Westside Church

Advent Week 1: HOPE | The Advent season begins in a way we might not expect; it begins with longing, questions, and waiting. This hopeful posture of waiting is where God meets us – so bring your aches, longings, and questions to God, and let him form a sense of hope within you.

When it comes to thankfulness and gratitude, we can find ourselves in one of three positions: unthankfulness, reasonable thankfulness, or gospel gratitude. While thankfulness is a meaningful action, gratitude is a posture — a way of being — that we find when we trust that God perfectly loves us.

Vision Part 2 | This week we celebrated Global Sunday and looked back on how God has used Westside to reach people beyond our country’s boarders. As we prepare for the new year, we are reminded that God loves the entire world — not just our corner of it — and how we are called out of apathy and into Jesus’ Great Commission.

Vision Part 1 | Proverbs 29:18 reads, “Without vision, the people perish.” For two weeks, Senior Pastors Ben and Evan are expanding upon how Life, Love, Jesus does not serve as a catchy slogan for Westside Church, but as the foundation for the Jesus-centered community being formed here.

Sunday School Week 8 | Rahab’s story reveals that God’s grace reaches beyond labels, and that even the most unlikely people are welcomed into God’s Kingdom through simple faith. Through the redemptive grace that Jesus brings in the New Testament, all are invited to trade shameful labels and identities for new life in Christ.

Sunday School Week 7 | Joseph’s story shows us that God’s silence is not His absence. When we are deep in the pit, we can trust that God will turn what was meant for evil into good, just as He did through Joseph and ultimately through Jesus.

Sunday School Week 6 | Gideon’s story is one that shows us how God often calls insecure and unlikely people to lead—not because of strength they have built on their own, but because His presence alone qualifies them.

Sunday School Week 5 | Like the widow who faithfully collected empty jars to fill with oil in a time of desperation, we are invited to ask God for help in times of emptiness, disappointment, and waiting. God alone has the power to fill the spaces that we cannot.

Sunday School Week 4 | Jonah’s story shows us that God never gives up on us—even when we actively avoid Him. While Jonah ran from the Ninevites, hating them and believing them unworthy of God’s grace, God continued to pursue them despite Jonah’s greatest efforts.

Sunday School Week 3 | David’s courage to face Goliath came from years of quiet trust in God, not sudden, violent bravado. What might look weak—a sling with a few stones, a young boy tending sheep, or Jesus hung on the cross—is where God’s power and grace shows up.

Sunday School Week 2 | Courage does not always sound like the loudest voice in the room or look like the fiercest fighter. The story of Daniel teaches us that being courageous in a broken, anxious, and compromising world can – and should – look like going to God earnestly in prayer.

Sunday School Week 1 | How we read the Bible is just as important as if we read it at all. When reading stories like Noah’s Ark from the Old Testament, it is crucial that we look for Jesus in the worldly and divine violence of each setting—Jesus is our ark, and humanity is in desperate need of a Savior.

The Ten Commandments were not given as a list of rules to earn God’s love or avoid his anger, but as guidance for how people already freed by God’s grace can live in good relationship with Him and one another.

Good & Beautiful Week 6 | In looking for the purpose that God has in store for us, we often find ourselves wandering through the wilderness of life. We can step out of this wandering by staying open to God’s voice, actively participating in our own lives, and allowing God’s grace to saturate our shortcomings.

Good & Beautiful Week 5 | At the heart of transformation in Christ is practicing real love in community—not just symbolic gestures, but humbly serving and caring for people in their brokenness, just as Jesus washed His disciples’ dirty feet.

Good & Beautiful Week 4 | When God said that we are made in His image (Genesis 1:26), he did not mean that we are made in only God the Father’s image — He made us in his image as the Triune God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. From the very beginning, we were created to be in and grow in community.

Good & Beautiful Week 3 | Our hearts can only truly change when we replace the false narratives of our lives with the true narratives that Jesus calls us into. Even at our most broken, we are perfectly loved and accepted by Jesus—His call for us to live like him is an invitation for us to change for good.

Good & Beautiful Week 2 | The good life that Jesus tells us about is not found or achieved by sitting cautiously in a comfortable place that we know is safe. The good life is found by seriously pursuing Jesus—who has no intention to fence you in! There is wide-open, spacious life to be found in Christ.

Good & Beautiful Week 1 | Christianity is not rooted in performance or becoming a statistically better human—rather, it is quite inefficient. Relationship with Jesus is rooted in giving up our natural tendencies, like working for validation or refusing to truly rest, and accepting the invitation to live like Him.

Big Questions Week 6 | Hope in the context of Christianity is often depicted as the obvious, quick and easy answer to despair, but in the scripture, we see that “…creation was subjected to frustration…in hope” (Romans 8:20). Hope is not always a simple one-and-done solution, but one that requires vulnerability, persistence, and groaning (v. 22).

Big Questions Week 5 | Prayer is not a practice where we just ask God for things, but a space where we encounter God himself. Through prayer, we discover that our futures are not tied down by fate—instead, our lives are moldable in God’s hands.

Big Questions Week 4 | Seasons of doubt and exhaustion are not signs of spiritual failure but invitations into deeper honesty with God, who meets us with gentleness. When feeling uncertain, we are called to cling to God and seek community while asking questions and remaining curious.

