Common Ground Christian Church

As we continue reading Romans backwards and make our way through chapters 4 and 5, we are re-introduced to some of our forefathers, such as Abraham. Paul reminds us of the simple gospel truths that we have been declared righteous by God through faith, brought to life through Christ, and that through his righteousness grace will reign! Read over Romans 4 & 5 a couple times before Sunday and join us at 10am by the river.

We began at the end of Romans to look at the pastoral theology of Paul’s love for these five Roman House Churches. Now with this in mind of the Weak and the Strong, we enter the beginning of Paul’s letter that would have been read and questions answered by Phoebe. God shows no partiality. Paul is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. Paul is preaching and longs to see the believers in Rome to give them a spiritual gift and he longs for the unity of the church in the midst of Roman Empire! This Gospel of Jesus subverts Jewish Religion and Roman Privilege and that has something to say to us today in America. Grab your friends, your masks, your umbrellas for the sun or the rain, and meet us down behind the Silk Mill.  Come and join us in God’s beautiful creation by the river this Sunday as we look at what it means to love sacrificially or join our Zoom Church on Sunday at 10am.

We have always heard that God is a mysterious God but what do we mean by that? Usually we are talking about our own life and how our circumstances didn’t go according to plan. But what do we do when God opens up the door and begins to reveal to us that he loves more than just one particular group of people? Has your world been blown apart by just how big God is, or have you ever found that you’ve put God in a box as to who is in and who is out? Paul continues to call out the Weak in the Roman House Churches to show just how God’s plan all along was to include those who they believed were “out”! Grab your friends, your masks, your umbrellas for the sun or the rain, and meet us down behind the Silk Mill.  Come and join us in God’s beautiful creation by the river this Sunday as we look at what it means to love sacrificially or join our Zoom Church on Sunday at 10am.

What covid sacrifices have you made lately? Has the pandemic limited your interactions with family and friends? Some of you only do curbside grocery pick up. Parents are sending their kids to virtual classrooms while they work remotely in new office spaces at home. Zoom and emails have replaced our personal interactions. In the meantime we’re trying to make sense of the division and pain in our country. Disunity and social conflicts have become the norm. In light of these changes how do we offer our bodies as living sacrifices in meaningful and practical ways that serve our families and friends in need? Why is Paul cultivating communities of peace and unity when house churches are surrounded by a culture of power and privilege? Come and join us in God’s beautiful creation by the river this Sunday as we look at what it means to love sacrificially or join our Zoom Church on Sunday at 10am.

Romans 13 and 14 carry profound wisdom for how to live in the world as a follower of Christ. I’d ask that you read these chapters before Sunday as we talk about what this means for our relationship with God, with one another, and in the world. Paul is teaching the church in Rome how to be in the world but not of it. Join us for Zoom Church on Sunday and we hope that you’d share the zoom link with a friend and invite them to our online gathering and we’ll see you Sunday at 10 am. 

We are starting a new series this coming Sunday and I can’t wait to see you on our Zoom call! As the body of Christ is it so important to be reminded together of God’s mercy and grace. As we see one another and sing, even from our own homes, we are reminded that we are not alone and we are not crazy for believing that Christ is raised from the dead. Romans 15 and 16 have some important lessons for us and I’m looking forward to sharing those with you. Share the zoom link with a friend and invite them to our online gathering and we’ll see you Sunday at 10 am.

Being a bridge is painful. People have the opportunity to walk all over you, vandalize, and reject you. However, to stand in the tension between two paths and connect the least, last, and lost to the love of God and to be the conduit for that connection is the mission Christ has given each of us. So yes, the bridge is out. We can’t get to where we need to be from where we are, your friends need to see Christ lived out amidst systemic racism and hate. Our city needs to see the way of Christ lived out amidst fear of death and fear of Covid. Our families need to see and hear the kingdom of Christ lived out amidst greed, division, and political rage. The Good News of Jesus tells us that Christ has bridged the gap from darkness to light and from death to life. However, to follow Christ is to emulate Christ and to be that bridge for others. This takes practice but more than anything it forces us to love the unlovable. The way Christ loved us. Join us in our Zoom call on Sunday at 10 am! We can’t wait to see your fa

