Jake and Elwood knocked on the door and said: “We are on a mission from God” in the classic film “The Blues Brothers." They really weren’t, but those who have experienced God are. Why? Because the reality of meeting God changes you into a person of mission: one who is willing to leave what is comfortable in order to love and serve others. As you take risks to bless others, you will find yourself receiving not only the gifts and resources necessary to do so, but the greatest blessing of all will be – His presence in your life.See with God, anything is possible!

I saw a guy at a coffee shop last week wearing a shirt that said "What is your WHY?"  I have been thinking about that question a lot ever since. I'd like to make that a two-part question: "What is your WHAT?" and then, "What is your WHY?" Serving is my WHAT... but that isn't my WHY…Would you join me in reading Isaiah 58:6-12 every day between now and Sunday?We get to do this!

Indescribable.Devastating.Unbelievable.If you have watched any news recently, you have likely heard these adjectives employed in attempt to capture the effect Hurricane Helene had on communities across the southeastern United States.Many prayed to be spared from the disaster, but the reality is that storms happen. Storms large and small are a fact of life – when they blow in, they can leave homes and communities, even entire regions destroyed and laid bare.What is true for the environment is also true for us personally.Following Jesus is not a strategy to escape the inevitable storms of life, but Jesus does offer us a place we can build that is guaranteed to hold up against the fiercest of hurricanes and the floods that are destined to come our way.

Do you ever wish others could see the world as clearly as you do? If only other people could see where they mess up, surely the world would be a better place. Sound familiar? There is little we love more as a society than pointing out where others are wrong; and Christians are no exception. Call it accountability, helping a struggling friend, or even Christian love; the propensity to make judgments runs deep. Isn't it our responsibility to help others see where they are messing up? As we explore the beginning of Matthew 7, we’ll encounter a passage that has a lot to say about judgments, who should be making them, and ultimately what they teach us about ourselves.

Ever heard the quote “you can’t take it with you?” This can have two meanings and presents us with two options: consume and accumulate as much as possible now while you can OR consume and accumulate no more than you need because abundant, eternal life isn’t found in the abundance of stuff.  How do we live in a way where our money and possessions don’t own us? How do we overcome anxiety and find contentment as we’re constantly bombarded by advertisements from algorithms? Jesus offers us a more life-giving way - an invitation to freedom and contentment. Realizing that less is actually more in the Kingdom of God. When this becomes our reality, our lives are turned inside out and it’s an adventure of a lifetime!

The center of the Sermon on the Mount is The Lord’s Prayer - a prayer still prayed daily by Christians all over the world. It’s more than a few familiar stanzas to hurriedly rehearse. In fact - it summarizes and empowers Jesus’s teaching. It has shaped Christian hearts and minds for 2000 years - and it has the power to do the same for us today. Join us this weekend as we sing and pray and study the prayer that Jesus taught us.

Does your life make for great theater? “All the world’s a stage” according to Jaques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Regardless of whether or not you consider yourself a “performer,” you don’t have to put on “an act” to earn the applause of Christ. No matter what “stage” of life you are in, Jesus wants to be your secret “Audience of One.” Join us this Sunday for part 3 in our series on the Sermon on the Mount entitled “Inside Out” as we discover how diving into greater intimacy with our Lord and Savior will reap relational rewards with God and everybody else!

In Jesus' most iconic sermon, he drops a truth bomb on his audience, declaring, “You’ve heard it said… but I say to you…” What’s Jesus saying? Today he might have said it like this, "You think you know, but let me tell you the real deal.” Life in His Kingdom is a game-changer. It's not just surface-level, it's a deep dive into the core of our being. This is where true life begins; coming into a right relationship with God, which leads us into right relationships with others. Get ready to explore the teachings that shook the world and inspired great leaders like Ghandi, MLK Jr, and the civil rights movement. Join us as we continue this message series at wwww.damascus.com/inside-out.

Jesus has this way of turning our culture inside out and society upside down. He has this way of doing and saying things, and even blessing people, that is counter-cultural and revolutionary. It doesn’t always make sense to us. This Sunday kicks off our Inside-Out, Sermon On The Mount, 7-week Fall series, along with our new LifeGroups launch. Together we will explore some of the best-known verses in the Bible that still echo throughout our culture - “The Golden Rule”, “love your enemies”, “kingdom come”.  This week as we tee-up the series, we will answer the question: “Who is Jesus’ sermon for?" And we will take a look at His opener, “The Beatitudes” – you know, the “‘Blessed are…” statements of Jesus. That word ‘blessed’, well, it can be a blessed problem. In fact, all the Beatitudes seem to be totally out of step with our culture, and pointing in the wrong direction, especially for those of us looking to climb the cultural ladder. What’s up with that, Jesus? Come. Listen. Learn. Apply. From the Master Preacher, Jesus. 

Come join us as we wrap up the Chosen series with a focus on Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:13-16. As followers of Christ, we are called to be “salt” and “light” in this world. What exactly does this mean and is it possible? Together, let’s explore what Jesus meant when He first issued this challenge to His disciples and the vision that He is holding out for in our lives today.

Imagine you are one of the disciples who did life with Jesus each and every day. You saw Him turn water into wine and feed thousands. You were there when He healed the woman with the issue of blood. You witnessed Him eat with sinners, inviting them into new life and relationship with Him. You were there with a front row seat to the raising from the dead of the widow’s son and Jairus’s daughter. Hearing His teaching, you were radically changed by His call to love our enemies and live non-judgmental lives filled with compassion.Seeing all of this, when given the opportunity to ask for more insight on one subject, what would you ask? In their one request, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them and tell them more about only one thing. Their request was, “Teach Us How To Pray!” The disciples saw a direct connection between who Jesus was, how He lived and how He addressed life’s circumstances and His prayer life.Join me as we go to Jesus’ school of prayer and learn how we too can draw from our time of prayer to face life’s greatest challenges today!

