God wants everyone to experience His joy, no matter their starting point. This feels great when we’re receiving grace, but what about when we’re the ones forgiving, accommodating, or celebrating with family or friends who have hurt us, or failed to meet our expectations? At Christmas, we’re reminded that Jesus left His heavenly home to bring us int…

Home. It's a word that can elicit feelings of comfort, rest, and safety. At Christmas-time the word may spark memories of brightly colored packages under the tree, the nostalgic smell of hot cocoa, or the pleasure of extended time with family. As we get older, we don't just enjoy home — we become home for someone else: neighbors, friends, children,…

In the last week of our Boundless series, we'll reflect on the security believers have in God's love. Paul asks, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" and answers: No hardship, suffering, or power can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Join us for our final look into Romans 8, a powerful reflection on the life of the Spi…

In the third week of our Boundless series, we’re looking at what God has in store for our present and future. Join us for the continued dive into Romans 8, a powerful reflection on the life of the Spirit and the assurance of God’s enduring love for believers.Verve City Church

In the second week of our Boundless series, we’ll explore our identity as followers of Jesus. What does it look like when we allow God’s boundless love to transform our hearts and our lives?Verve City Church

Following Jesus isn’t about following a bunch of rules; it’s about allowing God’s boundless love to transform your heart and your life. What would it look like to live for future glory… now? Join us Sundays in November to dive into Romans 8, a powerful reflection on the life of the Spirit, the hope of future glory, and the assurance of God’s enduri…

Our Halloweekend message is a look at one of the spookiest stories in the Bible: The Witch of Endor. Note: This message is PG-13 for some adult themes and general spookiness!Verve City Church

In the final week of our True North series, we're exploring how the Holy Spirit guides us toward Jesus, grows the fruit of love in our hearts, empowers us for ministry, and distributes spiritual gifts and talents among us to help build up the Body of Christ.Verve City Church

Our True North series is a look at the compass within us all, a profound calling that cuts through the noise and confusion. This week, we're looking at another fundamental truth: God does not love us because we are good; God loves us because He is good.Verve City Church

In a culture addicted to noise, speed, and endless options, it’s no wonder so many of us feel lost, pulled in a thousand different directions. We’re bombarded with messages about who we should be, what we should want, and where we should go. But what if there’s a compass within us all, a more profound calling that cuts through the noise and confusi…

We have a tremendous capacity to innovate and create. That power can be used for good—to care for each other and the world—or it can be used in destructive ways to oppress and dehumanize others. The lesson of Babel is the tremendous damage that can occur when humans devalue one another and God. Series Overview: If you grew up in the United States, …

Many Christians have mistaken Jesus’ call to service as a rebuke against aspiration. In a special message for VIP Night, Josh challenges us to achieve greatness – together. On Aug. 24, we welcomed all VIPs -- VERVEY IMPORTANT PEOPLE! -- to share a special night of worship, vision-setting, opportunities to get involved this fall, and a sneak peek of…

A defining attribute of God is that he brings order out of chaos. The flood narrative is a hyperbolic theological story that helps us understand the pain of a chaotic world and the heroic lengths God will go to to establish the order required for human flourishing through his relational covenant. Whatever chaos is currently pervading our lives, we …

Understanding Cain and Abel's story reveals our deep-seated human struggles with comparison, accountability, and the choices that shape us. Cain’s actions show how sin has evolved from an external influence to an internal force that wreaks havoc in our lives and the world. The Mark of Cain leaves us asking the question, can God do anything about th…

Guest speaker Mike Obadja challenges us to redefine our relationships in the context of following Jesus with "The Culture of Blessing." Series Overview: Verve City Church's July series, Voices, features practical perspectives for everyday living. Join us each week for a message on blessings, comparison and wisdom.…

Guest speaker Adam Smith teaches a message about comparison – and how we can manage feeling like "the other" by focusing on our relationship with Jesus. Series Overview: Verve City Church's July series, Voices, features practical perspectives for everyday living. Join us each week for a message on blessings, comparison and wisdom.…

What can we learn from one of the wisest guys who ever lived? Plenty! In the final message in our Voices series, Audrey explores practical ways to acquire and apply more WISDOM. Series Overview: Verve City Church's July series, Voices, features practical perspectives for everyday living. Join us each week for a message on blessings, comparison and …

Adam and Eve were perhaps real people, but they were far more than that. They serve as archetypes for us: Their failure is our failure, and there are consequences for our sin and brokenness. But God is not content to allow our story to end in tragedy. Rather, from the very beginning, he goes about setting a plan in place to redeem who we are and re…