Big Questions Week 3 | Discerning God’s will isn’t about chasing certainty, but about aligning our hearts with God’s promises, obeying His instructions, and walking by faith alongside others—even when it feels like our futures are teetering on our own decisions.

Big Questions Week 2 | When the Bible tells us to “cast all [our] anxieties on Him” (1 Peter 5:7), it does not say if we have anxieties—God knows that anxiety is a natural response in a broken world, so He gives us a solution to this worry: to always pray, always rejoice, always be thankful (1 Thes. 5:16-18), and always lift each other up (Gal. 6:2). You are loved by God!

Big Questions Week 1 | God’s grace is not something we can earn through effort, but a gift freely given because we are His. His standard is perfection—not relative goodness—and only through this gift of grace can anyone be “good enough” or justified before God.

Westside One: Ephesians Pt 7 | Christians are called to live as light within the world—rather than seeking safety through separation or risking compromise through assimilation, we are urged to rely on the incarnation of Jesus in our lives as we interact with the culture around us.

Westside One: Ephesians Pt 5 | Submission, slavery, and gender roles—while not dismantling societal hierarchies of the scriptures’ time, Ephesians 5 does subvert them by calling those traditionally with power—husbands, parents, and masters—to lay it down in mutual submission, mirroring the sacrificial love of Christ.

Westside One: Ephesians Pt 5 | If God’s perfect grace covers our imperfect lives, is it worth trying to live like Jesus if we’re just going to mess up anyways? We learn in Ephesians that true transformation begins not with trying harder to be better, but by deeply experiencing the love of Christ.

Westside One: Ephesians Pt 4 | Through the grace of God alone, believers are heirs to the “boundless riches of Christ” (v. 8). We are not to hesitate and hoard these gifts, but to spend them boldly and generously with the world.

Westside One: Ephesians Pt 3 | True community means embracing even those we find difficult – because Christ brings us near and makes us one through grace and kindness, not uniformity and sameness.

Westside One: Ephesians Pt 2 | Salvation is not earned by our performance or general goodness, but is a gift of God’s grace alone. Are you living a life fueled through-and-through by God’s free and perfect grace, or one of self-righteousness?

Westside One: Ephesians Pt 1 | Through Christ, we are sons and daughters of the King – no matter what your personal story, background, and past decisions are, there is nothing that can change the fact that you have been adopted into God’s family once you step into it.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 16 | Happy Easter! As followers of Jesus, we are encouraged to recognize that Jesus is already walking with us, even in our pain, and that the resurrection reframes our story with a living hope that truly reaches into our everyday lives.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 15 | Both Judas and Peter felt shame for betraying or denying Jesus – but while Judas succumbed to isolation and despair, Peter’s story shows that grace and restoration are possible when we bring our failures into the light rather than hiding in shame.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 14 | Meals are central to connection and community – they reminds us that even in times of stress or uncertainty, Jesus invites us to His table as free people, offering rest and relationship.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 13 | True worship often means choosing to be vulnerable for generosity’s sake and creating spaces of beauty in the world – it is an action that reflects God’s love into the world.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 12 | True love – both for God and others – stems from first receiving the unconditional love and forgiveness that God has already given us, and then intentionally sharing that love with those around us.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 11 | Finding attachment, identity, and success in worldly possessions like wealth and status can distort our faith, but God promises a fulfilled life when we search for fulfillment in him alone.

Jesus is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 10 | It is important for believers to recognize Jesus for who he is – not as a figure molded to fit worldly power and control, but as the Messiah, whose way requires sacrifice but is marked by humility, mercy, and love.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 9 | Jesus challenges us to be generous, curious, and actively seeking forgiveness when interacting with people around us, thereby transforming the world through the gospel.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 8 | God’s calling is not about waiting for specific, extraordinary signs – but about living out love, grace, and mercy in ordinary, daily actions, whether in our close circles or larger communities.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 7 | Jesus values our faith in Him over societal rules and religious condemnation. He invites all of us to come as we are and bring whatever we have so that we might begin a personal connection with our Creator.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 6 | Jesus models confidence in God’s sovereignty by leaning on two of God’s promises: He is present during the storm, even before the outcome changes, and that the worst storm is never the final word because of the resurrection.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 5 | Jesus uses the Parable of the Sower to highlight how the Word of God functions like a humble seed that needs to take root deeply within us to truly shape us from the inside out.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 4 | Jesus demonstrates that the Sabbath is intended to be a gift that meets the needs of people and provides a space for true rest, not a burdensome set of religious regulations.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 3 | Jesus intentionally sought out solitude with God, even when the world was pulling him in every other direction. To maintain peace in our lives today, we can also seek a rhythm of listening to God in solitude.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 2 | Faith can exist alongside doubt. Even in our spiritual questioning and confusion, Jesus does not waver in his love for us and encourages us to turn to him, believe in his words, and take a step of faith towards him.

Jesus Is King: The Gospel of Mark Pt 1 | Jesus’ choice to be baptized fulfilled God’s plan, demonstrated His identification with humanity, and revealed His authority through humility and sacrifice, rather than through strength and might.

While waiting on God can be difficult and vulnerable, we must realize that waiting on and trusting in God go hand in hand, and that those practices can cultivate hope and peace in our lives.

Christ reigns forever, including now. Even when our lives feel ordinary and mundane, we can recognize the divine in everyday moments, challenge assumptions about our faith, and embrace the surprising love and grace of God.