We entrust quite a bit of our well-being to leaders. We trust them with everything from our physical well-being to our financial and even emotional well-being. But what happens when leadership is unhealthy and has a negative or even toxic impact on our lives? In this sermon, Pastor Rich helps us identify dangerous leadership by three types of behavior and leads us all to the Cross of Christ for its remedy-- leaders and the led alike.
1 Timothy chapter 2 has been interpreted for hundreds of years in a way that has prevented women from holding positions of leadership in various religious groups. As a result, countless women have internalized the idea that they are inferior to men and less legitimate as leaders. In this sermon, Pastor Rich biblically refutes the interpretations of this passage that have kept so many women from leading others. He tells women their service in leadership and in ministry are not based on gender but only on a call from God. If you would like more information about women in ministry, including Vineyard's position and past sermons Pastor Rich has preached on the topic, click here: http://www.vineyardcolumbus.org/ministries/women/resources/ .
Pastor Rich kicked off the new sermon series "The Making of a Leader" this week. Over the next several weeks, we will look at 1 Timothy and see how the Apostle Paul advised Timothy to be the leader that God called him to be. This week, in 1 Timothy 1, we learned some practical ways a young leader can start out strong. Find a mentor. Don't quit. Deal with problems. Make the main thing the main thing. And, finally, don't do anything stupid!
Surely, we all want to be whole. We all want to share long, healthy lives with our loved ones. We all want to experience joy and to see the conflict, struggle and pain in our lives wiped away for good. In this sermon, Pastor Rich unpacks the meaning of "Shalom" and its connection to the wholeness the world craves so deeply. He unveils for us the access we all have to finally seeing a world fully alive.
Money affects nearly every aspect of our lives-- our relational, emotional and even physical lives. And when we have more desires or plans than we have money, the effects of the resulting stress can be devastating. Financial stress has been linked with many cases of severe depression and cited as a common reason for divorce. In this sermon, Pastor Rich responds to the financial stress we experience with a message from the Gospel of Matthew. He helps us reframe our relationship with money, our approach to money and our use of money in order to become more financially alive.
Pastor Rich set up our upcoming Fully Alive campaign by reminding us that goal setting is biblical. As our church looks into becoming more Fully Alive during the season of Lent, Pastor Rich encouraged everyone to set goals to become more spiritually alive, more physically alive, more emotionally alive, more relationally alive and more financially alive. He gave some very practical steps in not only setting goals, but accomplishing those goals.
It's easy to grow complacent and settled into the cultural expectations that often confine our choices. But God often calls us outside of those expectations-- regardless of our age, our gender, or our life situation. Pastor Rich challenges us to change our life-guiding question from "What do I want out of life?" to "What does God want out of me?" When we open ourselves to be used by God in spite of what the world expects of us, we can do great things for God.
Research as shown that the most lasting and fulfilling happiness there is doesn't come from buying more things-- it comes from collecting more meaningful experiences. We are beginning to crave a great experience more than we crave the next fashion trend or the coolest gadget. It's no wonder that Jesus Christ left us a Holy Spirit, not just to be passively aware of, but to be deeply experienced. In this sermon, Pastor Rich explains what it looks like to deeply experience or be filled with the Holy Spirit and challenges us to live a Spirit-filled life.
As he continues the series "Spiritual but not Religious?", Pastor Rich examines the importance of being part of a Christian community to inspire spiritual growth. There are dozens of commands in the New Testament that we cannot do on our own, we need each other. That's where spiritual growth starts.
More and more people are describing themselves as spiritual but not religious. And many of the people who describe themselves this way have felt disappointed with their experiences in church and believe their communities outside of the church provide enough to achieve spiritual maturity. In this sermon, Pastor Rich teaches us the uniqueness and necessity of the community we find inside the church. He challenges us to resist the urge to rely solely on our secular relationships and to fully embrace the role church plays in our individual spiritual growth.
You can tell how well someone knows another person by how he or she addresses that person. If the name someone uses to address another person remains formal like "sir" or "ma'am", chances are he or she isn't too familiar with the person to whom they're speaking. In Mark 8, Jesus invites Peter to declare his name for Him by asking, "Who do you say that I am?" And in this sermon, Pastor Rich presents the same question to us. The way we respond becomes an indicator for the kind of relationship we share with God.
What is it that you love more than anything else-- that you treasure deeply and would have the most difficulty releasing over to God? If Abraham were asked this question, he would likely have said, "My beloved son, Isaac." Isaac was Abraham's treasure, yet God asked him to sacrifice Isaac atop a mountain in Moriah. In this sermon, Pastor Rich prepares us for that moment when God asks us, “Will you trust and obey me and my Word regardless? Will you lay down your own personal Isaac?”
In our Western culture, we don't often think of cowardice -- much less do we think of cowardice as a sin. In this sermon, Pastor Rich examines the root, consequence and defeat of cowardice in Abraham's life. We are challenged to search our own lives for the areas that are prone to cowardice so we know what decisions to make toward greater faith and Christlikeness.
In this sermon, Pastor Rich continues his series on the life of Abraham, "The Journey of Faith". Our faith shouldn't limit God, but there are several ways that Christians do limit God - through their impatience, passivity and remembering their past failures. Almighty God is beyond these limits.
Pastor Rich continues The Journey of Faith series with “Finding God in All Things”. We go through seasons of difficulty and dissatisfaction, but our faith will grow when we are able to find God in all things.