Since the beginning of time, man has attempted to create a savior and tried answer the question, “Why I am here?” The virgin birth shows us that salvation requires no effort from man—God so loved us that He overruns every guilt and every shame in our lives. This week during our special Carols by Candlelight services, Pastor Josh Kelsey shared an encouraging message on Jesus' birth. His perfect love came to live inside of us, through the Holy Spirit. Who can resist perfect love?
When the Good News of Jesus’ birth was announced to the shepherds, the angel’s first words were, "Fear not." This was the Kingdom announcement of the end of fear because Christ came to break the distance between us and God. This past Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey preached a message on Jesus restoring our lives and bringing an end to fear. We can live in freedom knowing that Jesus is with us and for us.
We often carry burdens we aren't meant to in our own strength - circumstances, worry, fear, or guilt. Jesus came to release all of that from us, for us to receive rest rather than trying to achieve it. This Sunday, Filmore Bouldes preached on coming to Jesus to truly find our rest. We need to stop running to ourselves and recognize our need for help, for Jesus.
Jesus elevated a symbol of weakness, a child, as the greatest in the Kingdom. Our society tells us to hide our vulnerabilities, but Jesus, who entered this world clothed in the weakness of a newborn baby, calls us to that same childlike humility, vulnerability and dependency on our Father. This Sunday, Emmanuel Hastings shared a powerful message kicking off our Advent series, challenging us to push past the pride and self-reliance we often develop in our adulthood in order to recover our much-needed posture of humility and wonder. To live by God’s strength and grace, we enter the Kingdom like a child.
Ambitious praise is the crescendo of our faith because praise reminds us of the One who saved us. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey urged us to live a life overflowing with praise and thanksgiving to God. Praise will always be the result of a life that is firmly rooted in Christ. The certainty of our faith will give us access to all the riches of God as we discover His great mystery.
Generosity is the way of the Kingdom. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey preached a message on Vision Sunday encouraging us to step out in our giving to build God's Kingdom in New York City and beyond. We give because we have already been accepted — not to earn salvation but out of the overflow of His grace in our lives. We release the miracle-working power of God when we give what may seem insignificant to us but can be used significantly by Him. May we be ambitious in our generosity, build the Kingdom and have hearts sown deeply in God’s vision.
We need to use the ambition God has given us to lift up the name of Jesus in our city. This Sunday, Pastor Josh launched our November series AMBITION on seeking to reclaim our generation's desire to build the Kingdom of God. The God we serve is an ambitious God — like Abraham, we are called to step out of our limited tents, lift our eyes to His unlimited vision and count the stars. Nothing is impossible with God, and as we trust Him, we will see Him do more than we can imagine.
God is not looking at the eloquence of the words in our prayers — He's looking for our honesty, our heart. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey finished our Motel series with fresh insight into the Lord's Prayer. Prayer gives God access to our hearts and shapes our earthly desires into heavenly ones — shifting our focus off ourselves and onto Jesus and His Kingdom. The more we surrender to His will, the more earth will look like heaven.
We are made in love and wired for love through Christ. God gave us intellect, so our intellect is spiritual and God-breathed but functions fully when we’re connected to the Vine, the Holy Spirit. This Sunday special guest speaker and cognitive neuroscientist, Dr. Caroline Leaf linked scientific principles of the brain to spiritual, intellectual and emotional issues in a practical way. We have a responsibility to steward and step into God's leading in our minds.
What is the state of the internal conversation going on in your life? This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey continued in our Motel series, sharing one of David’s Psalms and challenging us to shift our internal dialogue from that which is temporary to the eternal. Through remembering what God has done for us, we overcome the negative thinking that tries to dominate our internal conversation and are free to be a blessing to others. When we remember His goodness, we discover that Grace is a love that will never stop pursuing us.
The earth was always designed as a reflection of heaven. This Sunday, Pastor Josh continued in our Motel series, encouraging us to live out our calling as citizens of Heaven. Jesus is our great leader of this kingdom of grace, and He's given us the rights, privileges, and authority to represent Him here on earth. Through Him, we can live in freedom knowing that His love has secured our future.
