Denver Community Church

August 23, 2020: This Feels Impossible – Michael Hidalgo

Jerusalem is destroyed, flattened. It’s in habitants hauled away into exile. The city is “shamed by her destruction.” How do you even begin to speak about this? An impossible situation in which it seems no one cares and there is no one to listen - not even the Divine? In this elegy, the poet uses the picture of a woman - a widow who is alone. Saying things like, “there is no one to comfort her” and the widow saying, “No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit.” And the isolation only seems to grow. Because Jerusalem is destroyed no pilgrims come to celebrate the feasts, “The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed festivals.”

 

This is perhaps the hardest, most intense of the five poems. It finishes without hope, only a request; without light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, only a hope for some sort of revenge. What do we do in these kind of moments? We cry out. We lament. We lay it all out there, even if we are not wholly sure God is listening.

August 16, 2020:Holding Back Tears – Michael Hidalgo

We live in the midst of a country that believes “might makes right.” We are a country and culture that extols power, winning, strength, victory and conquering. More than that, we seem to have an aversion to suffering and pain of any kind. So we rush through it, we numb it, we deny it, we ignore it … anything to not have to sit in it and with it. This arrogance and unhealthy pursuit of a good time is crippling our souls.

Learning to lament has the power to liberate us and others. It gives us the chance to name what hurts, what’s wrong, what’s unjust, to acknowledge our weakness and move into the pain (which is the only way we will ever move out of it). In this, we can discover that lament has the potential to be prophetic in that it sheds light on the truth and holds that up to the light.

August 9, 2020: The Weightier Matter – Jasper Peters

Jasper Peter joins us for our final season of teaching "Sermons from the Heart" and speaks about compassion and what it looks like to live a life that reflects love. 

August 2, 2020: Holding Steady – Scott Oppliger

This week we will talk about how life has a way of shaking us up, especially right now in our world. One of the reasons we look to the Bible for insight and help is because the writers speak to our human experience. We relate. We know what the writer is talking about. King David shares his experience of being confused, anxious, fearful, and disoriented in Psalm 62. He declares that God is his rock and he won’t be shaken. What does this mean? What can we learn from David’s experience that could help us today? How can we be connected to God in ways that center and ground us in the midst of a tumultuous world?

Spiritual Formation Gathering – Confronting Systemic Injustice

As a faith community, we must continually challenge ourselves to follow the way of Jesus.  Included in this is educating ourselves about racism and engaging in the difficult work of dismantling systems of oppression that impact our BIPOC brothers and sisters.  Our process must include both personal contemplation and action. 

This recording is from our Spiritual Formation Workshop on the theme of “confronting systemic injustice”. This was a time to help us grow in our understanding and practice of the necessary internal work that we can do to support our advocacy. 

July 26, 2020: Hungry for Joy – Bekah Stewart

In this teaching, we will look at John 6 – the feeding of the 5000 and then Jesus saying "I am the bread of life." We will explore what it means to "taste and see that the Lord is good" through the practice of gratitude.

July 19, 2020: Follow the Leader – Nick Elio

We'll explore the process of discipleship by diving into the model that Jesus used with his disciples, exploring the great commission, and thinking about what it looks like for us to both have someone in front of us we are following and someone behind us we are leading.

July 12, 2020: The Courage to Rest – Amanda Lum

Many of us find ourselves weary and worn out. Especially in this time of a world-wide pandemic. God’s invitation to us is to experience rest and restoration in our lives even in the midst of all the demands we face. God created for six days and then “God rested”. One of the commands is to keep the Sabbath holy. What does keeping a Sabbath have to do with rest? Why is it hard to accept that invitation to rest? What does it mean to rest? How do we rest? These are the questions we will pursue in this teaching. 

July 5, 2020: Flesh & Blood – Dave Neuhausel

Explore how personal sin is merely the symptom of the much darker, insidious, and unseen diseases that are rooted in power and principalities.

June 28, 2020: Just This – Michael Hidalgo

The Church in Galatia was in a theological bind. They were arguing about what was expected of those who were a part of the Church. Rules. Beliefs. Expectations. All of these things have the power to bind us, to imprison us and shackle us as slaves in the world of poor religion. It’s nothing new, we do the same thing today. What God wants is freedom for all people.

Into this context, Paul writes and says, “The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.” That’s it. It is that simple. Our faith is to worked out in our lives and through our lives into the world by love. What if this framed our theology? Our beliefs? Our thinking? Our religion? Our church? Phrased another way, if our faith when worked out is not love, it is dead wrong. It’s possible, this really is the only thing that matters.