Most of us have a funny relationship with freedom and control, don’t we? We love the idea of freedom for ourselves and wouldn’t hesitate to say: “I don’t need anyone telling me how to live my life!” But we’re also very quick to fight against what we believe is wrong. We often try to control the behavior of others, especially when we think it will affect us in some way and are ready to shout: “Not In My Backyard!” Nowhere is this freedom/control dynamic more vividly played out than in the arena of faith and religion. We are told that Christ came for our freedom yet many of our experiences with Christianity feel completely opposite; it can sometimes feel more like behavior control than freedom. Join us this week for Season 2 Episode 6 of the Chosen, titled Unlawful; we are going to ask what it looks like to have a freedom that truly feels like being free!

Life can be going well when suddenly… A chance encounter; an unguarded moment; a painful betrayal... and all seems lost! Mary Magdalene has one of those days and suddenly finds herself walking down steps into a dark and dimly-lit past. Jesus tells a story in Luke 15 about a lost sheep and how the shepherd drops everything and runs to rescue... our stumble unleashes His rescue! This week the Waterboyz choir will be worshiping at Damascus Road. Join us as we experience a life changing encounter with the God who rescues.

He was exhausted. The disciples? They were comfy around the campfire, until tensions arose after a long and exhausting day. Now they were waiting on Jesus. The conversation is being driven by four brothers whom Jesus recently called to join him in full time ministry. They are core members of his small group (Matthew 4:18-22). What starts out as fun banter becomes weaponized religious nationalism targeted at Matthew, a recent Jesus follower, who would later write this gospel.  The tense scene is interrupted when Jesus, exhausted from healing (Matthew 4:24), stumbles past the quarrelsome disciples, stunning them into silence. Matthew’s recounting of the stories in chapter 4, verses 18-25, tells us so much about ourselves, and about a God who loves us with an unfailing love. Come and see.

The Beatles once sang “All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong?”One of the greatest desires of the human heart is finding a place where we belong – a place to fit in – in a world that can, at times, feel lonely and unfamiliar. In fact, of all the topics that singers and songwriters mine for inspiration (after love), I would guess that loneliness or searching for a place to belong has got to be up near the top of the list.Join us as we look at episode two and explore a Jesus that not only sees people where they are, but sidesteps social norms in order to interrupt their loneliness and provide a place for them to truly belong and be themselves.

Last year, we journeyed through scripture (inspired by Season 1 of The Chosen) and this year we will pick up where we left off with Season 2. From James and John wanting to call down fire on the Samaritans to the breaking of the Sabbath laws, see the adventure of the four gospels come to life.  Together, we will explore the parable of the Lost Sheep from Luke 15:1-7 (which is also featured in Season 2, Episode 1).

Come join us this Sunday as we wrap up the "Between the Lines," series with a focus on the Book of Isaiah. Our key passage of scripture will be Isaiah 52:13- 53:12. Referred to as the gospel of Isaiah, this is one of the clearest references to Jesus Christ in the entire Old Testament. Written 700 years before Jesus showed up, the prophet Isaiah foresaw a coming day of great hope for all people. And this great hope was only made possible because of a suffering servant that would emerge on the scene.

Most of us contain multitudes – human beings are complicated and often confusing.Once when asked to “just be yourself,” Bob Dylan responded with: “no problem, but which self do you want me to be?” Many of us can relate to this because we can be one way in one situation but completely different in another. We’re all a complicated mix.Our temptation however, when it comes to other people, is to simplify them or label them with a word or a phrase; often that word or phrase is drawn from a person’s worst moment. We see the complexity in our selves, but we deny it in others when we label them.Murderer.Adulterer.King David was both yet somehow, he was also called a man after God’s own heart. Not only that, but David is also often identified with the messianic identity that Jesus came to embody. That kind of complexity can be hard for many of us to reconcile.Join us this week as we look at the towering figure of King David and try to figure out where we can see Jesus in his story.

The book of Ruth is a pretty wild story… A young woman with her whole life in front of her, leaves everything familiar and goes to a place she's never been, with her mother-in-law no less. (anyone?) The story includes famine… loss of loved ones… unexpected kindness of strangers… a dramatic rescue… and a surprise ending… and Jesus has His fingerprints all over the story!Here is my challenge… would you read the 85 verses of Ruth before Sunday? Count the number of times the word ‘redeemer’ shows up… find the word ‘rest’ and spend some time asking God what is being said when that word shows up.

This week we will take on the book of Job, which inevitably leads us to the challenging subject of suffering. We’ll take a look at how Job endures suffering, how we can support others in their suffering, and how those who are afflicted can find hope in Jesus. Come discover Jesus in the book of Job this Sunday!

Join us as we continue the Jesus in the Old Testament series with a focus on the book of Joshua. Our key passage of scripture will be Joshua 2:1-21. We would encourage you to read this ahead of time and ask yourself, “What does a prostitute and a scarlet cord have to do with Jesus? And how does this relate to our lives today?” Come find out as we explore the “scandal” of the gospel, which was set in motion well before the birth of Jesus. 

Following our 1st Corinthians sermon series, Damascus Road is offering a late Spring class exploring key themes in 1st Corinthians. This class will be co-taught by DRCC’s retired Founding Pastor, Richard Fredericks, PhD, and Teaching Team Pastor, Michelle Rader, M.A. They will explore in greater depth some of the rich themes of 1st Corinthians, especially focusing on Paul’s narrative of how the “message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).They will explore how that “foolishness” plays out in counter-cultural ways for Christian community, including transformed ways of understanding weakness, unity, interdependence, honoring others, and interpersonal relations.If you want to “go deeper” in 1st Corinthians, this class is for you!

