We Fight
James gets to the heart of our conflicts by pointing us to our desires. James 4:1 says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” (NIV). The word desires in that phrase is literally a hyper-desire, an inordinate longing for something that goes beyond what it…
WS Update
A new pastor! Our church community approved Rev. Bijan Mirtolooi as the new Senior Pastor of Redeemer West Side. He and his family will settle in around September 1 as we kick off a new ministry year. We’re grateful to God for a speedy process of calling a pastor to our congregation. We’re also grateful…
WS Update
Our words our powerful, able to create joy or damage. Yet James 3:8 tells us that no human being can tame the tongue. We are unable to completely control our emotions and even the best of us let out ugly words along with the good. We often say what we don’t want to say, but…
WS Update
Yesterday’s Congregational Meeting included an important update from the Pastoral Search Committee. More details are sent in a separate email, but they announced that they have settled on a candidate. Over the weekend of May 19, the candidate and his family will be in the city for events, including preaching on Sunday morning. After services,…
WS Update: A Better Story
When you hear secular neighbors, politicians, or TEDtalk pundits speak, they bring in transcendent categories that cannot fit the secular vision of reality. Despite that, echoes of the Christian story still surround us. “The assumed stories of secularity no longer take God for granted, yet even atheists… can’t so easily shake the categories of personhood…
WS Update: Secular Religion
This Friday, our conference on Engaging Culture provides more than abstract theory, because it will help us navigate issues at the core of our culture. As Rebecca McLaughlin writes in Secular Creed, some of these issues have been used in contemporary society as proof of a better world without Christianity. Yet without a thorough biblical view…