New Story Church

Lead Us Not Into Temptation: A Guided Daily Prayer Exercise

For those in search of a bit of help, here's a short guided prayer exercise to practice this week.

Becoming Resilient in a Fragile World. Matthew 6:13

We live in a world that is increasingly fragile. How do we become the kind of people who are resilient, the kind of people who do not collapse under pressure?

Forgive us our Debts: A Guided Daily Prayer Exercise

For those in search of a bit of help, here's a short guided prayer exercise to practice this week.

How to Experience Forgiveness Matthew 6:12

What does it mean to confess our sins and to forgive the sins of others? How are they tied together? We explore the answers to these questions as we examine Jesus's words in Matthew 6:12.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread: A Guided Daily Prayer Exercise

For those in search of a bit of help, here's a short guided prayer exercise to practice this week.

Does Praying Really Make Any Difference? Matthew 6:11

We pray "Thy will be done." And then we proceed to tell God everything we want Him to do. If God is going to do what He wants, why should we tell Him what we want? In this message, we'll explore the age old question: Why pray? Do our prayers really make any difference?

Your Will Be Done: A Guided Daily Prayer Exercise

For those in search of a bit of help, here's a short guided prayer exercise to practice this week. 

Finding Freedom in God's Will. Romans 6:16-23

In this message, we explore one of the great paradoxes from Jesus's teaching: If you seek limitless freedom, you will become enslaved to your own choices. But, if you seek God's will over your own, you will find true freedom.

Your Kingdom Come: A Guided Daily Prayer Exercise

For those in search of a bit of help, here's a short guided prayer exercise to practice this week.

The Secret of God's Kingdom. Matthew 6:9-10

“Your kingdom come.” It’s only three words. Simple. Deceivingly simple. But do you know what you are praying for when you pray these words?

Hallowed be Your Name: A Guided Daily Prayer Exercise

 For those in search of a bit of help, here's a short guided prayer exercise to practice this week.

The Way You Pray Can Change the Course of Your Life. Matthew 6:9

When we pray, Jesus teaches us to pray that God would align our lives with Him. Prayer itself becomes an opportunity to make course corrections in the way we are thinking, feeling, and living. This week, we'll explore how "hallowing God's name" can change the whole course of your life.

Our Father in Heaven: A Guided Daily Prayer Exercise

For those in search of a bit of help, here's a short guided prayer exercise to practice this week. 

The Starting Point of Prayer. Matthew 6:9

The starting point of prayer is not confession or worship or requests or theological understanding. The starting point is relationship. In this message, we explore what it looks for us to come to God as "Our Father."

When You (Don't) Pray. Matthew 6:5-8

In the first century, everyone prayed. Being religious was good for business and good for your social standing, so one might be tempted to pray to impress or get ahead in life. In our day, things are different. Our great temptation is not to pray for the wrong reasons. Our great temptation is to not pray.

Easter @ GVF: Jesus knows you by name. John 20:1-18

The news that would forever change the world must first change your world. In John chapter 20, we see how the Easter message is not only a global announcement that Jesus rose from the dead, it is a personal invitation. He is a good shepherd who knows us by name and calls to each of us.

Broken and Messy: Can God use me? Judges 13-16

What we've learned about one of Israel's judges may not be entirely accurate. We think of Samson as the super strong man who women adored, but in reality, he was one messed up and broken man. God still used him and God can still use us, even if we're broken and messy.

When Everything Seems Broken. Judges 10-12

The story of Jephthah is a cautionary tale. It describes a world in which everything seems broken. Families are broken, leaders are openly immoral, parents are willing to sacrifice their own children to the gods of success, the nation is divided, and the People of God have forgotten who God is. Yet, perhaps, in this broken story we can find the thread of grace that we need to begin healing our own broken lives.

What's happening under the surface? Judges 8-9

This is the second half of Gideon's story. It's a story that invites us to ponder what's really going on in our hearts as we ponder what's really going on in Gideon’s heart.

Haunted by Doubts. Judges 6-7

Gideon is the “Doubting Thomas” of the Old Testament. He’s the patron saint of people who are haunted by doubts, who know what God’s Word says but struggle to believe it. In this message, we dig into the roots of Gideon's doubt and our own.