I had a friend who dreamed for years about building his dream house. I would stop by to visit him and he would have the plans spread out on the kitchen table… All the attention to detail… The fixtures in the bathroom… The size of the windows… Which direction should the house face to get the morning sun… should I build a one car garage or a two car?It turns out that God had a dream house in mind to build too. You can read about it in the last half of the book of Exodus. But wait, there's more to the story than meets the eye! Have you ever seen one of those pictures that if you look at it long enough another picture emerges… a hidden picture? What is the hidden picture buried between the lines in God’s dream house? Join us this weekend to find out!

Following our 1st Corinthians sermon series, Damascus Road is offering a late Spring class exploring key themes in 1st Corinthians. This class will be co-taught by DRCC’s retired Founding Pastor, Richard Fredericks, PhD, and Teaching Team Pastor, Michelle Rader, M.A. They will explore in greater depth some of the rich themes of 1st Corinthians, especially focusing on Paul’s narrative of how the “message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).They will explore how that “foolishness” plays out in counter-cultural ways for Christian community, including transformed ways of understanding weakness, unity, interdependence, honoring others, and interpersonal relations.If you want to “go deeper” in 1st Corinthians, this class is for you!

What word or idea do you most associate with the Old Testament? Scary? Ancient? Violent? Exciting? Weird? Lots of laws? Puzzling? Jewish scripture? God's story? Don't know where to start? The Old Testament is much longer and older than the New Testament. It has even more genres and authors and speaks from and to a wider variety of cultures and time periods.This can make it challenging for modern readers.   It’s also the Bible of Jesus and the New Testament authors. Jesus said it "testifies about me." And the New Testament authors all quote extensively from the Old Testament, grounding the story of Jesus and their new Christian faith in those ancient stories. Join us as we start a new series: Between the Lines, Jesus in the Old Testament. We’re going to learn to read Jesus’s Bible the way his followers learned to read it – the way Jesus taught them to read it – as a story that he was in from the beginning, that was always leading to Him.

Following our 1st Corinthians sermon series, Damascus Road is offering a late Spring class exploring key themes in 1st Corinthians. This class will be co-taught by DRCC’s retired Founding Pastor, Richard Fredericks, PhD, and Teaching Team Pastor, Michelle Rader, M.A. They will explore in greater depth some of the rich themes of 1st Corinthians, especially focusing on Paul’s narrative of how the “message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).They will explore how that “foolishness” plays out in counter-cultural ways for Christian community, including transformed ways of understanding weakness, unity, interdependence, honoring others, and interpersonal relations.If you want to “go deeper” in 1st Corinthians, this class is for you!

“I wonder what sort of tale we have fallen into” Frodo Baggins For the last five years we bumped into each other on the way to work or while walking our dogs. There was always the friendly "hi, how are you", nothing more. Recently we invited them over for a meal. The following Monday Sherresa & I happened to be going to work at the same time, and when she saw me, her face lit up and she came over and gave me a hug…What had changed? Developing friendships… discovering stories... sharing life! It's what a lonely world is longing for.  Would you join me on the porch and stay a while? I can't hammer a nail, but I can build a porch… and so can you! Now that's an epic tale!

Following our 1st Corinthians sermon series, Damascus Road is offering a late Spring class exploring key themes in 1st Corinthians. This class will be co-taught by DRCC’s retired Founding Pastor, Richard Fredericks, PhD, and Teaching Team Pastor, Michelle Rader, M.A. They will explore in greater depth some of the rich themes of 1st Corinthians, especially focusing on Paul’s narrative of how the “message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).They will explore how that “foolishness” plays out in counter-cultural ways for Christian community, including transformed ways of understanding weakness, unity, interdependence, honoring others, and interpersonal relations.If you want to “go deeper” in 1st Corinthians, this class is for you!

Inviting others into genuine relationship and conversations can be intimidating. As we become vulnerable and open ourselves up to share our stories we can be tempted to become someone we are not. In a world where we are constantly told who we should be and what we should look like, God desires for you to be uniquely yourself! Join us this week as we discover how we can embrace who God made us to be as we endeavor to share our lives, stories, and faith with others.

Following our 1st Corinthians sermon series, Damascus Road is offering a late Spring class exploring key themes in 1st Corinthians. This class will be co-taught by DRCC’s retired Founding Pastor, Richard Fredericks, PhD, and Teaching Team Pastor, Michelle Rader, M.A. They will explore in greater depth some of the rich themes of 1st Corinthians, especially focusing on Paul’s narrative of how the “message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).They will explore how that “foolishness” plays out in counter-cultural ways for Christian community, including transformed ways of understanding weakness, unity, interdependence, honoring others, and interpersonal relations.If you want to “go deeper” in 1st Corinthians, this class is for you!

“It’s so good to see you, we really need to get together sometime!”“Sounds great – want to grab a coffee?”“I’d love to do breakfast, or if your mornings are too busy maybe we could do lunch.”“I’m in, but hey, we really do need to get the families together for dinner sometime…”Doesn’t it seem like all our best social interactions happen over a meal? Have you ever noticed that the backdrop to many of the famous scenes in the bible is around the table or over a meal? If you could hear or smell the stories in the bible, many of them would sound like the clanging of dishes or the smell of roasted meat.Join us this week as we explore the role of the table and the meal in our journey to open our porches, develop relationships, discover stories, and do life together.

Following our 1st Corinthians sermon series, Damascus Road is offering a late Spring class exploring key themes in 1st Corinthians. This class will be co-taught by DRCC’s retired Founding Pastor, Richard Fredericks, PhD, and Teaching Team Pastor, Michelle Rader, M.A. They will explore in greater depth some of the rich themes of 1st Corinthians, especially focusing on Paul’s narrative of how the “message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).They will explore how that “foolishness” plays out in counter-cultural ways for Christian community, including transformed ways of understanding weakness, unity, interdependence, honoring others, and interpersonal relations.If you want to “go deeper” in 1st Corinthians, this class is for you!

