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Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you about the hope you have. This instruction comes from God through the Apostle Peter. I cannot tell you how often I have bungled the answer to the question because I have not been prepared. A couple of those incidences haunt me a little but past failures can also spur on present preparedness. So, what does the hope you have sound like? What does the hope you have look like? How has it transformed who you are? Maybe you are a little short on hope these days. If this is the case we are going to have some conversation on Sunday about our hope and how we can be a people of hope. Looking forward to being together on Sunday!

Last year, I know it seems a long time ago, we took time to study the God Jesus loves and invites us to love. We uncovered some lies we believe and hopefully saw God the Father in a new light. Then, we looked into the life Jesus calls us into and the sin Jesus calls us away from in order to live this beautiful and abundant life. Now, we turn to focus on living all this out in community. God designed us for community, but this is hard work. God designed us to be inter-dependant but often we default to independence. Yet the Bible tells us over and over, we are on this journey to eternity together. Over the next few weeks we are going to dig into what the Bible says about community beginning with this fact, we are being shaped by God into a ‘royal priesthood’ for a specific purpose. I hope to see you all Sunday!

Restoration. It’s a word which means the act of “giving back, returning, putting or bringing back into existence or use, bringing back to or putting back into a former or original state, renewing, putting again in possession of something.” We restore things we consider to have value to us, whether said value is material or sentimental. Bottom line, if it has value you keep it, fix it, love it well. But we live in a ‘throwaway’ society and we even treat people this way. There is a profound part of the Easter story that may have become too familiar for us, the story of Peter’s restoration. Peter, the disciple who vehemently denied even knowing Jesus, is not a throwaway. There is no such thing in God’s kingdom, unless you’re talking about sin, but God doesn’t talk this way about people. Restoration. It’s a breath of fresh air, just like Spring. I hope to see you all Sunday.

“I need to see it.” I often say this to people when they are trying to describe something to me in terms I am not familiar with. Or, we also hear it from people when something sounds too good to be true. We are taught to be skeptical and sometimes rightly so. But when confronted with the resurrection of Jesus Christ we are forced to re-evaluate our mental models of life. People don’t rise from the dead. And yet Jesus did and confronts doubt not with anger or shame but with grace and invitation. After Easter the traditional text is the story of Thomas’ encounter with Jesus. Let’s not treat Thomas unfairly as a ‘doubter’ but acknowledge we all have doubts at times and hear how Jesus responds to them. See you Sunday!

After the events of Good Friday, we need Resurrection Sunday. It’s such an incredible event, the Resurrection, reminding us death does not have the last word. It’s an event which secures our life in Jesus, for all those who have faith in Him. It’s an even which propels the Church in a giant leap forward. As we celebrate on Sunday, we who await the final resurrection, are encouraged once more. Encouraged to press forward, encouraged to resist sin, encouraged to live out our faith because our Saviour lives. See you Sunday!