God’s Desire & Our Design
This past Sunday in our “Step In” series, we ‘stepped in’ to an enormous topic: redemption. Redemption is a kind of umbrella word for everything that God in Christ and through the Spirit has done, is doing, and will do for us – to restore us to the life God always meant for us to live (ie, life with God…eternal life). See what I mean? It’s an enormous topic. We ‘stepped in’ to it, but really, it’s like we just barely dipped
Grace Has Arrived and Prevailed
This past Sunday, we reached the mid-point in our big winter Steps series called “Step In: Taking In the Message of Christ”. We talked about a BIG, BIG, BIG idea: grace. Grace is one of those big ideas that is so ‘everywhere’ in the bible – so ubiquitous – that it’s almost hard to define (and even harder to do in one short sermon!). Bouncing off of Romans 6:23, we heard that “What Went Right?” is that God has decided to restore
In The Beginning…of the Church
A guest blog, by Next Generation Pastor Rebecca DeLucia In our Discipleship Essentials book and our Step-Groups these past few weeks, we have spent time reading and reflecting on Genesis 1-2 - the creation narrative. In today’s Bible Reading Plan we read Acts 1, the beginnings of the early church. It is amazing to read these two passages of Scripture back to back and see the themes woven throughout both. In Genesis we read the role of humanity in stewardship of creation, “God blessed
A Royal, Revolutionary Calling
This past Sunday, we continued our winter series called “Step In: Taking In the Message of Christ”, all about “taking in” the big ideas of Christian faith so that we can believe – and live – differently. Last week, we asked the BIG question (who is God?), and this week we asked perhaps an even more asked question: Who are we? We talked about what it means that we’re made in the “image of God”. Basically, just as an idol or statue (or image)
Step In & Follow Up!
This past Sunday, we kicked off our new winter series called “Step In: Taking In the Message of Christ”, all about “taking in” the big ideas of Christian faith so that we can believe – and live – differently. We started with perhaps the biggest idea of all – God, and the biggest question: Who is God? It’s important to ask that question that way (who is God?), rather than the other way it could be asked (what is God?). God is a who – more
The Village!
A guest blog by Rebecca DeLucia, our Next Generational Pastor This past Sunday we launched our newest effort to build intentional intergenerational relationships here at Central, The Village. If you missed the launch, you can watch it right here. This initiative will pair kids within the church with adults, so that we can ensure that every kid will be seen, heard, known, encouraged and prayed for. I’ve had many encouraging conversations with people here at Central - both before and after Sunday - who
An Ambitious Start!
I’ll say it again: happy new year! I hope that your start to the new year has been a good one. This new year at Central, we are being pretty ambitious: kicking off three big things. Let me briefly tell you about each. The first, we’ve already kicked off and I hope you’re joining us in: the Light to My Path 2025 bible reading plan. If you haven’t, now is the time to hop on. We’re not too far into the Gospel of Luke, so
The Tragedy of Christmas Trees
Two Sundays ago, I spoke about my family's Christmas tree – how it fell, shattered a bunch of prized ornaments, and dispersed irremovable blue glitter forever into my world…some of you have asked me how it’d doing – and I’m happy to report it is still standing, crooked, leaning backwards, a bit pathetic, but it’s there lighting up our living room! But it is dying. Christmas trees, from the moment they’re cut down, are either dead or dying (however you want to
Mary’s Steps of Faith
Throughout December in the women’s bible study, we’ve been taking a careful look at the story of Mary in Luke 1, and have had some fantastic discussions. It’s a perfect Advent bible study to focus on with the women – especially in a year where we are focusing on discipleship, taking steps of faith, and learning to follow Jesus. Mary’s faith – among many other things – is a model for each of us to grow from. Before I go on, take a
The Bible is So Cool!
A blog by Rebecca DeLucia, Next Generation Pastor "The bible is so cool!" I wish I could have captured the look on the child's face as they said this on a Sunday morning. We had just finished our November series called “Unsung Heroes” which covered the book of Ruth. If you aren’t familiar with the Central Kids curriculum we use, called GROW, it has a big idea each week. For the November series the four big ideas were: God gives us companions, God gives