What’s on your porch? Maybe there are flower pots, rocking chairs, and a welcome mat. Maybe there is an Amazon package or two. Or there could be a catchy “Welcome to my Porch” sign. Our porches are as different and unique as the people who occupy them. This week, as we continue our “Life on the Porch" series, we will be looking at how we each have unique and significant ways in which we can share who Jesus is. We will discover how the Holy Spirit can work through our individuality to connect God’s Story, Our Story, and the Story of Others. This allows God to create a New Story of New life in Christ.

Following our 1st Corinthians sermon series, Damascus Road is offering a late Spring class exploring key themes in 1st Corinthians. This class will be co-taught by DRCC’s retired Founding Pastor, Richard Fredericks, PhD, and Teaching Team Pastor, Michelle Rader, M.A. They will explore in greater depth some of the rich themes of 1st Corinthians, especially focusing on Paul’s narrative of how the “message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).They will explore how that “foolishness” plays out in counter-cultural ways for Christian community, including transformed ways of understanding weakness, unity, interdependence, honoring others, and interpersonal relations.If you want to “go deeper” in 1st Corinthians, this class is for you!

Easter. True story...Jesus died for our sins one dark Friday, and they buried him.On Sunday, He was raised to life–resurrected from the dead!The grave cave was empty–and hundreds of people saw Jesus alive again!What’s more–He’s comin’ back for us–and we’ll live with Him forever!IF this is a fake story–a fabrication, a legend–then we live and we die.…But IF this is a True Story, then death is defeated,and we’ve got the PERFECT ending to our story–through HIS story!No more death, no more pain, no more tears–just joy!Life forever with God through Christ!

Can you believe that we are just a little over a week away from Easter! Palm Sunday marks the last week of Jesus’ ministry while on earth. It’s during this week we see more clearly than ever that Christian faith involves trusting that at the center of the universe is a Being whose heart beats with an infinite love for His world, for you and me.  The purpose of human existence is to receive this love that Jesus not only talked about but also consistently practiced in tangible, practical acts. His ultimate demonstration of this love culminated in his death on a Roman cross.  This kind of love should not only impact our here-after, but also our here-now. In our humanity, it’s easy to forget. The ancient Corinthians did too. What’s God’s solution? Come find out as we talk about one of the most significant events during Holy Week and the apostle Paul’s counsel to an ancient people in 1 Corinthians 11:17- 34. 

All You Need Is Love! The Beatles might have taken a look at 1 Corinthians 13 before they wrote the famous song “All You Need is Love.”Unfortunately, many in Corinthian culture ascribed to the Tina Turner school of thought, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” Enough song references! 1 Corinthians 13 is known as the “Love Chapter” of the Bible, quoted most often at weddings. After addressing the challenges the Corinthian church is facing from external cultural influences and internal differences, The Apostle Paul gets to the heart of the matter, literally! The encouragement to the Corinthian church is to live out their faith and relationships in a love defined not by culture but by Christ. Join us as we dive into 1 Corinthians 13 and see how we can elevate our love walk and allow the Love of Christ to redeem relationships and draw us closer into community.

Over the past few weeks we've heard a lot about what we do with our bodies - how what we do with our bodies impacts ourselves and others - for ill or for good. This week we'll talk about a different kind of body - the Body of Christ - His church. But this will continue the logic of our previous talk about bodies: what we do with our individual bodies matters, because we are all part of Christ's body, and what we do individually impacts and contributes to the new life we share with each other in Christ. Every single person - their gifts, experience, and unique qualities - are valued and needed! You matter and others matter! Join us as we continue our 1 Corinthians series with a study of chapter 12.

FOOD FIGHT!!!I’ve never been in an actual food fight, but I loved watching them in movies when I was a kid. It’s a hilarious and ridiculous visual when you see a bunch of people throwing mashed potatoes and pies, squirting ketchup and mustard, and making a mess of each other with their dinners.This week we are going to focus in on 1 Corinthians 8-10, which could be described as Paul stepping in to settle the food fight that has broken out at the church in Corinth. Paul is going to walk into the mess and settle another division in the church through the lens of the Gospel.Join us at the table this week as we see what the Cross has to do with an ancient Corinthian food fight.

Are you single? Married? Divorced? Widowed?No matter how you answered that question, 1 Corinthians 7 has something to say about our relationships with others and our relationship with God. This is likely a passage you haven't heard in church before.Let's explore it together as we strive to be a community that’s Undivided, marked by cross-shaped love.

So 1st Corinthians can get... kind of... AWKWARD... Paul gives the Corinthians a "sex talk” in 1 Corinthians 6:9-20. Yup - Paul goes there - but he doesn't throw a list of rules at them. Rather Paul steps in to contrast the use and abuse of the world's way with the love and dignity of God's design. He is blunt and honest with the Corinthians, but always with the intent to point them to Christ - in this case, with the fresh start in Christ - to guide them to see their bodies as sacred, with God present in them, and the Spirit working both in them and through them.Paul took sexual ethics on for the good of the family, and we will follow his lead this Sunday to continue to grow together into the community that God created us to be!

Last week Michelle shared some really good advice with us that she gleaned from the apostle Paul’s introduction to the letter to the Corinthians; she said that if you have to deliver a hard word to someone it’s a really good idea to start with the positives before you get to the negatives.That’s a good word for all of us.But this week we will get to Paul’s hard word for the Corinthian church which is pretty dramatic. Paul starts chapter 3 by saying – and this is my paraphrase – “you guys are acting like a bunch of babies! Grow up, why don’t ya!” Seriously, that’s what he says; check it out for yourself. The apostle Paul uses the same insult that many of us have screamed in exasperation at an annoying sibling or immature friend. (I wonder if any of the Corinthian believers heard the letter and thought to themselves “I know you are but what am I?”)But what in the world created this level of frustration for Paul? What drove him to be so harsh with a whole community of Jesus-followers?! And, here’s a scary thought: what would the apostle Paul say to us if he showed up to DRCC on Sunday morning?!Join us this week as we continue our journey through the letter to the Corinthian church by focusing in on chapters 3 & 4 (for those that like to do homework and read the text ahead of time). This week we will add some color and background to Paul’s words and see if we can locate ourselves in the story of the Corinthian church.