Heroic Women, Confused Men, and God. Judges 4-5

In this message, we look at a story that challenges what we might think we know about gender roles. It’s a story of heroic women, of men who don’t seem to know what it means to be a man, and of a God who refused to be limited by our limitations.

Enslaved to Stupidity. Judges 3

Judges chapter 3 is a bloody, graphic, darkly humorous story about a left-handed man named, Ehud. It's a story about how sin makes you stupid. It's a story that applies as much today as it did in the early Iron Age.

When You're Caught in a Self-Destructive Cycle. Judges 2

This message is for those of us who’ve been caught in a self-destructive cycle. It's for those of us who feel stuck in sinful patterns. Judges chapter 2 has the potential to be life changing. 

Mom Guilt, Recovering From "Religious" Parents, & Passing on Our Faith to the Next Generation

The Book of Judges, we see an entire generation walk away from the faith. In this brief talk, Pastor Paul addresses parents racked with guilt, adult children still recovering from their "religious" parents, and the pressing need for this present generation to pass on their love for God to the next generation.

In the World but Not of the World

Can the People of God survive in a culture that everywhere undermines faith in God & excludes God from the conversation? A major snowstorm forced us to pause the Judges series, so we thought we'd take this opportunity to pull out an old message, circa 2017, that explores this central theme of Judges but from a more positive example: the life of Joseph. While the message may be dated, the struggle has never been more pressing.

What an Early Iron Age Text Can Teach You About Yourself. Judges ch. 1

If we read Judges the way we read might read any history of early Iron Age tribes, this study will be quite a great waste of time. One or two of you might happen to be enthralled with ancient Near Eastern tribal warfare, but the rest of us will be wondering: Why are we talking about this in church? But.. what would it look like to read it the way the Apostle Paul read these stories as examples & warnings for us?

When Our World Begins to Collapse Around Us: An Introduction to Judges

The Book of Judges is an ancient collection of stories that sound oddly contemporary. It's about a nation that is divided, leaders who are heroically flawed, and an entire generation who walks away from faith. It's also a story about grace, about a God who refuses to give up. Join us as we discover God's message for us in this ancient text.

2021 - The Race Before Us

Positioning Your Life for Growth in 2021. Part 2

The Christian life is counterintuitive. We naturally want to fix ourselves and our world through our own strength, ingenuity, and passion. But, inevitably, this fails. In this two-part series, we talk through what it looks like to position our lives to depend upon God's strength to change us and our world in 2021.

Positioning Your Life for Growth in 2021. Part 1

The Christian life is counterintuitive. We naturally want to fix ourselves and our world through our own strength, ingenuity, and passion. But, inevitably, this fails. In this two-part series, we talk through what it looks like to position our lives to depend upon God's strength to change us and our world in 2021.

Great Expectations

The Decisive Moment: How the coming of Jesus changes everything

Mark tells a different Christmas story. He makes no mention of a manger, angels, or shepherds. Rather, Mark invites us to reimagine Christmas, to seriously consider how the coming of this humble King marks the decisive moment in human history and in your life.

The Truth About You, or how a cluttered soul can blind your to your own motives

We’ve all experienced others misreading our motives. If you’re emotionally mature, you’ve most likely caught yourself misreading others. But, what about your own motives? How good are you at reading your own heart? In John 8, Jesus challenges us to see the truth about why we do what we do and what we most love in life.

The Truth About You, or how a cluttered soul can blind you to your own motives

We’ve all experienced others misreading our motives. If you’re emotionally mature, you’ve most likely caught yourself misreading others. But, what about your own motives? How good are you at reading your own heart? In John 8, Jesus challenges us to see the truth about why we do what we do and what we most love in life.

The Potter's House. Jeremiah 18

We live in a world that says only you can define who you are and what’s good for you. But in Jeremiah 18, God invites us to join Jeremiah on a field trip to a potter's house and reimagine our place in His world.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Upside-Down: How the Beatitudes changed everything.

