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how flexible is your wineskin?

cbrakke — Sun, 13 May 2012 21:36:33 +0000

Gary Stanton teaches from Mark Chapter 2. In year one Jesus was Mr. Popular! But when year two began the Paparazzi started looking for dirt! Angry accusations soon followed. Why? Because Jesus was so very different than other Rabbis! Today, is it possible that Jesus could want to do something radical among us? Would we be able to handle it?

he did what?

cbrakke — Sun, 06 May 2012 18:31:13 +0000

Jesus’ notoriety was growing at a fever-pitch by the time he returned to Capernaum. Having healed many in Capernaum, Jesus and many of His followers went from town to town throughout Galilee preaching and casting out demons. Pastor John will come back in a couple weeks and teach through the remainder of chapter one, but today we’ll look at Jesus’ homecoming to Capernaum that undoubtedly left many asking the question, “He did what?”

how could anyone think jesus is god?

cbrakke — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:25:06 +0000

Pastor John teaches his second message from the gospel of Mark entitled, “How Could Anyone Believe That Jesus Is God?” The second book of the New Testament is called the Gospel of Mark because it was written by an early follower of Jesus, a man named Mark, who drew upon the divinely inspired recollections of his close friend and mentor, the Apostle Peter. The two of them produced (around 57 AD) a super fast paced, action packed account of the claims, the character, and the conduct of Jesus Christ. Chapter one is designed to quickly introduce us to Jesus. But deeper than that, it was written to captivate us with, and convince us of, Jesus’ total credibility. Specifically, that Christ is indeed who Mark says He is: the very Son of God. Now that is quite a claim! Nothing could be bigger! Such a proclamation is both completely preposterous and crazy, or if true, then astounding and absolutely life altering! So what evidence does Mark share with us from the story of Jesus to help us believe this amazing statement? Let’s take a look …

introducing the gospel of mark

cbrakke — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 19:17:25 +0000

As the story of Jesus rapidly spread throughout the ancient Roman empire in the first century, so did extreme persecution of the early Christians. Quickly it became obvious that the achievements and teachings of Christ needed to be written down, right away, before all of the eyewitnesses to His life were silenced either by exile or execution. One of the recorded accounts produced during this tumultuous time is called The Gospel of Mark. It is a remarkable telling of who Jesus is and what He did. But more than that … Mark’s Gospel shows us why Jesus behaved as He did and how it is that He is still able (thousands of years after He first walked among us) to attract and transform millions upon millions of lives today. So please, join us each Sunday at Faith as we begin this new teaching series we’re calling: The Mark of Jesus – Discovering The Life That Matters. The more you discover Jesus’ life the more your own can be transformed!

consider jesus for a change

aaronb — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:35:04 +0000

Pastor John Nagle preaches an Easter Sermon – “Consider Jesus for a Change” – Okay, I’ll admit it. The colored eggs are fun and the chocolate goodies taste great. Yes, the Easter Bunny dropping off the candy baskets to the kids is cool too. But, here’s the truth: If that’s all your Easter is, then it doesn’t amount to much more than a goofy rabbit and a few candy treats loaded with more sugar than you want your kids to have in the first place. So, what if we didn’t try to bury Christ under all this stuff? What if we actually heard and honestly paid attention to what the Bible says about Him? What if we took our focus off the rabbit and put it onto the Rabbi? What could we learn? What could we see? It really does seem that, at least at Easter, we owe it to Jesus to consider Him for a change!

what to pray for faith

cbrakke — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 17:34:01 +0000

Pastor John concludes his series on prayer by sharing how we can be praying for Faith. Praying together, as a church family, will powerfully promote “team” momentum along with the courageous proclamation of the Gospel & a widespread acceptance of Christ the Savior. Praying together will also produce a deep assurance of belonging within a relational setting of loving community. But, it is crucial for us to have a shared focus when it comes to our prayer times together. Today, as we conclude our series on prayer, we’ll look at some key Scriptures that show us exactly what we are to pray about as we collectively anticipate God who is so ready to astound His family at Faith.

how to pray in community

cbrakke — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:26:02 +0000

Pastor John continues his series on prayer, focusing this week on praying in community. Our last three studies we’ve seen that the Bible emphatically teaches that Christians must gather together to pray in community in order for their church to experience the mighty, not-to-be-forgotten, supernatural working of God through the Holy Spirit. We’ve also seen history (both ancient & recent) demonstrates this to be true. Two questions have emerged. The first: How do we pray in community as a church? The second: What do we pray about in community for our church? This Sunday will tackle the how. Next Sunday, as we wrap-up our series on prayer, we’ll close with the what.

power of praying together p2

aaronb — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:20:18 +0000

Pastor John talks about corporate or “team” prayer. “The Power of Praying Together Part 2″ It has been called corporate prayer. Some call it group prayer. Others call it a concert of prayer. Personally, I like best the designation … praying in community. But whatever we call it, both history and the Bible make it crystal clear: The greatest unleashing of God’s astounding power to transform individual lives, churches, schools, Wall Street, Main Street, communities and even nations, happens only when God’s people pray together, at His throne of amazing grace, for a special visitation from the Lord of Salvation Himself. Last week we saw this from history and the Old Testament. Today we look at Jesus and the book of Acts, to see how mightily God responds when team prayer takes place church wide.

power of praying together

cbrakke — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:48:08 +0000

Pastor John talks about corporate or “team” prayer. In terms of the broadest categories, there are two types of prayer. The first is you spending time with God alone. That’s your private prayer life. The second is you spending time with God and other believers. That is called “corporate prayer” or (as I prefer to label it) team prayer. And what is team prayer? It is the church coming together to pray in community. So, is team prayer really all that big of a deal? Well, here’s the truth of history and Scripture: Revival will come to the saved and salvation will come to the unsaved in direct proportion to the Lord’s people gathering in community to pray as one. Today we will see that Almighty God has sovereignly ordained for the greatest releasing of His power to be inseparably linked with His followers praying in concert with each other.

teaming up to pray

cbrakke — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 19:12:11 +0000

Pastor John teaches a sermon on “corporate prayer.” Over the next four Sundays, we will be wrapping up our current teaching series on prayer by focusing on “corporate church prayer life.” Now that may not sound too thrilling to you right at first, but trust me, this is the kind of thing that will get our hearts beating a whole lot faster, in tandem with Christ, if we learn and live what it means to be a praying church. From Scripture, we’ll discover how to be a spiritually supercharged group of believers that prays together in community. We’ll see amazing Biblical examples of the astounding things we can anticipate our God will do as we participate in “team prayer.” Also, we’ll identify some very practical steps of application, that we can take together, to collectively experience this extraordinary level of church family prayer life right here at Faith. It is all about becoming the “the house of prayer” that Jesus has called us to be and that the New Testament church so profoundly illustrates.