Division? Partisanship? Power struggles?Do these seem like new problems? Well, they are not! Living in community has always been a challenge from the very beginning (just read the family stories in Genesis!) But when we are living in Christ Jesus - our whole attitude toward others should change. Yet this change doesn't come automatically, quickly, or easily to most of us. Paul's letters to the Corinthian church show us the challenges - and the Christ-centered solutions - that come when a diverse group of people do life together.  Join us as we kick off our new series, Undivided: A New Reality - a study of 1 Corinthians, which will take us through Holy Week.

What if you could have all of your debt taken away—canceled?What if someone forgave all of the debt of every person in your family?What if this person dealt with all of the debt in our community?What if they could zero out the national debt?What if they could wipe out the debt of every person who ever walked the earth?How would we respond to that kind of gift?Jesus has forgiven every debt - for every human - for all time! And we are to respond to this gift by following Jesus in forgiving as He forgave us!So what does it look like to live a life that’s debt free?Join us as we explore practical ways to share the freedom we have in Christ through actively extending forgiveness to others, just as Jesus has forgiven us!

There is a famous scene in the 1985 cult classic film Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, where Pee Wee is talking to a woman about her life’s dream of one day living in Paris. In the scene Simone hedges when Pee Wee encourages her to chase her dream, she responds with “I know you’re right, but…”Pee Wee pushes back with “But what?! Everyone I know always has a big but. Come on Simone, let’s talk about your big but.” The audience can see what Pee Wee and Simone can’t, her terrifyingly large boyfriend begins to eavesdrop on their conversation but only catches the last sentence, just as Pee Wee is asking his girlfriend to talk about her big but.The scene is hilarious and devolves into comedic brilliance.Our message series on forgiveness these past few weeks has brought that scene to my mind a few times. We can all be like Simone, can’t we? Forgiveness may sound great in concept, it feels like something we should aspire to do, yet we have all had times in life when we know we should forgive someone for hurting us and we find ourselves hung up over a big BUT. Forgiveness can seem more like a dream than something we could actually do in real life.“I would like to forgive BUT you don’t know how much pain they have caused.” Or “I would forgive BUT they haven’t apologized.”Yet Jesus commands us to forgive – no if, and, or BUT.Join us this week for week three of our Forgiveness series as we deal with the battle inside that each of us faces when it is time for us to forgive or seek forgiveness. This week we will talk about our big BUTs; I promise that you won’t want to miss it!

Forgiveness... You can’t buy it... You can’t earn it... Paradoxically, forgiveness is costly yet free. So who pays? Here’s the truth... "In Him (Christ), we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us..."~Ephesians 1:7-8 "In turn, you and I are to forgive others as we have been forgiven..." ~Matthew 6:12 Join us this weekend as we explore the impact of forgiveness—God’s love poured out for you and me! 

At some point in our lives, we all want forgiveness.At some point in our lives, we all find it hard to forgive.How did Jesus do it?How did He do justice to address the wrongs we do, yet simultaneously extend mercy to us?In this series, we’ll plumb the depths of Christ’s outpouring of love for us, with awe at how His sacrifice on the cross is central to what the Bible says about forgiveness and how we are to forgive as we have been forgiven (Matthew 6:12).So practically speaking, how do we go about this? Receiving forgiveness? Extending forgiveness?We pray that you will join us as we resolve to follow the example of Jesus in forgiving others and seeking reconciliation.

Join us as we wrap up 2023 and our 6-week series, “Interrupted: Joy Broke In!” During our time together, we will reflect on the significance and relevance of what happened to Simeon and Anna in Luke 2:21-40. Their long-awaited encounter with Jesus in this passage has far greater implications for our lives today than we may realize. Let’s discern together what God may be trying to tell us as we head into 2024. Here’s one thing we know for sure, with Christ as our Lord and Savior, it won’t be business as usual.

What a journey we have been on this Advent season as we’ve spent time together in our Christmas series: “Interrupted: Joy Broke In!”Each week has allowed us to experience the various characters of the Nativity story, God’s interruption in their lives, and their response to his revelation and invitation.We’ve walked with Mary and the Shepherds, the Magi and Joseph as they each journeyed toward the manger. This week we will encounter Jesus, the baby who interrupted human history. As I read the Christmas story in Luke’s gospel, and then reread it, I kept hearing a question which had to have been in the minds of all the characters in the story, “Who is this baby?” Don’t miss God’s great ‘reveal’ this weekend as we come face-to-face with the baby who changed everything!

Joseph was a good man who was so excited to get married to the girl of his dreams. Then he got the news, the news that would be his worst nightmare—news that would be “Good News” to the whole world, but not for Joseph, or so he thought... This news would change everything: his life, his reputation, the reputation of his wife, their marriage, his standing in the community, and his future. How would he react to having his wedding plans interrupted? After contemplating what to do, an angel appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”~Matthew 1:20&21 What does all this mean? How did he respond? How did this interruption change the world? What can we learn from Joseph, Mary’s husband, that will help us navigate interruptions in our own lives and draw us deeper into the Christmas story, and closer to Jesus, our Savior and our Lord? Join us this Sunday as we travel with Joseph on the next leg of our journey to Bethlehem and beyond with joyous anticipation of the coming of our King!

