Common Ground Christian Church

Jonathan and David. Ruth and Naomi. John Mark and Paul. The similarities of gender have always created great friendships but what about opposite sex friends? Don’t go there right? They only and always lead to affairs and deep regret. They only and always create tension and should be avoided at all costs, right? When we talk about Faithful Friendship that pushes us toward mutual Christoformity, we cannot abandoned to the margins, the profound work of Christ that brings men and women together for mutual edification, mutual ministry, and mutual familial love. Paul and Phoebe shared a beautiful friendship that doesn’t get talked about enough and we can't wait to worship with you on Sunday as we look at the family being built up in Christ. Grab a friend for a worship Watch Party and we’ll see you Online at 10 am.

You will not be conformed to Christ on your own. No matter how hard you try, it takes friends and a church to live out the ministry of reconciliation because we hurt each other. We let each other down. We don’t know how far we have strayed from the road of Christ until another tells us how far off track we are. We can reject their words of rebuke or humbly listen to others as they remind us how far we have to go. The past two weeks we’ve looked at amazing friendships. David and Jonathan! Ruth and Naomi!! Come on, these are hard for us to relate to at time and so we come to the rub! The truth of the matter is that friendships are hard and friends let us down and even abandon us. The Gospel story does not let us off the hook when it comes to this kind of friendship either. Paul would preach about the ministry of reconciliation even if it was hard for him to practice it with John Mark! Truly having friendships that create a mutual Christoformity (walk together in Christlikeness) will demand accountability and re

Tucked away in between the wild account of the Judges and the rise of King David is the little book of Ruth. A young outsider who came empty to Israel and was filled by the HESED of God’s faithfulness. As we explore the Art of Friendship, let's look at how loyalty and being present can change everything. We’ve all had that friend who bailed when times got hard. We’ve also had friends who stabbed us in the back. Yet Ruth is pointing to a kind of love that moves beyond words and puts on display the heart of Christ. Loyalty and Presence.

This sermon series and study on friendship will be a bit more than a Hollywood portrayal of "The one where Ross and Rachel were on a break." It will be a little different than "The one with the jellyfish." These five weeks will look less like Woody and Buzz and not even like Mr. Rogers and Lady Elaine Fairchilde. We think there may be more to friendship than what we've been offered. Perhaps our quarantine has exposed a deeper longing to a deeper kind of connection.  The Gospel from the beginning of God creating mankind is about friendship. If God is love than God gets to set the parameters and mark the boundaries of love and that is where friendship takes an interesting turn than just, "we were in the same sorority" or "we both have toddlers."  The way the Gospel talks of friendship is surrounded by this concept of 'mutual Christoformity" which is another way of saying 'bonded in becoming like Christ.' Friendship, C.S. Lewis would say, begins when one person says to another, "What? You too? I thought I was 

1 Corinthians 7:32-35; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; 1 Corinthians 6:18-19; Hebrews 4:14-16 The single body of Christ is to be celebrated. In the same way that faithful marriages should be celebrated, you who are single and honoring God with your life are a sweet and precious gift to the church and therefore the world. Paul has a lot to say in 1 Corinthians about being single and I know for me, I didn’t often hear that in a positive way growing up. Perhaps you had the same experience and yet I want to encourage all of us to understand theologically what Jesus has done in his single body that we can all build one another up in Christ. Whether male or female, single or married, divorced or widowed, you are the beloved child of God and we need you to be the best version of Christ we can be! 

1 Corinthians 13 & Ephesians 5:15b-33 God gave us a beautiful thing when he gave us marriage. Community amidst diversity as the two become one flesh. This is a great mystery and while there are several mysteries about husbands and wives living out a faithful marriage, there is no greater mystery than the marriage itself being an image to the world of how Christ loves the church. Our everyday life of running around has come to a screeching halt and our marriages are being exposed for how we have invested in them over the years. Surely there is more we can all learn about ourselves and our spouses in this time and may Christ in his mercy get all the glory! Join us online as we hope to encourage, teach, and equip you to live out the months ahead with your spouse in a way that our pre-lockdown life left us too numb to see. 