There is no foundation in this life worthy of building upon if that foundation cannot withhold the storms that come with being human. Jesus, as he finishes out the Sermon on the Mount talks about the foundations that we are tempted to build upon that have nothing to do with his law of love and salvation. Through the past six months and perhaps even longer we have had the ground shaken beneath us. From work, school, politics, and divisions in our nation, cultural foundations have been exposed as not being worthy material to build on. Join us for Zoom Church on Sunday as we worship Christ and relay the ancient foundations that can sustain us in our troubled times. Share the Zoom link with a friend or a neighbor and have them join Common Ground as we worship.

To remember is to flourish in fidelity, to forget is the first step in idolatry. We have had months and months of our normal way of life disrupted and the temptation to forget Christ and his commands is ever present. When the bridge is out there is a detour sign that points us to the long way round. Israel found themselves forgetting God, forgetting his prophet Moses, and refusing the long way around to their physical and spiritual destination. We often think we know the best way to go or a shortcut without listening or following the instructions of the detour. For Israel, this disobedience, this forgetting, led them into one of the most idolatrous moments recorded in the Bible. Join us on Sunday as we talk about how to avoid the construction of Golden Calves and grow in our trust of God through and around the detours of life. See you at 10 am on Sunday! Grab the zoom link and share it with a friend and have them join us at church on Sunday as we sing, worship, and welcome the long way home!  

What are you to do when you come face to face with your own prejudice? Some people entrench even deeper into the divide while the Chrisitan understands that God shows no partiality. In our nation, we have to come to grips with the reality of our past and as a Christian we have to be clear about our unique future. The Lord gives Peter a gift that will speak to our own prejudices and I hope you join us on Sunday at 10 am! 

As we begin our new series we will be talking about the Israelites staring at the Red Sea in front of them and the enemies of Egypt behind them. What do you do when you feel stuck? How do we march forward when fear is one side and the impossible is on the other? As the people of God we rejoice that God provides a way through the wilderness, no matter what wilderness we find ourselves in. Join us on Sunday in our zoom call as we worship together this week! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Solomon talks about gossip as the tiny morsels of speech that destroy another. I had a friend growing up who’s grandmother would always have a bowl of M&M’s out on the counter. We’d walk by and eat one and then walk by and eat another, then we’d run by and grab a handful, and then after lunch run in and grab a few more! These tiny morsels were never meant to just be consumed as “once-a-day medicine.” Gossip is like that. Easy to grab, easy to consume the lives of others, easy to destroy another and not even know what we are really doing. As we finish out our series on the Deadliest Sins, we had to add a bonus sin to really speak to the times we are living in. Gossip destroys churches, break rooms, schools, and homes. The Gospel is the spreading of “good news” and gossip is the spreading of bad news from a bad heart. Join us online this Sunday as we look to purify our hearts from where all the negative speech pours from!

Lust brings an intensity that causes one to abandon logic, morality, wisdom, relationship, and love. It is a psychological storm of the bending and breaking of truth and goodness. The results of lust are crippling; it’s unruly, reduces meaning, infiltrates the purest of pure and the best of intentions; It corrupts; It separates. While this force permeates the likes of power, money, love, and food, most commonly we associate lust with sex. The bottom line: lust distracts, disorders, and separates us from the relationships that should matter most. But while we try to define what lust is and recognize the harmful characteristics it brings, it’s even more important to be reminded of Jesus’ desire for to mend and bring order to chaos. Join us this week online as we look at the relationship of Lust and its effect on the body, mind, soul and heart.