We three kings of orient are… bearing gifts we traverse afar… I’ve sang the song… I’ve watched the movie… From an early age I believed there were three kings who saw a star and somehow knew something significant had happened. They set out on a two-year journey to see for themselves. Over the last month or so almost everything I thought I knew about this story has been disrupted! But it isn’t just me… It seems everyone in the story was disrupted… the Magi from the east, King Herod and all of Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph, and sadly all the mothers in Bethlehem. Last week we saw the lowly shepherds showing up at the stable with nothing to offer but their worship. This week we see royalty from those scorned by God’s chosen offering Jesus extravagant gifts. What kind of king is this? Kings from the east… evil King Herod… a baby King born in a stable… MAGI: Kingdoms disrupted!

As human beings it is very easy to fall into routines and habits that dictate the course of our days. We eat the same things for breakfast, drive to work by the same route, listen to the same radio station, check the same things on social media, work the same job, watch the same news, and follow the same nightly routine before bed. It works that way with our thought patterns too. Far more than we would like to admit, habits and routines (some conscious, but many sub-conscious) govern our day-to-day existence. This is nothing new, it is human nature and we have been this way since the beginning. But against the backdrop of our everyday life, the Christmas story returns to us every year and it beckons us to break from our routines and hear the news again - there is something much greater going on in the world! Something happened 2000 years ago and the world has not been the same since. We return to Christmas every year because it reminds us that the Creator became created, the founder became flesh, and the one who made time stepped into time for our sake.Join us this week as we hear the message new again. On Sunday we will look at the shepherds, those in the middle of their everyday routine - just doing their jobs - when suddenly, their lives were interrupted and everything changed. 

The day of a momentous historic event often begins like any other - the bright, sunny morning of September 11, 2001; the quiet, mostly clear skies over Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941; an early morning sunrise in Israel on October 7. Individuals woke up and went about their lives thinking it was a day like any other - until it wasn’t. Disruptive interruptions to our lives rarely announce themselves in advance. For a young teenage girl living in an unimportant village in a corner of the worlds most powerful empire, the day began like any other. She surely did not expect the angelic visitor, the momentous news that the messiah was come, the call to be at the center of history’s most important and disruptive event.  But unlike many of history’s interruptions, this one would bring not tragedy and despair, but Joy. There would also be suffering and death, for sure. Yet this ultimate Interruption would be the inflection point that would turn history, empire, power, and human assumptions upside down. Join us as we make the transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas, from gratitude for Gods recent gifts, to joy and remembrance of his greatest gift - himself.  Our new series - Interrupted by Joy - will celebrate Immanuel, God With Us.

Did you know that gratitude expressed in community is a gateway to a life filled with joy and thanksgiving? This Sunday, we focus on Psalm 100, often titled A Psalm of Thanksgiving. This short Psalm of five verses is packed with practical ways for you and me to be filled with an attitude of gratitude.Come discover distinct declarations, directives, and two motivations which the writer of this Psalm believes can change the way you view yourself, our world, and our God. Experience a shift. Gain an attitude of gratitude.

Come join us this Sunday as we explore the promise that Christ made to his disciples the very same night that he was betrayed and arrested. In John 14:18, Jesus comforts his disciples with these powerful words: “I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.” Apart from Christ, we are spiritual orphans, but in Christ, we have been adopted into God’s family. Together, we will take a closer look at Romans 8 and what all of this means for us and how we are to live in 2023.DRCC will be joining churches throughout the world this weekend in celebrating Orphan Sunday, an opportunity to explore God’s heart for orphans and the role that the church is being called to play.

#Barriers. #Walls. #Hostility.  Our world is filled with barriers and “walls of hostility,” of all kinds. #Religious. #Racial. #Personal. #Physical…. Plenty of barriers to go around.  Recently, I was texting one of our senior leaders, and we both agreed that sometimes our barriers are sin and sometimes it’s us - feeling stuck in a wilderness of sorts – dysfunctional, emotional, spiritual, workplace… you name it. God feels absent. We feel stuck.   Join Tina Buck and myself this weekend as we aim our compass at this important topic – Removing Barriers. Tina is a mental health professional, has a heart for discipleship, and leads our Rooted experience at Damascus Road. Together, we will take you with us on the last mile of our Living the Five journey. We can’t cover all the ground, but we will get you started! We will anchor in scripture, starting in Ephesians, where God tells us we can have peace - with him and others, because Jesus broke down “The Wall.” He can break down your walls too. Don’t miss this mile marker. It will point you to God’s specialty – Removing Barriers!

Get out and about to serve! Our Lord and Savior, Jesus, came to serve!For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45DRCC loves to serve! Why?Because we, like many of the people who came before us that we encounter in the Bible, have encountered the living God, and are compelled to “get out” there and serve others!When we realize how much God loves us, and we see His glory, we are filled with joy and we are overflowing with God’s love and we share it with others in actionable ways, loving our families and our neighbors—whether they are around the block or around the world.Through our service to one another, our relationships with one another and with our Creator grow deeper and stronger. We enjoy the fruit of the rhythm of service!So join us as we worship together and “get out” there and serve together!

This week we will look at (potentially) the most intimidating of the five core practices that should be a part of every growing Christian’s life: Sharing Jesus. I know that for myself, the thought of sharing Jesus in the cultural context of North America these days seems like a sketchy idea or a set up for definite rejection.We can often feel like our world today is suffering from opinion saturation and people are so ready to be combative any time you share your beliefs. Most of the time we’re not even sure how or where or with whom we might be safe to share Jesus and the good news of what He did. But like so many things, I suspect we might be walking around with a slightly different understanding of what Jesus meant when he said to the apostles: "Go into all the world and make disciples." This week we are going to take another look at what it might mean for us to be the kind of people that are so at ease and so comfortable sharing Jesus that it becomes second nature to us – a part of our everyday life. Think that sounds unlikely? Come this week and see…

Want to become rich? No, I’m not talking about stock-picking tips, real estate investment or crypto currency trends. Join us this Sunday in person or online as we unpack how generosity leads to a truly rich and satisfying life. Life with purpose, on purpose.

