Christ Church Evangelical Covenant

The Law: People of the Book (Lyle Mook)

This morning, as we continue our year-long look at the whole story of scripture, Lyle Mook invites us to be "People of the Word" who recognize and understand the importance of allowing the scriptures to form us. With that encouragement, though, comes an important reminder about the role of the law: it cannot in itself make us good. And so, we must instead allow the scripture to point us to the One who is truly good.

Sinai: It’s All In a Name (Pastor Cheryl Lavornia)

If God were trying to get your attention, what would it take for you to notice? For Moses, God got his attention through a mysterious burning bush. And once God had his attention, what did God show to Moses? Even before he called Moses to the miraculous work of deliverance that would lead God's people through the Red Sea, God wanted Moses to know who he was: the God if his father and forefathers. As Pastor Cheryl continues our year-long series about the whole story of scripture, she invites us to look at the things in our lives that may be drawing our attention away from what God wants to show us.

Abraham and Isaac: Where Loyalties are Tested (Pastor Cheryl Lavornia)

Time and time again, God shows that he is faithful. And because He is faithful, we are able to believe in the promises that He makes. But, it is important to remember that God's promises are always part of His covenant -- that He will be their God. In our story today from Genesis 22, God asks for Abraham's trust by commanding Abraham to sacrifice his promised son, Isaac. And as the story plays out, we come to learn that God was testing Abraham's loyalty to him (and, we come to learn that God is the one who provides for what he requires). In today's message, Pastor Cheryl encourages us to identify our own loyalties to try to understand where we may be placing our trust in something other than God.

Abraham: The Call to Go (Pastor Cheryl Lavornia)

As we continue our year-long focus on the whole story of scripture, Pastor Cheryl helps us shift our focus from the creation to Abraham. Genesis recounts the call that God gave to Abraham, and highlights the blessings attached to it - God would establish Abraham's family as people who would be "set apart" to bring God's blessing to the whole world. Pastor Cheryl helps us see the promises that gave to Abraham, and invites us to consider what a life of faith would look like today. Will we respond to God with the same faith that Abraham did?

The Adventure of Being Human (Lyle Mook)

Last week, Pastor Cheryl looked at the very beginnings of the story of scripture to try to begin to see how the whole story points us to Jesus. Today, Lyle Mook draws our focus into the tension between the identity we have as bearers of God's image (imago Dei) and the brokenness we come to realize in ourselves when we allow our "disordered loves" (a reference to Augustine's writings) to shape us. And so, the question is: how do we reconcile the two within ourselves? Or, perhaps more appropriately, how do we allow God to do the work of reconciliation within us?

Creation: The Prologue and the Plot (Pastor Cheryl Lavornia)

Today, we kick off our year-long walk through the entire story of scripture! Pastor Cheryl starts us at the very beginning of the Bible, where we find the familiar stories of Creation, Eden, Babel, Noah, and the generations in between. As Pastor Cheryl highlights vignettes from within the first eleven chapters of Genesis, she calls us to consider what they reveal to us about God's plans and purposes, and our understanding of the part we play within them.

Spiritual Family (Pastor Cheryl Lavornia)

In today’s sermon, Pastor Cheryl invites us to reimagine our approach to the ways we do through church through “The Moonshot Rule,” a term coined after John F. Kennedy urged people to aim to accomplish things that seem “out of the real of possibility.” The church in Acts started to reach for these kinds of things as they met together, shared what they had, and gave to those who had need. What could it look like for Christ Church, today, to embrace the big dreams of our even-bigger God for our church and our community? It might take some re-imagining!

Living Into Who We Are Becoming (Pastor Cheryl Lavornia)

God is always at work in us, helping us to become more like him, and helping us to more fully reflect his character through our lives. That sounds exciting! But, once we realize that "becoming more like him" requires us to forgive like he forgives, it can be challenging to find the ways to live up to the invitation. In the closing sermon from our Hook Line & Sinker series, Pastor Cheryl helps us understand the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, and what God calls us to for each.

Revenge Mode (Pastor Cheryl Lavornia)

In week 5 of our Hook, Line, and Sinker sermon series, Pastor Cheryl invites us to consider our response when we fall for the bait of offense. When we are wronged, we all-too-easily understand the desire to take matters into our own hands. But, God has a different plan for us in Romans 12, that we might "conquer evil by doing good."

The Rock of Offense (Pastor Cheryl Lavornia)

Being "offensive" in basketball is a good thing, but "being offensive" to others in real life is a whole different story. It places the one who is offended in a diffult place as they figure out how to respond. However, as Pastor Cheryl shares, there are times where Jesus himself actually offended entire groups of people! The pharisees, his family, and his disciples all quickly come to mind. And, the more that we reflect on these examples, the easier it is to find ourselves upset about what Jesus says and does, because for us to listen to him will ofen require something from us that we might not want to change.