The purpose of spiritual disciplines is to help us enjoy the presence of God. These can quickly become a to-do list about the path to a successful life. We must resist the temptation to practice a spiritual discipline in order to prove something to ourselves, God, or anyone else. The purpose of these disciplines is not to impress Him. Our goal is not that He would see more of you, but that you would see more of him.

Hear Dr. George Yancey, Professor of Sociology at Baylor University, speak about sociological challenges facing the American church today.

Tony Reinke, senior writer for Desiring God and author of 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, will speak to our congregation on the topic of “Parenting in the Digital Age.”

As you consider your calling to your neighbors this summer, think about this one short phrase, “Be a front yard neighbor." Create encounters by intentionally moving part of your life to the front yard. Take a walk and meet people as you go, buy a front yard tree swing for the neighbor kids to play on, or bring the grill to the street and invite a few neighbors to join you. Bring your Life Group members along for the mission as well because community is a powerful evangelistic tool.

Easter Saturday, usually called Holy Saturday, can seem to be a non-day. The church is still in silence, the tabernacle is empty. Yet this is a day of the most radiant expectation.

On this day, Jesus was betrayed, arrested, abandoned, accused, denied, condemned, beaten, mocked, humiliated, tortured, crucified, and ultimately executed on a cross with two other criminals. This was, without doubt, the lowest point in Jesus’ life.

On this day, Jesus observed the Passover meal with his disciples. Passover served as a means of remembrance for the Jewish people. Packed full of symbolic imagery, the meal was celebrated to remember God’s saving work. Many years before, God’s people were slaves in Egypt. In their distress, they cried out to him and God remembered his covenant with Abraham and stepped in.

Although the Gospels do not mention this day, we’re going to consider Jesus washing his disciples' feet in John 13:1-17.

Jesus has gathered with his closest friends. The food is all set. Conversations are being had and Jesus knows the time has come time to depart out of this world to the Father (John 13:1). But even in this moment, his thoughts are of his friends.

On this day, Jesus faces opposition from the religious and political leaders in the temple courts. They are united in their desire to stop him. They want him killed.

On this day, Jesus made his way to Jerusalem to visit the Temple. On his way, he saw a fully leafed fig tree and, in his hunger, went to examine it for fruit. However, the fig tree, appearing by its leaves to have fruit, was fruitless. In his disappointment, Jesus cursed the fig tree. The next day the disciples noted and marveled that the fig tree had withered under Jesus’ word of judgment (Mark 11:20). In this event, Jesus is not simply “hangry” – that condition we are all familiar with of being so hungry you are angry. No, Jesus is performing a prophetic act. He was expecting fruit from Israel and her leaders, but upon examination, he has found her fruitless. She was invited to repent and to bear fruit in keeping with her repentance, but she, following her leaders, persisted in unbelief. They would eventually experience God’s judgment for their rejection of Jesus and their unfaithfulness.

Watch the video above for an in-depth explanation of Holy Week and why we observe it so closely as a church. Each day we will be providing you with a devotional that we encourage you to take time to read and pray through in preparation for our Easter celebration.

You would think that after a childhood filled with so much danger, Jesus would have lived by one rule: self-preservation. Instead, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even a criminal’s death, in order to save his beloved. Jesus could have wielded his power to save himself on the cross. For that matter, he could have just avoided a lot of pain and suffering by not leaving heaven in the first place. And yet, the great I Am took the form of the most vulnerable human we can think of, a baby, and died the most vulnerable death we can imagine, a Roman crucifixion. Love led Jesus to sacrifice himself to save others.

I recently read a New York Times article by Nicholas Kristoff called Let’s Wage War on Loneliness in which Kristoff describes the lonely state of Western culture. Kristoff asserts that 20% of adults in the U.S. report being chronically lonely and 50% of adults in the U.S. live alone. And this was pre-Covid19. Given the current pandemic, I can only imagine what those numbers and needs are like now.

For three days, darkness was over the land. Two of Jesus’ closest followers, “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary,” returned to his tomb in order to anoint the body of their beloved. The disciples were in hiding trying to make sense of the chaos, their hopes crushed by the cry, “It is finished.” But then we see the stone rolled away, an empty tomb, and hear that life was again thrust into the body of Christ.