Don’t you love the scene in "The Chosen" where Peter and Andrew have been fishing all night and in spite of their best efforts they catch nothing? All seems lost… Peter has no future… no hope… until he encounters Jesus. What if Peter and Andrew didn’t have a small group? The catch would have been lost… their boat would have sunk… the miracle would have been wasted. Being intentional to have the rhythm of regularly gathering with others, opening God’s Word, learning to hear His voice and each telling our story before it becomes our secret… THAT is Abundant Life! Join us this Sunday as we continue the adventure of learning to "Live the Five!"

Every day, circumstances occur that we could describe as life changing. The birth of a child, the start of a new career and the passing of a loved one are just a few of the many events that can have significant impact on us. A single moment has the power to change our lives forever.This Sunday, we continue our “Living the Five” series and discover how the power of a moment in prayer can change our lives forever! We know that “Every time we pray, something happens!” We will unpack some of the “What” that takes place when we pray, and tear down the barriers that can make prayer such a challenge.Come join me as we share a moment that may just change our lives forever!

We live in a world filled with endless distractions and constant busyness - texts, email, social media, podcasts, our favorite streaming platform, school and events, work – these are not bad things, many of them are or can be good things. It’s just that they’re not always the best things to help us step into Jesus’ abundant, overflowing life.  Speaking of wanting to live a better quality of life, have you ever heard of the Blue Zones? These are places in the world where people routinely live healthy, purpose-filled lives well into their 90’s and many past 100 years of age. Much of what they do is captured in the essence of ‘Living the Five.’ It’s what the Creator made us for.  Come embark on a transformative journey where we connect with others, with God, and find your purpose – what the Okinawans call their “Ikigai” and the Nicoyans call their “plan de vida.”

Do you feel life is a great adventure or a great adversity? Does life feel chaotic and out of control, like you’re riding one of those wooden rodeo bulls in a made for TV movie? Having the right outlook can make all the difference. Proverbs 29:18 states, "Without Divine guidance, people’s lives run wild." Would you like to catch a glimpse of God’s vision and desire for your life?We invite you to join us as together we discover what God is up to in our community and where we are going. Together, we’ll set out on a transformative journey, experiencing the abundant life God has in store for us as we discover life with purpose. On purpose.

Join us for "Get Out of the Boat" as we explore Matthew 14:22-33. Peter followed Jesus out of the comfort of the boat into the dangerous waters. But he started to sink when he took his eyes off of Jesus, distracted by fear of the wind. What step of faith is God calling you to make today? And are there any fears standing in your way? We look forward to seeing you, as we individually and collectively discern where God may be calling us in this new and exciting season.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9 Chosen... As the Israelites were chosen, as the disciples were chosen, and as Jesus expanded His ministry to include the gentiles—the Samaritans, the Greeks, people of all nations, YOU too are CHOSEN! You are chosen to be part of God’s Holy Nation! I’m so pumped to be part of the biggest nation on earth with you—the Kingdom of God! So come celebrate with us this Sunday—let’s join together to PRAISE Him and celebrate what He had done and what He is doing in DRCC missions across the globe as we simultaneously look forward to what God is going to do in the coming year! Is it your turn to go? I’m praying for God’s calling on YOUR life—whether you’re called to serve alongside one of our international or local mission partners or in the context of your job, school, or neighborhood—we’re all called to love like extravagantly like Christ loves us!

We have been on a journey this summer through the hit series "The Chosen" and we will be finishing it off this weekend as we look at the story of the Woman at the Well - one of Jesus’ more well-known scenes. Throughout this series we have witnessed a Jesus that has called all types of unlikely characters to join His kingdom and His community; if we are placing ourselves in the story we should have had plenty of opportunity to find bits and pieces of ourselves up to this point.  But this week, Jesus is going to take it one step further and He is going to thoroughly break the bounds of all reason and convention - this week, He is going through Samaria.  We will be digging into this story and trying to figure out what it might mean for us today. We will climb the heights of Mt. Gerizim and see if we can get a fresh vision for our future as individuals and as a community that has been Chosen by Jesus to testify to what we have seen and heard.

Join us as we explore the timeless and powerful words of John 3:1-21, the conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus at night. This passage inspired an entire scene in Episode 7, Season 1 of The Chosen. Whether you have been walking with God for a while, are new to the faith, or are seeking what you believe, there is a message for everyone this weekend as we wrestle with Jesus’ audacious claim in John 3:3 that “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” What did this mean for Nicodemus back then and what does it mean for us today?

The addiction recovery community tells each other the key to sobriety is to change the people, places and things in your life. Do you have a band of brothers or sisters you can call at 3am? The Outcast, the Invalid & the Traitor had experienced a lifetime of pain, rejection and despair. Jesus enters their story and everything changes. Jesus touches the untouchable… heals the incurable… and forgives the unforgivable.This week I will be preaching on my favorite story in the Bible… the paralyzed man who is carried to Jesus by his four best friends. Who in your life needs you to carry them to Jesus? Do you need to be carried? The Indescribable happens when Jesus enters your story.

This week we will be watching Episode 5 of the Chosen and talking about the story from John 2 where Jesus attends a wedding and the unthinkable happens – the bartender runs out of wine while the party is in full swing. I believe this is what would be described in today’s terms as an "epic fail" (forgive me if the term is outdated, Urban Dictionary doesn’t have a thesaurus function). Jesus steps in and saves the party by turning jars and jars of water into a ridiculous amount of wine – and the party goes on!I grew up in a denomination that frowned super hard on drinking and as a result I might win an award for hearing some of the funnier explanations of this biblical story – this includes one speaker that said that Jesus could have turned the water into wine but it would not have been intoxicating because it had no time to ferment and become alcoholic. It’s funny the boxes we put God in when we believe people’s external actions are more important than their inner attitudes.It’s for that reason that I went a long time before I really dug into this story to find out what it truly has to say to us today. This week we are going to try to peel back any of the assumptions that we might have held about this story and genuinely dig in to read it for all it’s worth.