We have a false perception when it comes to the sin of gluttony. We tend to think of the overweight person stuffing their face and caricatures of unhealthy, slobbering, consumers usually fill our idea of gluttony. This could not be further from the truth. The Deadly Sin of Gluttony shows up in all kinds of ways when we control or are controlled by food that really is symbolic of a deeper spiritual issue. Christ has given us taste buds and flavors, he’s given us fasting and feasting, he’s given us bodies that need to be ready for work and rest, so what does it mean in our day in age to be a glutton? We live in a body image culture and how we think about food has got to come under the Lordship of Christ. Join us Online this Sunday as we look at what it means to be controlled by Christ and not our bellies.

We come to that horrible Deadly Sin that benefits no one!! Of all the Deadly Sins, Envy doesn’t even bring a temporary pleasure. It serves and helps no one and only destroys and kills. Yet, where does it come from, what are the sources of envy and why are the objects of our envy usually those who are close to us in one way or another? From the beginning story of Cain and Abel we see that envy is after the affection and love that assumed is lacking. Self worth, self image, and the ability to love one’s self has a lot to do with envy, in fact it has more to do with envy than what another person has. For the church this is a particularly wicked sin because it attacks love at the roots. Join us Online this Sunday as we worship Christ resurrected and grow in our love for one another! 

As we work through the Seven Deadly sins we come upon the one that deals with our possessions and desires of things. Avarice is another way of saying, “I want it all.” Oftentimes this will be translated into the word greed but even that misses some of its nuance. Where did we learn that kind of behavior? Why did our parents have to remind us to share as a little child? How has greed played a role in our national conversations about economies, race, violence, wars, and the American Dream? On a personal level how has avarice or your desire to have it all, formed your heart in Christ? We cannot serve two masters right? Jesus said we will either love money or love God, but we can’t do both! Ask a friend to join you online this Sunday as we look at the scriptures and look to Christ as the remedy for our greedy hearts and put to rest this deadly sin.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the Seven Deadly Sins is Slothfulness. Why? We’ll discuss this coming Sunday but in preparation for that, how important is it for us to heed St. Paul’s words in Galatians 6: Do not grow weary in doing good. How difficult it is to get up off the couch sometimes and attempt to care for basic household tasks much less the problems of the world, right? But on the other hand, how easy is it to work our careers 110%, throwing ourselves into household redesign projects, or PTA meetings, or our children’s sports teams rather than address the needs of a hurting neighbor. Join us online this Sunday as we continue in our Time to Heal series, addressing the deceptively deep and pervasive sin of Slothfulness. And remember brothers and sisters: Do not grow weary in doing good.

Likes, re-tweets, and shares. Thank you cards. Medals, ribbons, and badges. Cheers and applause. Our culture nurtures the endless pursuit of recognition and praise, and Christian culture doesn’t lag far behind. This week in our Time to Heal series, we tackle the insidious sin of vainglory, which trades the authentic desire to be truly known as we are for the cheap counterfeit of being known for what we do, what we stand for, and what we say. Join us online this Sunday as we again look to Jesus, who alone can heal us. Journey with us as we seek to understand what real glory looks like and to whom it belongs.

Solomon describes the world as he sees it in Ecclesiastes in his now famous litany of how the world moves. There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to kill and a time to heal. Solomon is not prescribing what is OK, he's describing what is. With so much loss, death, and division, we as the believing community of Christ want to be a part of the healing, but how can we give the world that which we do not have? When the bank comes back on our virtues with "insufficient funds" we know that vices have taken over and we have nothing to offer a thirsty world. However, with each of the deadly sins, anger, vainglory, sloth, avarice, envy, gluttony, and lust, there is Christ centered, and a communal invitation to healing, freedom, and unity. Join Common Ground over the next couple months as plead with Christ for A Time to Heal!

We finish out our series this Sunday with the amazing friendship of Paul and Timothy! For every younger person who had a trusted older friend who believed in them and poured into them and saw them as an equal, this is the quintessential discipleship relationship. The truth is that our friendships and closest relationships form us. They either malform us or they form us to be more like Christ. There is no middle ground. Join us online this Sunday as we worship, sing, pray, and seek the hope of Christ for our world! Grab a friend and have a worship watch party!