Cascade Church Portland

Advent:: Grace

Have you ever had a moment of unexpected grace? It's a shocking experience where you brace for the bad thing you know you have coming, and poof, the situation turns to joy. It's interesting to be around people who carry and dispense this type of grace. They offer such a safety that you can't help but be drawn to them. It's like being around a person who just found out they won the lottery. There's not a lot that can get you down with that information and other's ability to let you down has been lifted. 

What would it be like to be that kind of person? That's exactly what we're looking at in this message on the Advent season. What is the grace that God is offering humanity and how is it seen and experienced through Jesus? 

Advent:: Justice

Advent is a season to celebrate the arrival of Jesus Christ!

This begs the question, why do we celebrate the arrival of Jesus? There's an understanding of many in the Christian tradition that the salvation that we experience through the death and resurrection is the answer to the question. This Advent season we want to look at the other gifts that were foretold and delivered through the birth of Jesus. As we prepare our hearts for the arrival of Jesus, let's prepare our hearts for the full weight of all that means. 

Thankful:: I'm Still Here

This week we're going to be wrestling with an incredibly challenging verse from the book of 1 Thessalonians. 

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." 

What does it look like to give thanks in all circumstances and why is that God's will for us? 

One possible interpretation is that God wants you to fake it until you make it. If you can give thanks in really awful situations then maybe you will believe it isn't so terrible after all. God is basically trying to trick you into being ok with all the worst parts of life so that you don't blame Him or start spreading your dissatisfaction around. 

 

I've really wrestled with that interpretation. This week we'll dive into that way of thinking and explore another interpretation that sees God as wanting us to be whole through the process of being thankful. 

Thankful:: Dr. Dan Brunner

Thankfulness is a response most likely to show up in the good times. When we have stability in our life, our needs are met and things look generally hopeful, we can easily identify what we are thankful for. What's interesting to talk through is what thankfulness looks like when we take on the good and the bad that life has to offer with a grateful heart. 

Come wrestle with this complex topic of being thankful in the face of joy and grief. Knowing that those who are seeking to follow after Jesus have the opportunity to have a deep and lasting heart for thankfulness that flows straight from the heart of Christ. 

Faces of Cascade:: Dan Meredith

We all want to be somebody and when that doesn't seem to be happening on its own when can jump in to make it happen. This story is about a man who created many different identities, and mowed through a bunch of people to make it happen. It's a remarkable story about excess, abuse and alienation, while living out a reality that many people would say they would want. 

Come listen to a story about gaining the whole world and losing your soul and discovering that God has so much more for those who will open their eyes to the stories of others and join in the greater world God created us for. 

Faces of Cascade:: Misty Kiehl

We all have a story and a past. In every painful and positive turn of our journey we are faced with the choice to process through what we've experienced and continue on unburdened or we can stuff it away and it becomes part of us into the future. 

I invite to you hear Misty's story and see the difference it can make to draw a line in the ground and face our past. These decisions can define us and help us be free of our pasts, learn from our pasts and appreciate all the gifts we've been given along the way. 

This story also compels us to look at those of the journey younger than we are and how we can help them unpack baggae they are far too young to be carrying. We can help free the next generation so they don't have to walk the same kinds of damaging paths that so many of us have walked. 

Faces of Cascade:: The Hensons and Hillmans

Some people prefer company and some prefer solitude. You may find people fascinating and love to hear about where they are from, who their families are and how they fill their time. For you, it is an ideal situation to be locked in a room with complete strangers. 

This love of people is sometimes equated with a love of community. When you talk about community as intentional relationships with a group of people that serve, encourage and know one another, then you can see that they don't always equate. That kind of community has very little to do with a surface level of meeting folks. 

So, what does it look like to engage and stay in real, deep community? 

Listen to a conversation with two families who have moved into the same house for the sake of community. We'll have a chance to hear about the joys and difficulties of community. I hope you'll reflect more deeply on God's design and call to community. 

Faces of Cascade:: Theresa Monteverdi

What do you think about when you hear the word hope?

Is it a fresh and familiar word that mostly marks your thoughts about the future? Is it a distant word that had significance in the past, but doesn't mean much anymore?

A lot of times we can get into cycles of hopefulness or we can get in cycles of hopelessness. Both being hopeful and hopeless has a kind of momentum to them that seems to gain steam the more we entertain them. 

Listen to hear more about how you can choose to entertain hope instead of despair from the story of Theresa Monteverdi. She is an incredible woman with an incredible story. Whether you have hope or hopelessness today, you're not going to miss this conversation about God's desire for each of us to entertain hope. 

Faces of Cascade:: Tom McCoy

Work means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some it is purely about translating a skill or talent into a money. For others it is a about following your passion to do meaningful work in the world.

Whatever our starting place with work, we usually battle a tendency to be find identity from our work before too long. One of the major questions that we need to evaluate from time to time is, who am I apart what I do? That’s usually a scary question to answer because few of us truly know. 

The reality is that Jesus Christ comes to give us identity apart from what we do and this identity is prepared to stand the test of time. The circumstances of our life could be incredibly good or painfully bad, but the identity that Christ offers us all as daughters and sons of God anchors our souls in way that can sustain anything that life can throw our way. 

I invite you to listen to Tom McCoy’s story to help you walk the journey of seeing who you truly are and finding that person apart from the things you do. 

Acts & Thessalonica to Berea

How do you react when things don't go your way? I usually just get mad. I may act and pretend I'm fine with how things worked out, but inside I'm at least a little bitter. I have a way that I'd like things to go because I think it's the best way for things to go. If I didn't think it was best, I wouldn't be doing it, right?

I heard once that anger is the result of our will being blocked. 

That has always stuck with me and I think it's so incredibly true. I get mad and frustrated when my sons don't help me get them dressed in the morning. Am I mad at the potential nudity if the situation goes unresolved? Am I frustrated that the boys will be too cold because they aren't properly dressed? 

Nope. 

I'm mad and frustrated because I have written a story in my head that needs to be followed (it isn't normally very flexible) and my boys aren't allowing that story to become reality with their wiggling, running, playing and avoidance. 

This message is about a story where one group hears information that shakes up their worldview and they riot where another group hears the same information and they investigate these new claims. Both groups are hearing a new ending to the story they had written in their heads. Their wills for the future are being blocked by new information. How do you respond to new information?