Newsong Fellowship

Wisdom - it’s something we all think we have, until we realize we don’t. The teacher in Ecclesiastes is self-examining, self-disclosing as he reflects over his life recognizing that he has been both capable of wisdom and folly, good and evil. However, the King, insulated by power, privilege, & prestige, was unable to truly see his own folly, until it was too late.

Focusing on chapters 8 and 9 of Ecclesiastes, the Teacher is going toe-to-toe with our illusions of control. In chapter 8 he knocks down the sense that we can control any of the stuff, or vapor, of life. In chapter 9 he dismisses any notion of control over how long our lives are, ultimately saying that "time and chance happen to us all." By dashing these illusions of control of all of our external stuff, he leaves us with the reality that the only thing we can control is our interior life. We can no longer look to the stuff of vapor to try to earn God or the good life, but we can look through the vapor to the God who is always present. What this takes is a shift in our interior lives, a change of perspective, to see God through all things.

Ecclesiastes opens us up to acknowledge our own experiences and how they influence our perspectives and understanding of the world. The teacher says, “There is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.” Questions of “why?” and “now what?” are common and welcomed by this wisdom teacher in the discovery that “doing good is itself a pathway to wisdom”.

A few years ago, a study was done having to do with how those outside the faith saw those who professed to be followers of Jesus. In a ranking of the top 7 ways the group perceived the church, the #1 category where they said the people of Jesus acted the least like Jesus was this: the church was judgmental. We know what Jesus taught…but do we understand the implications of choosing to ignore it

We are living in days of growing polarization and rising tension. While our world is more connected than at any time in human history, the divide between us, at every level, only deepens. What does shalom look like and how do we pursue it and reclaim hope?

The restoration of all things according to God's intended desire and purpose at creation - what the Hebrew people understood as "shalom" - can only come to pass if the "shadow" understands and chooses to reconcile its relationship with its Source

The biblical creation story paints the picture of how the world is designed to work and the role that humankind was always designed to play in its ongoing experience of shalom: universal wholeness and flourishing. But no sooner is the story in full swing, and humankind breaks from the story shattering the relationships fundamental to its flourishing in the process. How does God respond?

The most dramatic difference between the creation story of the Hebrew people and that of all the other creation stories to this day has to do with two very significant and paradigm shifting words... that were very good news for humankind

The opening narrative of the Scriptures presents a creation story that emerges from an experience of struggle, isolation, oppression and fear following the exile of Israel to Babylon for 70 years. In a powerful contrast, it refutes and reverses the claims of the creation narratives of the day and offers the reminder of the hope of a goodness not seen but deeply longed for then and now

At the center of advent is the invitation to worship fully. The coming of the Christ child is the reminder that God has drawn near and through Jesus came to earth, will come again and comes even today. And how we choose to anticipate that and enter into it everyday makes all the difference

In a season where we experience the pressure to spend money, buy and give the best gadget, bounce from one gathering to the next — we are invited, once again, to revisit a familiar story. A story of a God who gave. A God who gave — sacrificially, generously, and thoughtfully — and we are invited to GIVE MORE and to give the way God gave.

God made a revolutionary decision in the incarnation by choosing to be born poor and marginalized. This decision flipped the way we are to think about stuff, money, and the ways we tie together (and our culture wants to tie) our identity with accumulation. God is leading a countercultural way - both for individuals and communities - that is relevant for today: to spend strategically.

Pastor Dave opens the new series to take us into the advent season as we prepare for the coming of the Christ-child with a fresh lens on the story of Christmas and the reminder that it is born out of the love for all by the God who came near

Pastor Dave along with Pastor Grant and Pastor Lindsey discuss the the larger arc of this series and the implications for what it looks like to take the next step towards intentionally becoming the kind of people who naturally and easily do what Jesus commanded

Jesus begins with "anger" as he delivers the Sermon on the Mount, giving us insight into what so often keeps us from the experience of what he calls "eternal life" hear and now

Pastor Dave turns a corner in the series moving from what the substance and quality of the life on display in the life of Jesus is, namely, faith, hope, love, joy and peace, to begin to address the question: "what is it that is keeping us from being able to live from those same underlying conditions naturally?"

When Jesus offers his peace... When Paul assures us that God's peace will guard our hearts and minds in King Jesus, what do you understand that peace to be? How do you secure it? What is it's substance? How do you cultivate it in your own life?

Pastor Dave explores the nature and power of joy to restore and heal at the deepest level of our soul. STORY: Pastor Grant and Mikhaela share their experience with one of joy's most counterintuitive yet life-giving realities as an underlying condition in the midst of their own journey of loss and mourning

Central to our capacity to live the life here and now that Jesus keeps insisting is available through him, is the need to not just comprehend, but to cultivate what love actually is and how it's intended to come to completion in us and through us.

Over and over, Jesus invited people into an experience of life he referred to as "eternal" or "abundant" life. His invitation was into a certain quality of life, upheld by specific realities that enabled him to sleep calmly in the midst of a great storm at sea, to face the horrors of the journey to his death and still choose to walk that path, to look out upon the crowd who demanded his death and came to watch and jeer as he hung on a cross dying and still utter pleas in their defense to the Father. How does Jesus do that? Where does that kind of fearlessness, courage and compassion come from?