The Bible is full of examples of scattering and gathering stones. In the Old Testament, stones were used to remember, to build, to destroy, and to punish. But with Jesus all of that changes. He comes with grace and truth, intending to create in his followers signs and sign posts of his new kingdom that has come.  

This week we wrestle with tension between seasons of joy and seasons of sadness. We all experience them at some point in our lives. Jesus reminds us that he will never leave us nor forsake us in wherever we find ourselves at the moment. So if we need to weep, then let us weep. But if we need to dance, then let’s do it with all our might.  

The Bible clearly commands us “Do not murder.” But the wisdom writer of Ecclesiastes tells us that that there is a time to kill. What does that mean?  And what does healing have to do with this. This week, we explore this very interesting dialectic.    

This week, we learn from Jesus’ Parable of the Weeds that the world is God’s field. And he is the master gardener who tends for and cares for it as he sees fit. Our job is to be faithful sowers of good seed in our world. Ours is not to judge good fruit from bad, but to trust that God will judge and separate the good from the bad in his way.  

Sometimes life and faith are complicated. The writer of Ecclesiastes embraces this complexity by stating that God is in the moments we understand and the moments we don’t. The things we love and things we hate. In this new season, we are going to focus on living in the grey of dialectic tension. Today we start with the book ends of life:  a time to be born and a time to die. And we will see that God is with us from the very first moments of life to

Amidst the travel log of Paul’s third missionary journey found in the later part of the Book of Acts, Luke tells a fascinating story about Paul and a young man named Eutychus. It’s a story that connects deeply with our church’s calling today. A story that reminds us that Cascades does not exist for the sake of its members alone, but to be a people who are sent out to be part of whatever God is doing in the places where we have been planted.  

In Ephesus, the Gospel of Jesus took root and peoples lives began to change. People began abandoning their worship of Artemis, a local deity who controlled them. And when people’s lives changed, industries changed, the Artemis silver shrine manufacturing trade suffered, causing a riot.   

After Corinth, the Apostle Paul moved on to Asia Minor where he stayed in the bustling metropolis of Ephesus for nearly two years. There he found folks who worshiped many things but the living God. When he told them about Jesus Christ, both Jews and Greeks believed in him, received the Holy Spirit, and were dramatically changed from the inside out.  

When the Apostle Paul left Athens, he was humbled intellectually and theologically by a group of philosophers who challenged his argument for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He was so discouraged that he shook the dust off his feet and moved on down the road to Corinth. While there, he realized that people wouldn’t believe because of his persuasiveness, but because of the power of God. There is a very important lesson for us to learn here as well, particularly

This week, we see how in Acts 17 the Apostle Paul took the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles in Athens. God opened a door for him to share his new “ideas” with the intellectuals of the Areopagus. Some people laughed.  Some disbelieved. Some asked questions. And a few believed. The truth of this shows us that our job is faithfulness, not successfulness. Though Paul was not as successful as he had hoped, he did exactly what God had called him