National Community Church Audio Podcast

Shame is a story you tell yourself about yourself. Like a news ticker that runs in the background of our minds, we have shame scripts that say: “I am unworthy, I am unlovable, I am not enough, I am a mistake.” God says you are His workmanship, fearfully and wonderfully made, the apple of His eye, more than a conqueror. If you want to change your life, you have change your story! You are who God says you are. To believe anything else is false humility.

What’s in your backpack? God has prepared in advance opportunities for you to step into. He has and is opening up doors for you to live and share your faith. The question is this: Do you have something to give? Here’s where it starts…sharing and living your faith. Sharing your faith is giving an answer. Sharing your life is living an answer. Join us as we unpack 1 Thessalonians 2:8 and learn to fill our backpack to be able to bless those that God brings across our path.

Intentional faith starts with praying a simple prayer: God where are you at work and how can I be a part? But when our foot hits the floor, it’s time to activate and live out that of which God is making us aware. We go from praying a prayer, to living a prayer. Join us as we talk about developing a prayer state of mind, cultivating story, acting as witness, and calling out God’s image. 

What would happen if you started your day with a simple prayer: God where are you at work and how can I be a part? It’s the difference between pursuing your own agenda or partnering with God’s plan. We don’t realize all that God is doing all around us, until through prayer, our eyes are opened. When we turn our attention to intention, annoying interruptions become divine interventions. Random interactions become relationship building opportunities. Join us as we talk through what it means to live out faith intentionally.

PATIENCE: tolerating delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. A simple thought that is difficult to do. If you want to be a farmer, you better have patience. The act of farming is not limited to plants and land. We are farmers each day when we invest in those around us towards the harvest of their futures. A future of love, hope, joy, and all of the fruits of the spirit is made possible when we give sacrificially and patiently wait for the harvest of their lives. Having the patience to plant and wait for growth is what the world needs today.

If you stay humble and stay hungry, there is nothing God cannot do in you or through you. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. How? By thinking of others more. By thinking of God more.

We are getting smarter and smarter, but I’m not sure we’re getting wiser and wiser. Our culture is polarized and politicized, fight or flight. If we ever needed wisdom, it’s now. The good news? Wisdom has a name. Jesus is wisdom with skin on it. Jesus is perfect theology! The Jesus Way is Third Way. It doesn’t compromise it’s convictions, but it always shows compassion.

Faith is as faith does! James 2 exhorts the reader that a true faith will be evident by the way one's life is lived. Our active faith is our testimony. It is the way we live our love that testifies to Christ! Faith that works is a faith...that works!

Let’s be honest. There’s just about nothing we want more than freedom! Whether it’s financial freedom, freedom from addictions, freedom within our workplaces, freedom to pursue our passions. Freedom is a desire in every direction. In James no nonsense, don’t pull any punches, direct way, he gives advice on how to achieve freedom. It comes through the Word of God planted within us. When we cultivate God’s Word and live it out on a daily basis, we become who God has made us to be. There’s nothing freer, than doing that which you were made to do! Join us as we journey into James 1:19-27 to unpack the Scripture.

We have RULES for everything. There are rules of the road, rules for the games we play, rule of law. Spiritually speaking, a RULE OF LIFE consists of core values, core beliefs, and core practices. It’s a CODE OF CONDUCT—rituals and routines, decisions and disciplines—by which we live our lives. This week we explore seven JOY RULES, and it starts with this—ENJOY THE JOURNEY.

Everybody is somebody’s disciple. Consciously or subconsciously, we pattern our lives after someone. As Christ followers, we have made a conscientious decision to live like Jesus, pray like Jesus, forgive like Jesus, love like Jesus. We are His hands, His feet. We are His workmanship. We are the manifold wisdom of God. Simply put, you are the genius of Jesus.

When most people think of genius, I am sure their mind goes to outputs. We think about what someone produces. But what if most of what genius is has more to do with inputs; the things we don't see. I believe discipline, as an input over time, is a force multiplier. And when that discipline is focused on submitting to God, he takes care of the outputs, which is beyond what we could ever do on our own.

When you put what you have in your hand—five loaves and two fish—into the hands of God, 5 + 2 doesn’t equal 7 anymore. Add God to the equation, and 5 + 2 = 5000 R12.

There are 2 words that have the power to change worlds, and they are: “I WILL”. Gideon modeled for us what the Genius of Willingness looks like and what God can do with a willing heart.

A powerhouse leader for God's people, Deborah had the Genius of Activation (Judges 4-5). Activators are individuals who prompt us, support us, call out of us! Leaning into their god-given authority, Activators have an acute ability to discern a path forward. Let us be a community that activates one another!

We often view vulnerability as a weakness, and it certainly can be. But Paul models how to use vulnerability as a tool that moves us toward soul wellness. In fact, it is a requirement in each of our journeys back to who God created us to be.

When you trace the genealogy of genius, the genesis usually involves some PAIN and SUFFERING. Genius is not born of comfort. It’s born from, born for adversity. SUFFERING is the SEEDBED of genius. God redeems it and recycles it for His plans, His purposes.

When Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross, it was GAME OVER. Death was undefeated, but there is a God who turns GRAVES into GARDENS. It's not over until God says it's over. Don't put a PERIOD where God puts a COMMA. Just when it seems like all is lost, God has a supernatural surprise up His sovereign sleeve!

Many of us find ourselves in chains to addiction or habit or routine. And when God sends someone to help us, to unchain us, we have a choice. Do we cross the threshold of fear toward faith to try and escape our prison, or do we lean into our fears and remain captive? Will you risk faith? Or will you risk not having faith? Join us as we speak not only to the second chance that we have, but the second life that God gives us through his Spirit to those that believe.

God has not, cannot, and will not give up on you. It’s not in His nature. He is the God of second, third, and hundredth chances. We are never beyond the need of God’s grace and we are never beyond the reach of God’s grace. When we extend God’s grace to others, we become People of the Second Chance.