In this online-only message, we explore a few final questions in our Any Questions series. Where are dinosaurs in the Bible? Were Adam and Eve real people? Are all other religions wrong, or do they use different language to point to the same reality? Series Overview: Faith and doubt make excellent dance partners. In this series, we’ll explore some …

In the last week of our Any Questions series, we squeezed in as many of your awesome questions as we could -- including the topics of good and evil, misogyny in the Bible, infertility, and church scandals to name a few. Series Overview: Faith and doubt make excellent dance partners. In this series, we’ll explore some of YOUR biggest questions about…

How can we know if God, Jesus and salvation are real? How do we reconcile the loving Christian God when there have been and are so many other world religions? Can we trust a book as old and disputed as the Bible? Series Overview: Faith and doubt make excellent dance partners. In this series, we’ll explore some of YOUR biggest questions about life, …

Does science affirm or contradict Christianity? How can a scientist interpret the book of Genesis pertaining to how the world was created? How does evolution relate to the Bible? Were Adam and Eve real people? Series Overview: Faith and doubt make excellent dance partners. In this series, we’ll explore some of YOUR biggest questions about life, fai…

What happens when you die? Where do you go? And what happens to the people we care about? Series Overview: Faith and doubt make excellent dance partners. In this series, we’ll explore some of YOUR biggest questions about life, faith and God. Each week, we’ll tackle a different theme: After You Die, The Bible & Science, The Validity of Faith, and a …

When Jesus chose disciples, he invited them from all over the political spectrum. Their allegiance to Jesus transcended their opinions about how the world's governments should be run. How do Christians make a positive difference in the places they live while remembering that their primary citizenship is in the Kingdom of God? Series Overview: Verve…

Perhaps you've heard someone say, "I just don't know how someone can be a Christian and a Democrat." Or, "I just don't know how someone can be a Christian and vote for that candidate." Embedded into those statements is the critical issue: there's something they don't know. In week five of Party Crashers, Verve City Church will explore why different…

Christianity once had more cultural influence in the United States than it now does because more people identified as Christians. What happened? Why did people start walking away from Christianity in the 1990s? While the answers to that question are complex, the Church's grab for political power played a significant role. The Church wasn't silent; …

In our polarizing times, faith and politics seem to be leading more to rage than actual change. It's discouraging, disheartening, and disappointing. But Sarah Bauer Anderson believes it doesn't have to stay this way. Civility is not a pipe dream. Nuance is not unrecoverable. Peace is possible. And it can all start right here, right now, with us. Se…

When political division shows up not only on the campaign trail but also at our dinner tables, we wonder: Can we be part of a better way? Michael Wear says "yes," offering a distinctly Jesus-centered approach to politics that results in healing rather than division, kindness rather than hatred, and hope rather than despair. Series Overview: Verve C…

Was the United States founded as a "Christian nation?" Can any nation be a "Christian nation?" Exploring the teachings of Jesus and the history of "Christian" imperialism, we'll discuss the incompatibility of the way of Jesus and the way of Empire. Series Overview: Verve City Church won't tell you who to vote for. We won't tell you which policies t…

"I can't." "I should." "Nobody likes me." "I'm such an idiot." "I'm a dumpster fire." For many of us, the negative talk in our lives is focused less on other people and more on ourselves. While it's healthy to understand our strengths and weaknesses, constantly disparaging ourselves can become a self-fulfilling indictment and a confidence killer. H…

The way we see and experience others reveals less about them than it does about us. And when we “call it like we see it,” what we say is a reflection of our soul. We can laugh at ridiculous one-star reviews, but don’t we all fall into the trap of spreading negative gossip sometimes? How can adjusting our mindset change the words we say and restore …

Our words hold surprising power to shape our identity, our environment, and our friends. We get to decide whether to wield that power well or to wield it haphazardly. The words we choose, the tone we use, and even our body language can intentionally or inadvertently build up or tear down. So, how do we become people who are filled with words of gra…

Celebrated at Easter, Jesus’ resurrection is a central event for Christianity… which means Jesus’ death is also at the center of our faith. But why did Jesus have to die? And what does the answer reveal about God?Verve City Church

Jesus was compassionate toward the outcasts of society and brutal toward highly respected religious leaders. He disrupted their religious festivals, called them snakes, and warned their followers to avoid modeling their lives after them. Why does Jesus seem outraged by the most revered of religious leaders rather than the greatest of sinners? Serie…

