Cascade Church Portland

Relate:: Relation to Self

As we dive deeper into our discussion of relationships, this week's message encourages us to consider our relationship with ourselves. Many of follow destructive patterns when it comes to the way we treat ourselves. Sometimes we relate to ourselves much like a relative we don't see often:  we are constantly seeing ourselves at a fixed point in our lives. Are you focused on a time in your life when you were younger? More reckless? More distant from God? Or are you relating to yourself much like the friend who keeps a record: are you making a list of past mistakes, keeping score, and reminding yourself of how much you've screwed up? Or maybe you're relating to yourself in a another way: you treat yourself like a high intensity coach, holding yourself to the highest, impossible standards. These are just a few examples of the ways we sometimes fall short of a healthy relationship with one's self. A discussion of relationships is incomplete without considering how we can ultimately reflect God's love for us through a healthy relationship with ourselves. If one or more of these is descriptive of the way you are currently operating, I invite you to consider an alternative.

Relate:: The Image of God

We have all been made in the image of God. Each person we encounter is also an image-bearer of God,  equally worthy of respect--our needs and agendas equally important. With this knowledge, this week's message challenges us to dive into relationship with others in a spirit of oneness, actively working against the habit "othering." 

This week's message helps us to consider the practice of negotiating reality and how we can embrace others as the image of God. I invite you to consider how you, through an attitude of reaching across cultural barriers and preconceived ideas, fit into the discussion. How is God calling you into relationship?

Relate:: The God of Love

I have struggled mightily with the concept of loving God with all my heart, soul and mind. That standard feels impossibly high and I was obsessed with how often I fell short of it. That has led me for many years to wrestle with the concept of loving God and experiencing a new way of understanding what that could look like. 

I invite you to listen about the expansive God of the universe and the intimate God of our daily lives. Hear how this seemingly different Gods are one and how that God goes before us with love and grace that we are welcomed to receive. 

Relate:: The Three Relationships

Jesus was asked by the Pharisees what the greatest commandment in all the Law was. It was a test. To be able to reduce all the volumes of law to one greatest commandment is a seemingly impossible task. And yet Jesus is able to put into context every law and regulation that had defined the Israelite people. 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. 

We believe these three relationships, with God, with our neighbors and with ourselves are the three primary relationships on which all of our understanding of the world we live in is built on. 

Come hear about how the love from God creates our identity and our ability to love ourself, to love others and can't help butbe directed back to God. 

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.