NewChurch Live

Let us look together at the birth of hope into our lives this holiday season. 11/28/21

Thanksgiving is a beautiful holiday, one of the most joy filled. And within that joy lies an opportunity for a life-giving shift around seeing - a movement from what we see (counting our blessings) to how we see (seeing the gift of "enough" everywhere).

What’s more important than knowing who God is? The clearest picture we can get may just reveal itself by studying how God lives. with Curtis Childs

Churches, just like individuals, mirror a certain “twoness.” Parts of many churches are open, loving, and filled with joy. Other parts can be narrow, judgmental, and at times even cruel. Any church, synagogue, or mosque that is open, loving and joy-filled can do amazing and miraculous things in the world! How can that happen more?

One well known marriage counselor famously said that when working with any couple, four people show up, only two of which are worth talking to. That should bring a smile! How do we choose to communicate and connect with others from the correct two, and not their opposites, allowing our best and highest selves to connect with theirs?

In all of us there is a basic tension between our heart of stone and our heart of flesh, as the Bible puts it. We all have at some level, an “evil twin” as it were that shows up with distressing frequency when the conditions are right (or wrong). How can we look at both those opposing “hearts”, not as enemies locked in perpetual conflict, but as the wholeness of our experiences, held by God, to move us forward in our lives, to move us toward choice, and to move us closer to heaven?

For many it is easy to confuse a complex faith with true faith. But true faith is simple – not easy, but simple. And the implications of that simplicity change the world! Together we will delve into that simple faith, and the freedom that follows.

We live embedded in a social media world filled with numerous, and at times overwhelming contacts. But how do we move deeper? How do we move beyond superficial contacts towards the deeper connections God calls us to? We’ll discuss some of the tools that help to guide and keep us there.

Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, “There is no way to peace along the way to safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great adventure and can never be safe.” His words point to the necessary battles we all will face, and how we can face them together.

Any new adventure brings a transition, a crossing over and into, while pushing through the stuckness of our normal lives towards new horizons. This week, we explore a refreshing way to view a new start, a start blessed by God.

When asked, Jesus says that to love God and love our neighbor are the two Great Commandments—that on which everything else hangs. Let’s take a look at what those two phrases actually mean and the magic they can do in our lives. (Special guest Curtis Childs)

Join us as we gather to celebrate back-to-school with this special family service. This year, we look at moving forward with meaning and purpose, as God gives us to see it!

Life on life’s terms holds small bits of heaven. Likewise, life on life’s terms holds bits of challenge as well, challenge that can at least feel like (or hurt like) hell. Through all that, can we trust the flow of our lives, trusting that a good God is gently, patiently, lovingly leading us to a good place? That means, of course, that we must grow comfortable with movement and change, trusting that we are moving forward.

With a smile, we can safely guarantee that those who believe a connection with God will save them from all the challenges of life, are headed for disappointment. Life – religious or not – is filled with opportunities to stumble. But we can learn to transform those challenges into parts of our story that while hard, also in some subtle way, create life anew. Meeting life on life’s terms means our hearts break. And our hearts break open.

We will all experience at least a taste of heaven on earth. Those “tastes” will be different but the deeper experience of that soul-level joy, remarkably the same. Life on life’s terms obviously must hold the challenging parts. Thankfully, it holds many beautiful parts as well. Join us as we examine, together, at what C.S. Lewis called “the secret thread.”

“To learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.” -The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People How do we make sure the uplifting spiritual truths we learn make their way consistently and directly into our lives? This service, by Curtis Childs, combines timeless moral principles with modern habit-forming techniques to help us become the people we aspire to be.

God writes of gifts. And these gifts are gifts of transmission, gifts both passed on and passed through us. Our task is how we hold them.

Grace and Mercy – two beautiful words. While they may conjure up images of church-gone-by, they are every bit as important to rediscover for our lives today.

“All creation groans” is a well-known quote. It points to the idea that there are two types of time – chronological time and pregnant time. Join us as we look at what might be getting born into our lives!

We are often tempted to place the problems of life “out there” versus starting with the challenges “in here.” Yet there is great beauty when we both see and share the at times humorous imperfections of what it means to be truly human.

How do we place ourselves in a new story? That is the core invitation of Christianity. The plot will surprise you! To understand how that "new story" might work, we are thrilled to have Brian Henderson join Pastor Chuck. Brian will share with us his journey from being told he would never walk again, to the small triumphs that led him back to the life he shares with friends and family today.

What would it look like in our daily lives to declare independence in our hearts, minds, and spirits? Did Jesus lay out a surprising declaration of independence in the Sermon on the Mount?

God’s work is around opening doors, not closing them. Let's take a look together into the open doors God places before us, and the beauty we can step into.

A Tribute to a Big Heart August 22, 1986 - Mat 23, 2021

Join us for an inspiring conversation with Paul West of West Memorials. Paul and his wife Missy work closely with families moving through the loss of a loved one. The lessons there are myriad about love and about living fully, right here, right now.

As we celebrate the birthday of our denomination, join us as we look at one of the keys around which we are organized ... that first things must always be recognizably first. This service will help demonstrate some of the priorities needed to stay peaceful and happy.

Balancing It All: A Look Back And A Look Forward - Part 2 There is a world filled with light and dark, both inside and outside of us. How do we come to balance it all at a granular level? How can we hold it all? Join us as we look at a new, fresh view of a faith that can do just that!