Immediately after Jesus selected his disciples, he began teaching them about the kingdom of heaven by way of the Beatitudes. This teaching was confronting, upside-down and counter-culture, but was one small step in what would be a three year journey towards reimagining the kingdom of heaven and how to get there.

The End of Suffering: How the Worst Things can be the Best Thing for your Soul

The Scriptures invite us to see our suffering and hardship in a way that does not comfortably fit with modern American attempts to avoid anything hard. In this message, we'll explore James' (outrageous) suggestion that we should "consider it pure joy whenever we face trials."

Reimagined

In Biblical times, the great danger was that you’d worship Baal or Asherah or Diana of Ephesus. Today, the great threat to your faith is that you’ll worship... nothing. Something cataclysmic is happening in the soul of the Western world: We are losing our ability to even imagine the reality to which the Biblical authors give witness. In this series, we'll explore Jesus’s invitation to reimagine life. What would it be like to have the "mind of Christ," to see the world through His eyes?

A Rope from the Back Door to the Barn. Philippians 1:9-11

“There was a time when farmers on the Great Plains, at the first sign of blizzard, would run a rope from the back door to the barn” (Parker Palmer). The storm was so blinding, so deafening that you could lose your way and freeze to death in your own backyard. The rope gave you something to cling to when you couldn't see the way. That's what this message is.

Remember to Forget: How Jesus wants to free you from your past.

For good and for bad, our past experiences shape our present reality and future possibility. In this message, we'll explore how a relationship with Jesus challenges and transforms how we think about our past. This message is part one of two. In the second part, we look at a more clinical and practical application of this teaching in an interview with Child & Family Therapist, Kelly Raudenbush.

How Sharing Your Past Can Set You Free From Your Past: An interview with Kelly Raudenbush

For good and for bad, our past experiences shape our present reality and future possibility. In this interview with Child & Family Therapist, Kelly Raudenbush, we discuss how sharing your past with an empathetic listener can powerfully transform you.

Toxic Environments and the Kingdom of God

We are constantly being formed by our environment. And yet, the vast majority of the time we are completely unaware of the forces shaping us. In this message, we are going to explore how ancient spiritual practices can help us recognize what our suburban world is doing to our souls so that so that we can begin to experience a better way of doing life in the Kingdom of God.

Changing Your Habits to Change Your Life

Humans have the uncanny ability to perform any number of activities - even complex tasks - without thinking. One study estimates that more than 40% of our daily activities are things we do “automatically.” In this message, we'll explore how we can leverage this fascinating bit of human nature to make us more into the kind of people we are created to be.

Spiritual Formation and Relationships

Redrawing Your Mental Map

When you invite God into your life, you are inviting Him to give you a new story, a new identity, and a new reason for living. You are inviting Him to redraw your mental map. In this message, we’ll explore this aspect of you that we call “mind.” We’ll examine why you are the way you are and think the way you think, so that you and I can begin to discover what it means for us to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Who Am I Becoming?

You are becoming someone. Everything you do, think, feel, own, believe, and experience is forming you, making you more of who you were created to be or less, more like Jesus or less. For the next six weeks, we’ll be exploring the basic (but not so simple) question: Who are you becoming? Find more resources & the companion Spiritual Growth Plan at www.gvf.church/whoamibecoming.

The Old Switcheroo. Romans 8:28

As a rule, good is welcome and bad is avoided. But our God used death to bring life and a prostitute to illustrate grace. He is the original rule breaker and that is good!

Celebration is a Spiritual Discipline

Celebration is commanded by God. In the Old Testament, God demanded that His People shape their lives around massive, sensual, expensive, crowded feasts. This Sunday, we are going to finish our series on delight by exploring how God uses the spiritual discipline of celebration to deepen our capacity for delight in Him, others, and life.

Good is the Enemy of Great. Luke 14:15-24

We are created to be with God and to delight in Him. In the Scriptures, this is portrayed as a great feast. In this message, we'll discuss how we can make sure the good things in life don't keep us from the great feast.

What God Sees in People

According to the Scriptures, our ability to experience the wonder & beauty of life is directly related to how we see other people. In this message, we explore what it looks like to see what God sees in people through the story of the Good Samaritan.