John 20:1-31 The emotions surrounding the resurrection of Jesus have never been more raw to me than they are right now. From Mary’s tears to John’s foot race all the way to Thomases doubt, I can really feel the emotion this Easter as even the disciples didn’t know what to do with the tomb being empty. Your friends and family may be experiencing the same kind of raw emotion as we all walk through this season of isolation, fear, and doubt. I want you to join us as we worship together, sing together, pray together, and shout that glorious truth that “He is Risen Indeed” together. My prayer CG is that the power of the resurrection of Christ fills your heart and home like never before and you will be able to take comfort and faith into what the next several months bring us. “This has been written down that you might believe and that in believing, you may have LIFE IN HIS NAME!

Matthew 20:29-34 A strange Palm Sunday indeed. Normally we would have gathered in the Silk Mill for baby dedications and loud hosannas. However, we will gather in our homes with shouts of praise, tinged with lament. Perhaps this is a more accurate way to celebrate Palm Sunday anyway. In our text we look at Jesus’ actions right before the donkey ride. Two men, blind and poor, cry out to him for healing. “Have mercy on us Son of David!” These words ring in my ears as I think about the healing and blindness our world is experiencing right now. Please join us this Palm Sunday as we worship the King, who is humble and riding on a donkey, yet he is also the Healer who stops the parade to give sight to the blind.

Ephesians 4: 9-16 Here it is. The famous passage of St. Paul bidding the church to “speak the truth in love.” How has the recent pandemic changed how you talk to others? Are you being honest with yourself, with others, with your kids? It’s not easy this speaking the truth in love thing and yet Christ is perfect TRUTH and Christ is perfect LOVE. The Pattern of Redemption that we see in this reflection by Paul is that Jesus, ascended to the father, is pouring out love into the world through his Spirit and his church and we need to simply remain in him. 

Luke 15:11-32 When it comes to our own sin and shame, why do we reject the Pattern of Redemption found in Luke 15? Do we have some innate desire to pay for our own sin? Some primordial malfunction that rejects the kind of father Jesus describes? Maybe it’s just that his character of love is just so unfathomable to our own patterns of revenge and resentment. The son chooses to quarantine outside the confines of the Father’s home and love and finds himself infected with shame, sin, and regret. The offer of the good life filled with sex, money, and power comes crashing down on him, and the turn toward home is the beginning of grace. This week we will look at the story of a Father who runs after his son even when he’s been infected. In this case, in the case of sin and death, it’s only the love of a Father who breaks all the rules that can save. This is God! Our Father. 

Jonah 1-4 You’ve the exact opposite thing that God asks you to do. He says run south and you run north. He says love a people and you hate those people. He says repent and you keep on sinning. He says preach a sermon and you proclaim the least amount of information that might draw others toward God. He shows compassion and you show contempt. How does God treat a person like this? What does the story of Jonah teach us about the patterns of God’s love and redemption? Just when you think you’ve got God’s grace figured out, Jonah the prophet screws up our thinking about who God is and how God loves. Join us as we take another Old Testament look at the Pattern of God’s Redemption. Guest Speaker: Matt McCauley

2 Kings 5:1-14 We are in a series this spring that draws on and highlights the patterns of redemption that God has done throughout history. As bees have patterns in their honeycomb, so God has ways of restoring and redeeming those who we might think don’t deserve it. The story of Namaan is one such example. He was the captain of the Syrian army, a mighty man, a violent man, a powerful man, and one who had already invaded Israel and could at anytime, do it again. Yet in this story, it’s the God of Israel who has compassion on him and models for his people and the world, the kind of God that Yahweh is. The healing is strange, the whole event is strange, and yet God reveals something about his character that his own people had forgotten. Join us as we worship the author of life and the God of redemption.

Matthew 5:1-16; Galatians 5:16-25 Surprisingly the term ‘toxic masculinity’ is not new with the #metoo #churchtoo movement. In fact, the term has been around for over 30 years but it certainly seems like it’s having its moment. Some want to blame men for all the issues in the world and others want to believe that ‘toxic masculinity’ is an attempt to feminize our boys and label any man ‘toxic’ who holds to a more traditional view of manhood. However, when you strip away the political and cultural agendas, there is no denying that something is perpetuating the rape, murder, domestic violence, sexual and intellectual dominance, and ongoing sexism and systemic devaluation of women's bodies and opinions, that comes with the term ‘toxic masculinity.’  When Christ transforms a man, what does he do? What is he transforming that man into? Who in the Bible gives us a picture of what redemptive masculinity should and can be? We see Joseph, we see Boaz, we see Paul, but we have the absolute best model for what it means

