MARCH 22
10:15 I Facebook Live
UTTERLY AMAZED
Well friends, we’re all one week into the national emergency due to the COVID-19 virus. How y’all doing? I’m sure the answers are all over the board. And our answers say much about us — things like where we work, what personality type we have, where we gather our information. But most importantly, this is a great time to find out what we truly value. Testing has a way of making some things clear to us that we can’t see when life is easy, when nothing is asked of us. And what is testing but a time of being asked for things? Let’s dig in this week and see how Jesus handles this, and what it has to teach us, and let’s see why his answers let the crowds utterly amazed.
December 19th, 2021
10:15am I Facebook Live & In Person at Vesper Point, Mt Sequoyah in Fayetteville
Watch last week's message here
Title
But What Kind of Peace?
Worship Lyrics
Text
Isaiah 9:1-7 (NET)
Question of the Week
How are you experiencing the presence of Jesus in your life?
Introduction
Last year at this time, we were taking note of the “Great Conjunction: of Jupiter and Saturn, the first time they’d been able to be seen in the sky together for nearly 800 years. You may have stayed up to see or saw the pictures. Even if you did stay up I doubt the experience stayed with you very long (I confess to forgetting about it until I was looking back on last year’s teaching on peace). Part of the reason for so quickly forgetting might be another “gran conjunction” of sorts our society and world has been facing, the intersecting crisis of pandemic, reckoning with systemic racism and injustice, violent political machinations, economic upheaval, I mean, what are two distant planets intersecting compared to that? And, while we’re at it, how is a person, or people in general, supposed to find peace in the midst of it all?
I’d like to come at this question from two ways this week. Come to Mt. Sequoyah Sunday and let’s see what we can find.
Grace and peace y’all,
John Ray and the teaching team
The Big Idea:
We all long for something we call “peace”, but is that the peace that we find in the Bible?
Take Away:
Learning what the peace that God promises and embodies is essential to our rightly aligning our imagination and expectations.
How does this fit with "Belong, Become, Believe"?
At Grace, we understand that our own peace is entwined with the peace of others. The practice of hospitality, the invitation for others to belong, gives us a way to practice offering peace to others. Through this practice we learn the art and work of peacemaking. This practice also informs and flows from our faith, what we believe.
What's Next?
Christmas Eve Service!
Resources:
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The Advent Project
Contact Grace Church NWA here