Welcome to CoreGroups! Ice Breaker: Share a brief introduction (if there are new people in your group) OR share a highlight from your summer (if an existing group) and one or two words that come up for you when you hear Holy Spirit.Opening Prayer: Holy Spirit, we are so grateful to be together today. We thank you for you presence with us among us. May you illuminate what we most need to hear as we...  Read More

September 17 is The Gathering’s golden birthday, meaning we’ve been worshiping together for 17 years! I still remember the first worship service in our old McCausland site, on September 17, 2006. There was no air conditioning (brutal), no cross on the wall (we were still building it), and no technology to speak of (someone held a projector on their lap with song lyrics). It was rough around the ed...  Read More

Today is my 46th birthday and in honor of another trip around the sun, I thought I would share 46 lessons learned thus far in life. Enjoy, and I hope to see you this weekend. 1. Eat dessert first.2. Run towards something, not away.3. When something is hard, you’re on the cusp of a breakthrough.4. Feelings are too fickle to follow.5. The key to happiness is good relationships.6. Don’t take good par...  Read More

For many of us, we come to church each and every week, but still feel like we don’t know anyone. It is hard to connect with people on a Sunday morning. For others of us, we have friends outside of church, but no one to really talk about faith with. Having a group of friends that we can actually get to know and talk about our faith with can be valuable, especially if you have never tried it.  That ...  Read More

This Sunday, I will preach a really important message, and I hope you will be in worship to hear it. It matters deeply. I am currently preaching a series called Let’s Talk About… where I asked you about the topics, questions, or issues that you wish a church would address. I received a lot of great answers but none were as frequent as questions about sex, sexual ethic, sexual orientation, and gend...  Read More

I often get emails from parents whose kids suddenly express doubt in God or resistance to going to church. Teenagers often question the faith they were raised in, or even reject it all together. Parents of adult kids will regularly ask me how they can foster faith in their uninterested children and grandchildren. Many of us have a partner or spouse that doesn’t believe in God or has very little in...  Read More