Messages from Good News Church

On October 30th Pastor Sam shared an update on the vision of  Good News Church, followed by a Q & A with the elder board. 

This week we are turning to the next core value: selfless learning. 

This week we will be engaging with the topic of Flexible Hospitality as one of our core values, and we will look at what it means to welcome people the way that Jesus has welcomed us.

This week as we work through our core values series, we are looking at what it means for us to be a generationally faithful church. This is a profoundly important but also incredibly tender message and I'd invite you to join me in praying for grace, honesty, and God's healing love.

This week we begin a new series exploring five core values that permeate the culture of Good News. Think about these as family traits passed down, which regularly appear regardless of the circumstances. The setting might be different, and the clothing might change, but the family resemblance shines through.

We will start this week by engaging with the value that shows up most clearly in our worship: what we are calling Approachable Transcendence.

This week we are going to engage with the idea that often, people tend to see the faults in others but are unwilling to see the faults in their own life.

"Why does God let people suffer? Why does it feel like God doesn't care about the deep pain I am experiencing? Where was God when I was going through ________"

If you haven't honestly asked any of these questions, my guess is that one day you will. I certainly have, and I imagine I will ask them in the future. These questions have rocked and even shattered the faiths of many, and they deserve to be answered with care. Come worship with us this Sunday where we will look at a story where God enters into tragedy with hope and redemption.

This week we will be engaging with the question: how should/would the church welcome transgender people? Many of you are probably just hoping for some biblical light to be shed on a suddenly front-page topic. But for some of you, this hits closer to home, as you or someone you love have struggled with questions of gender and sexuality. I hope it will be a time of careful and gracious engagement with Jesus for all of us.

This week we answer your question: "How should political opinions and biblical values affect each other in a divided world?"

Throughout life, there are all kinds of hurdles, hoops, and barriers we have to get through in order to improve our wellbeing. Many of these things are necessary and good: exams, work projects, exercise, and overtime hours. 

When we think of coming to Jesus and being a part of God's family, we can place all kinds of hurdles and barriers in our path and in others that look more like the world's standards than God's. These barriers can actually prevent us from coming to Jesus in faith in what He offers us. 

Today we are going to look at what those barriers are, and how Jesus actually breaks them down so that we can know Him and be a part of His Kingdom.
Luke 18:31-19:10 

This week we circle back to a topic that Luke has briefly mentioned before: Jesus's concern for children and the way that our maturity can actually get in the way of us living in God's kingdom. 

There is a legend that in colonial New England some churches had someone walk up and down the aisle during longer meetings with this odd tool. It was a long stick that had a feather attached to one end and a tack nail on the other. And that some people would be encouraged with the feather while others might get the nail. 
I’m not sure if it's true, though I kind of hope it is. This week we are going to look at two parables where Jesus will both offer both the feather and the nail. 
I’m looking forward to being with you many of you this weekend.

In a world where there seems to be this never-ending cycle of life, it can be easy to live as if this present life is all there is. We wake up, we eat, we work, we sleep, we repeat. We get so caught up in the daily distractions that we forget there is life after this life. For some that life is going to be inexplicably wonderful, for others it will be indescribably terrible. 

This Sunday we'll hear Jesus' instruction on how to be mindful of, and prepare for, this life after life that is coming. I hope you will join us this Sunday. Preacher: Pastor Charlie Davis

A few years ago, Anna and I were living in an apartment close to downtown San Diego. It was our first apartment as a married couple, and we loved it -- until about nine months in. We were doing some deep cleaning and pulled out one of our couches, and that's when we saw it: black mold on the walls. We started going around the apartment, and sure enough, we saw it in our bedroom and the closets. We, of course, cleaned the walls, but after talking to a couple of friends who were familiar with mold remediation, we feared it was growing behind the drywall. The landlord was only willing to do a touch-up on the exterior walls. We would have had to pay thousands of dollars to have a mold remediation company come to do the cleaning needed. So we decided to move.

Sin is like that mold, except far worse. It runs deep and has made a mess of our lives. We might try to clean ourselves to make ourselves look presentable and acceptable, but really we're just cleaning the exterior walls. The problem is much deeper than we know how to fix. 

This week will see how Jesus offers that deep remediation that we need in order to be more than just presentable, but transformed.

This week we continue our walk through Luke, taking a look at Luke 17:1-10.

This Sunday we will look at a story of two daughters, one alive but alone and the other loved but on the edge of death.

Luke 8:40-56

Join us this week as we hear how Jesus tames the chaos that swirl around us and the chaos that resides within us.
Luke 8:22-39