Awaken Community

Exodus 4:19-21 Does God engineer the hardening of Pharaoh's heart against the Israelites? Micah discusses when we ourselves start to become set in ways of thinking and being.

2 Kings 6:24-7:2 Micah tackles a real zinger of a passage where someone eats their firstborn and their neighbors children amidst a famine in Israel. What's really going on in this passage?

1 Thess 4:13-18 This is the passage that many use to legitimate the idea of the rapture and Christians being taken away to heaven.

Philippians 4:10-23 I have learned to be content in all circumstances. Jenna discusses the wrestling we sometimes experience with verses like this.

Micah provides background to this weeks annual meeting with the ECC and answers questions from the congregation.

Philippians 3:12-21 mentions heaven and usually this gets put into the category of "up there someday when we die", yet Paul in verses 20-21 makes clear that Jesus brings "heaven" to us in these bodies on this earth.

Philippians 2:12-18 says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. What does that mean and what does it actually mean to "shine like stars in the universe"?

The first half of the poem is the cruciform life…a path of descent, humility and sacrifice. The second half of the poem is the daring hope that in the end God redeems all that God created.

Striving together AS ONE without fear of opposition knowing that suffering may come.

Paul seems content to live his life for the sake of something other than HIMSELF. He seems to be offering a reversal to the natural tendency of humans which is to focus on self.

A pastors heart/hopes for his people. Confident that God will complete what God has begun, I pray your love may abound in knowledge, that you may be able to discern a path that leads to life, and that your lives will be filled with the fruit of life and resurrection.

40 days between resurrection and ascension as the church is being prepared to be the new expression of God’s people in the world.

Jesus resurrection becomes an animated narrative that brings liberation and hope to the oppressed and marginalized.

Jesus enters the city on Palm Sunday to the people wanting him to be king.

What do you do when you come face to face with the possibility that what you believe is NOT true. When your beliefs come under attack, what might be born in this space?

Joshua spent 40 years preparing to lead the people into the promised land. He was ready at 40 and yet had to wait a generation to go into the land.

Joshua and the 11 spies sent into the promised land for 40 days. Do we have the capacity to see what God is preparing us for and wanting to give us even in the face of odds that seem insurmountable?

The life of Moses is often studied in three 40-year spans - 40 years of becoming, 40 years of formation, and 40 years of doing the work. Throughout his life he goes through these spans or phases or seasons of something being born and something dying. 

What connects all the 40's in the bible? 40 days in the wilderness, 40 days of fasting, 40 lashes as discipline. 40's a big deal. In our lives and also in the bible, there's a lot of meaning behind it. 

What comes to mind when you hear the words "repent" and "sin"? Guesses are not much positivity. This morning, we dive into the biblical meaning behind these words and not necessarily the American church's meaning.