Jesus invites a man to follow him and then seemingly refuses to let him bury his own father. Is Jesus being unreasonable? Does he lack compassion for this man's family? What do we learn about the mission of Jesus as we discover the mindset of Jesus? Series Overview: When we think of Jesus, we often think of his kindness, gentleness, and tenderness.…

Jesus wasn't fair. How does His radical unfairness offer a surprising example of how we should act toward others? Could unfairness be a model for how we can make the world better? Series Overview: When we think of Jesus, we often think of his kindness, gentleness, and tenderness. We think of his graciousness toward sinners, his generosity toward th…

A Gentile woman asks Jesus for help. He first ignores her, and then seems to insult her. What's going on here? Why does Jesus seem so...un-Jesusy in this story? Series overview: When we think of Jesus, we often think of his kindness, gentleness, and tenderness. We think of his graciousness toward sinners, his generosity toward the poor, and his hea…

The church is called to step boldly into the future, working toward the renewal and reconciliation of all things. This must never devolve into an end-times-oriented, doom-and-gloom, ejection theology, but should rather be a hope-filled vision of what could be if more people chose to attach themselves to the Kingdom of God. Series overview: Througho…

As we grapple with the call of the church to live out the great commission and the great commandment, how are individual Christians - and the Church as a whole - uniquely positioned to unleash radical generosity as a blessing in our communities and around the world? Series Overview: Throughout history, the Christian church has occasionally lost its…

In the second week of our series about the Church as the Bride of Christ, we'll explore how churches serve as missional communities. What do we mean by "mission," and how do we differentiate the good things a church CAN do the missional things a church MUST do? Series Overview: Throughout history, the Christian church has occasionally lost its way,…

Throughout history, the Christian church has occasionally lost its way, becoming distracted or obsessed with money, political power, or cultural relevancy. But at its best, the church has been a beacon of grace, acceptance, and holiness — a spiritual refuge for the broken-hearted and a light illuminating the way to God for those far from Him. How c…

This week: Many Christian leaders and spiritualists have written about the two halves of life available to us. The first half is largely about identity and personal security while the second half becomes more about contributing and shedding your ego. So how do people scale this second mountain? How do we follow the pattern of Jesus in giving our li…

Our worldview, values, and religious beliefs don't typically change until our current paradigms don't work for us anymore. We encounter suffering, grief, or cognitive dissonance and we realize that our way of understanding the world doesn't hold explanatory power for our experiences. How do we make sense of the world when the world stops making sen…

The human ego prefers just about anything to suffering, changing, or dying. In fact, many people adopt a religious tradition in hopes of avoiding such painful experiences. But the way of Jesus has always understood this terrifying and liberating truth: resurrection can only come after death. Jesus told us we would experience trouble in this world (…

Some older people inspire the young people who know them, and some serve as a cautionary tale. How do we become more kind, generous, and patient as we age? How do we avoid becoming cynical, embittered, or resentful? Series Overview: Your life can dramatically change for the better, but there is no silver bullet. It’s a pathway to walk rather than a…

This week: The shepherds were near the bottom of the socio-economic ladder of first-century Jewish society. The wise men were likely wealthy gentiles, perhaps astrologers or kings. These two groups of men could not have been much more different than they were. And yet both groups needed Christmas so much that the angels themselves proclaimed the ar…

Most things aren’t for everyone. But Christmas reminds us that Jesus IS for all of us! His birth represents the reality of God’s love. Through his birth, life, death, and resurrection, Jesus justifies our joy; reminds us that we’re not alone; and gives our lives hope and purpose.Verve City Church

Whether you’re a “glass is half-full” or “glass is half-empty” kind of person, Christmas comes every year just the same. And underneath the shiny trappings of another holiday season, we can find ourselves feeling oddly empty, unfulfilled, and even disappointed. But what if the birth of Jesus was actually world-changing for optimists, pessimists, an…

Every generation thinks that the generation behind it is the worst generation ever. There are significant psychographic and value-driven differences between different generations that lead them to listen to different music, vote differently, watch different television shows, and purchase different products. But Boomers, Xers, Millennials, Gen Z, an…

This week: As disciples, we choose to be with Jesus, learn from Jesus, and ultimately - become like Jesus. The final message of our Jesusy Life series explores the power and beauty of a life lived like Jesus. Series overview: The way of Jesus isn’t primarily something you believe but someone you become. So how do we become the people Jesus invited …