1 Corinthians 6:13, 19-20; Acts 10:12-15; Ephesians 5:1-20; Romans 8:26-28 There are a few major eating disorders that clinicians and psychologists see every day in their offices. Our culture is one that, rather than feeding young girls and boys with body positive images and habits, has fed us with a false image of what is beautiful. Eating disorders develop for a variety of reasons and all of them need to be dealt with and taken very seriously. I hope you bring your daughters, your sisters, your neighbors, your sons, and friends. We are the body of Christ. How we feed it matters. This one is for the 10 million girls diagnosed with a clinical eating disorder. For the 1 million boys diagnosed. That’s just diagnosed. This is for those who need Lent to truly be about spiritual formation and not just a religious justification for a soul-sucking hunger. This is for your teens. For you as you work with them. For all of us who have ran to Krispy Kreme instead of to the one who gives daily bread! Bread!! I can’t eat

Exodus 20:14; Matthew 5:27-30; Hebrews 13:4; and John 8:1-11 What constitutes infidelity? In a culture of snapchat, emails, sexting, and high speed internet porn, how does a marriage survive and even thrive against such an onslaught of attacks? From workplace romances, to gym hookups and reviving emotional connections online, we have to talk about adultery. We have to talk about its warning signs and how to recover and get up off the floor and even move past it to regain trust if that is even possible. The Gospel has great news for all of us and we have to take our cues from the word of God on the page and the Word of God in Christ as he encounters a woman in John 8. Join us as we take a hard look at the one thing that tears more at the fabric of our marriages than any other thing. If you have a hurting friend or hurting spouse, this will be a redemptive move toward the heart of Christ who forgives and challenges men and women to be transformed and to “go and sin no more.”

2 Kings 20:1-11 We will be finishing up our series by looking at the life and near death of Hezekiah. If there is one thing that we will all do in this life, that is pray to God to heal, preserve, and save us from our deathbed. Hezekiah hears from God’s prophet that he will die and then he prays and the Lord hears his prayer and gives him another 15 years of life. This raises a lot of questions that may go unanswered, but it also highlights God’s power over death, and his desire to bring life. Join us as we look at Hezekiah’s fight for life and continue to grow in our trust in God through Christ who raises the dead! 

Exodus 32:1-14 As God and Moses are hashing out the language and stipulations of the covenant at Sinai, the people of God are down the mountain fashioning, sacrificing to, and dancing around the Golden Calf. God is furious. Moses is furious. God is ready to wipe them out. Moses is ready to argue. The story of the Golden Calf has so many implications for us even today. What is idolatry? How far can false shepherds lead the church away from the heart of God? In an act of Messianic foreshadowing, Moses intercedes on behalf of the people even though they are a wayward and unfaithful spouse to God. Join us as we look at lesson three in our series, Arguing with God. 

Genesis 18:20-33 In one of the most profound conversations in the Bible, Abraham goes back and forth with God about sparing the city of Sodom. His nephew Lot and his family lived there and while of course Abraham was concerned for his kin, his heart broke for the city as a whole. This argument with God puts on display for you and I a lot of things about the human heart, God’s character, and human sin. More than anything, Abraham is modeling for us how to pray and talk to God when the culture and society around us wants to live as if they themselves are their own God. Abraham asks for the righteous few to save the idolatrous many and God listens. Join us as we look at Sodom, the judgment of God, the intercession of Abraham, and the perfect mediator between God and mankind, Christ. 

Luke 1:46-56; Philemon 1:10-21; Romans 6:20-23 Mary. The teenage mother of Christ. She was born in occupied Israel. Rome had been the ruling presence for years. Outside rules and outside taxes forcing outside oppression over a people long oppressed. Then, at the birth of the newborn king, the insiders begin their fragility. Herod asks the wise men where the child is to be born. The hunt begins. The lies begin, “I too want to come and worship him.” Then the decree, “All male children under the age of two are to be slaughtered in Bethlehem.” Oppressed from the outsiders while on the run from their own king, Mary and Joseph find themselves in an unbelievably difficult position. The kind of position that Christ himself, had come to alleviate. The song O Holy Night, says, “Chains shall he break, for the slave is his brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease.” While we do not see this ceasefire in the governments of oppression and greed today, we do see the kingdom of Christ in the hearts of all who have