God is not afraid of our running; His light will chase darkness down everyday. The battle between faith and fear is constant in the world around us. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey preached on God's eternal purpose in our lives and how faith propels us confidently forward as we rely on the unseen instead of the seen. Fear produces anxiety, but faith produces peace.
We are all on a journey, and God has a place and a spiritual home for each of us. He wants us to live with an eternal perspective to break free from a temporal mindset. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey launched our new series MOTEL sharing on checking out of the temporal to build the eternal. God wants us to lift our eyes to see in a new perspective — what is impossible with man is possible with God.
The Church is God's people. It's His place to save the whole world, to reveal that He is real. This Sunday as we celebrated our 3rd Anniversary as a church, Pastor Josh Kelsey preached a message on Jesus being the center of our lives and elevating our view of the church as we embark on this next year together. We are a part of the greatest move of God there has ever been.
Our souls are eternal and can only be satisfied by an eternal God. Our souls thirst just as we thirst physically when we are dehydrated. Are we spiritually dehydrated? We need Jesus, we need living water—this is what our soul craves and desires. This Sunday Pastor Josh Kelsey encouraged us to recognize our thirst. God does not judge us but has come to pour out living water upon our thirsty souls.
Our purpose is tied to God's grace and discovered in our surrender. We reveal the glory of God by enjoying Him above everything else. When we see God we see who we are and see the purpose He has for our lives. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey preached in our DRIVE series on the moment of surrender being the moment we find our purpose.
Whenever God gives purpose, it never leaves heaven without grace. At #ALLIN Team Night, Pastor Josh Kelsey shared a message on living the unbalanced, grace-filled, kingdom life as followers of Christ. Serving and building God's House is the purpose of God for every believer. God wants us to lean fully on Him and go all in with our unqualified faith.
Our purpose is built on the trust of Jesus. God wants to rebuild the engine in our hearts to drive us to His purpose for our lives. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey kicked off our new series, DRIVE with an encouraging message on our purpose in Christ. If Jesus is driving us, we will fulfill the purpose He has for our lives.
Jesus has given us an eternal identity. We are preservers of grace—preserving everything that looks like Jesus. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey preached the final message of our HUMAN series on what it means to be the salt of the earth. We are now the constant reminders, preservers and purifiers of His grace. As salt, we are the living examples and reminders that God's covenant of grace is active and real.
Where is your treasure? We're called to live not burdened by the things of this world, but with our eyes lifted by faith to see there's more to live for. In Christ, we've been given eternal riches beyond compare to the temporal riches of this world. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey encouraged us from the parable of the Rich Fool. God is generous toward us, and as His followers, we're called to be generous toward others.
The Beatitudes are portals to a new way of thinking. They are not platitudes, but paradoxes. This Sunday, special guest Pastor Brian Zahnd shared in our Human series on the Beatitudes. They offer blessings to those the world would deem 'unblessable.' The Beatitudes are the politics of Jesus in the government of God. If we can become a people formed by the Beatitudes then we will receive comfort and mercy.
Jesus wants to reform and regenerate our mindset through relationship with Him and prayer. This Sunday, Pastor Josh Kelsey preached on the power of prayer in our lives. God wants us to be shameless, bold, and persistent with Him in our prayers. The answer to our anxiety, stress, and fears will be solved in prayer.
Jesus uses our experiences as seeds for others to encounter Him and find freedom. Freedom is walking in the identity that God has for us. This Sunday, we had the privilege of hearing from two members of C3 Brooklyn, Nathalie David and Samuel Nicolosi, on the power of being found in Christ.
This Sunday, guest speaker Dr. Robi Sonderegger, clinical psychologist renowned for taking psychology from the frontline to the home front, shared how understanding and extending forgiveness is central to our faith. Through forgiveness, we become fully alive, learning to reconcile our past in order to get on with our future.