Cascade Church Portland

Advent:: Receiving From God

In the church we often talk about the good gifts of God. God is a giver of joy, peace, grace, justice and hope. The real question is if we are willing to accept them. Our lives can quickly become an endless loop of searching for the perfect job, relationship, friendship, living situation or family situation to finally be ok. We're looking for eternal lasting solutions in the midst of finite, limited stopgaps. Come hear about the path to receiving from God and trading our best answers for God's eternal stream sof living water. 

Advent:: Peace

Peace is a tricky thing to come across in an increasingly hectic world. It seems that we are constantly inundated with noise in our homes, work, and most every public place we find ourselves. There's an almost constant buzz and hum that rolls through our world that make peace hard to find. 

 

But this is where it gets tricky for me. When opportunities for peace present themselves, I don't always know what to do with them. I usually fill those moments with music, my phone, emails or some other distraction. I've started wondering if peace is a gift from God that I'm really not all that interested in receiving. 

 

Now, I do desire peace in my relationships with others. I do desire peace to so fill our nation and world that wars and threats of wars exist only in our history books. Those kinds of peace I can get behind, but personal moments of peace are something different. 

 

This message looks at the relationship between personal peace and corporate peace. How can you receive God's gift of peace in ways that calm the raging waters of your mind and propel you into peaceful relationships with others? That's worth talking about!

Advent:: Hope

The great South African Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu once said, "Hope is being able to see there is light despite all the darkness."

 

Whew! That's a good one. Hope can be a  powerful force in our lives. It's the thing that can best give us perspective on our days and life. 

 

I think of young kids when I think about the powerful interplay between hope and perspective. Have you ever seen a young kid cry like it's the worst thing that's ever happened to them when a dog steals their food or ice cream? That's because it probably IS the worst thing that's happened to them. Think about how radical the highs and lows are with 3-5 years worth of living. You are constantly swinging back and forth between the greatest and worst moments of their life because they don't have enough experiences to compare against. 

 

Hope is the opposite of this way of living. It speaks loudly into the dull and painful moments that this is not all that exists. There is more than today, and there is a light despite all the darkness. 

 

Join us in exploring the hope that we find in the promise and the life of Jesus Christ. We'll hope to see how Jesus can be the very light in the darkness that we hold onto when the sum of our experiences call us to abandon all hope. 

 

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.