6/6/21 Balancing It All Part 1: A Look Back And A Look Forward Join us both online and in-person as we pull everyone together for this special service. We want to reflect on this past season of COVID, and all the experiences we were forced as a global community to navigate – the blessed and the broken. God’s singular vison is forever one of unwavering love, a love that seeks to open the eyes of our heart, as we move forward, as a congregation, through and with life’s challenges.

5/30/21 Is pursuit of the good life about going backward or forward? Jesus tells us that we have to become like a little child to enter the kingdom of heaven, and this Sunday join Curtis Childs as we are going to look at how we can combine a state of childlike innocence with the wisdom of a full life lived.

5/23/21 The Gospel of John begins with an almost annoying repetition of the word “grace.” Part of the good life is undeniably filled with grace-full moments. When God arrives in our lives, no matter how broken we are, apparently so does grace.

5/16/21 There are many paths to “the best life,” and only one that ultimately becomes ours. Along the way we have to balance the demands of that individual pursuit with our connections to our families, communities, churches and the world. The path becomes clearer if we can learn to listen for “the sound of the genuine” in ourselves and others, which we all have the capacity to recognize from God.

5/9/21 It should bring a knowing smile to recognize that we can make ourselves miserable any time, any place. Much of that unhappiness grows when we fail to differentiate between living A good life, as God defines it, and living THE good life, as culture defines it. When we focus on attaining THE good life, experience shows that we may never be satisfied because the rules change over time, along with our perspective. Usually we can find more contentment in the long run by just doing the right thing.

5/2/21 While it may not sound that exciting, humility actually has immense potential. It's the key to allowing God to bring us into heaven, and is the only truly accurate way to see life. Join Curtis Childs for a discussion about the benefits of bringing humility into our daily routine.

4/25/21 We can often fall into extremes in our relationships with other people where we either put them on a pedestal to be worshiped, or on the stand to be judged. Neither of these options is good for either them or us, but looking for the wider vistas in the space between these extremes expands the territory of our kindness. To move into that space, we need to choose community over anger as we reclaim "us".

4/18/21 Sin is not exclusively about weak people who give in, but far more about strong people who refuse to be bothered. How do we allow ourselves to be “bothered” by a chance to do good?

4/11/21 Our lives can be guided either by our phobias or our philias; our fears or our connections. People hunger for connection, and this week we will take a look at where God is guiding us in that very direction.

4/4/21 Join in as we celebrate Easter Sunday with a highly interactive, family service to inspire us to move the joy we feel into the lives we live. In this way, life can begin again right here!

3/28/21 In the face of impending crisis and violence, Jesus remained throughout the Easter story both saddened and at peace, aware of what was occurring, yet consistently choosing a higher path that leads to a “calm, quiet sea.”

3/21/21 One author beautifully noted how we will all experience “the grace of exhaustion,” or “the sacrament of stuck.” Those are, paradoxically, the places of exhaustion or feeling stuck where miracles often happen. The experience entails a journey through a truth telling that leads to the hope that is core to the Easter message. Bring your “stuckness” with you and we’ll try to appreciate it together!

3/14/21 Blessing it all is NOT easy. The Easter story is filled with very human stories of both blessing and betrayal, of light and dark, of heaven and hell. As we launch our four-part Easter series, we will explore how to hold those extremes in more life-giving ways. Winter gives way to spring....

3/7/21 How the Darkest Times in Our Lives Bring Us Closer to God As we begin emerging from a time when nearly all of us have struggled in one way or another, it brings up the question: why does God allow us to struggle at all? We’ll explore a mechanism that uses our times of powerlessness to strengthen our connection to our creator.

Forrest Keys Memorial Service 2/27/21

In this season of lent, we are reminded to offer a sacred “no.” We all wrestle with parts of life that we know do far more harm than good. Sometimes as we move toward becoming who we feel God is calling us to be, we have say “no” to those areas in our life that hold us down, and in that process find an even greater yes!

2/21/21 We face the temptation to either subscribe to the view that everything is possible or that nothing is possible in the long run. The real question that God asks us to hold is what is possible for each of us today? Let us look at life giving ways to reframe ourselves to sharpen our attention around small things we can do today to make the world better.

2/14/21 God finds us WHERE WE ARE. Simple and profound. He finds us in the reality of our everyday lives and calls upon us there. Even within the mundane limitations of our everyday lives, God gently leads us toward a new hope that says, together, we can make the world better. Join us!

2/7/2021 Jesus never commanded people to worship him. Instead, we find a consistent invitation to follow him. In that consistent invitation, and in following, we are encouraged to take responsibility for the world and our place in it.

1/31/2021 Finding our way towards a chance to make things better means we must first be open to rethinking. Rethinking our values, our goals, how we spend our time, and how we spend our money can enable us to rediscover a foundational sense of awe, finding God and our truest selves anew.

Memorial Service for Steven Petaccio 1/26/2021 Mother of Divine Grace Church, Philadelphia, PA

From service on 1/24/21 featuring Curtis Childs How do we make the church within us not just somewhere we go once a week, but somewhere that we live? Through careful building with the raw materials of spiritual truth, we can have the home of our dreams—right in our own minds!

Memorial Service for Bob Johnson January 24th, 2021 Grace Fellowship Church, Warren, PA