Do you ever feel like you can't keep up? Like the demands of life are overwhelming you and you don't have the answers? This is not a new problem! As we will see in this weeks' episode of The Chosen, Peter has some real challenges that are about to overwhelm him. Until he gets a big surprise! Jesus is full of surprises. Not easy answers. Not quick answers. But surprises. And one essential command - Follow Me! Join us for week 3 of our series looking at the story of Jesus - in scripture and as portrayed in The Chosen.

In Matthew 18 Jesus tells His disciples that unless they change and become like little children, they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. What in the world does that mean? I’ve met a lot of little children and almost none of them appeared to be super well behaved or even all that godly. I’ve met a baby or two that appeared angelic while they slept but that sleep was generally the calm before the storm. I’ve met a lot of middle schoolers and, well, let’s just say there are few that Jesus would exhort you to emulate. So what on earth did He mean when he said that we ought to change and become like little children?Did Jesus have in mind some ancient version of the 90’s cult classic Billy Madison where Adam Sandler tries to prove to his dad that he’s good enough to inherit the family business by repeating 1st through 12th grade as a grown man? Somehow I doubt it, though they are both Jewish… hmmm.Anyway, join us as we continue our journey through the TV series The Chosen as we look at episode three, Jesus Loves The Little Children.

This Saturday night, 7 pm, we kick-off our Summer at the Movies series; featuring The Chosen. Each Sunday morning, between now and August 20th, we will take an episode, dive into the world behind the Biblical text, its primary Biblical characters, and the text itself. I believe The Chosen helps to put skin on the Bible characters, allowing us to enter their world, and seeing that Jesus is just as relevant today as He was then. It gets us in touch with our own story, if we permit it to do so.Our Saturday launch kicks off with episodes 2 & 3. Take time to watch episode 1 at home (warning parents, E-1 can be a little scary for some).Join me this weekend as I recap episode 1 (kid-friendly), I Have Called You By Name, and then launch us into episode 2, Shabbat, contrasting the characters of Nicodemus and Mary Magdalene, in light of the question: Fence-sitter or Follower?

Dear Friends and Family,When I posed the question, “What is the definition of freedom?” to ChaptGPT, my ChatBox app responded with the following: “Freedom is the state of being able to act, speak, or think without being restrained by external forces or influences….” A bit startling! But that was the opening line. What is true freedom? How do we know? Do teens and young adults in the US feel free today? When you look at statistics across the board, the numbers indicate that many do not feel like they are experiencing true freedom - young and old alike. I invite you to join me this weekend, when Elders Eric Closs, Brian Deyaert, and I change things up. We will deliver a three-part message on “True Freedom,” with each segment linked by worship through praise.

Did you know that there are over 31,000 verses in the entire Bible? Many of them point to Jesus and our need for Him.For this weekend, we will be focusing on John 1:1-18. For it is in these 18 verses of scripture that we learn A LOT about who Jesus really is and about who we can be in relation to Him. Not only do these 18 verses set the stage for the rest of the gospel of John, but they help us have a better understanding of the world in which we live.Come join us this weekend as we unpack the depth and breadth of Jesus’ life, how that can shape our identity, and what it means to live as people of grace and truth in a world that can be lacking in both.

Dear Friends and Family,In our culture we ask how a God who is loving and who teaches us to turn the other cheek, how that God can also ultimately find some of us guilty and sentence us to hell? However, in more traditional societies, turning the other cheek makes absolutely no sense while the doctrine of a God of judgement presents no trouble at all.In Christianity God is both a God of love and justice. How is that possible? Join us as we wrestle with that question as we conclude our 6-week series, "The Reason for God," searching for belief in an age of skepticism....and by the way…What does this have to do with Father’s Day? I’m glad you asked!I’m going to use a well-known story found in Luke 15 about a father with two sons… the younger son comes to his dad one day and says, "Give me my inheritance." The father does and the young son heads out to live life on his own terms while the other son stays and continues to slave away on the farm. The day finally comes when the younger son realizes how badly he has blown it and he comes home with his hat in his hand. The father runs to meet him, embraces him, arranges a welcome home feast and invites both sons to come and celebrate. Sadly, the story ends with the elder brother brooding outside the house, unwilling to go in… while the younger brother who arrived famished and broken, runs to find his place at the table. Both sons had an invitation to the feast… only one goes in. The answer doesn’t lie blowing in the wind… it comes with learning once and for all… WHO'S YOUR DAD?We will be welcoming the Waterboyz for Jesus 100MAN Choir to lead us in worship so be ready for an unforgettable Father’s Day celebration at Damascus Road Community Church!

Why is the church responsible for so much injustice? Why are Christians such hypocrites? These two related questions have been raised by many skeptics and detractors.Those questions, by the way, were not charges hurled at Christianity in the New Testament or the early centuries of the church. But after 2000 years of church history, spanning countless individuals, countries, and cultural contexts, we do have to deal with the fact that there have been times when “the church” seems to be linked with injustice and hypocrisy, rather than God’s justice and love.The question is whether injustice is a “feature” or a “bug” in religion in general (as some atheists have charged) or in the Christian faith and the church in particular. And whether a life truly lived in union with Christ leads to more or less justice.Join me this week as we take an honest look at this question addressed by Tim Keller in The Reason for God.

Dear Friends and Family,A person not a program. A story not a system. A movement not a set of morals. This week we will continue our series on "The Reason for God," where we have wrestled with roadblocks and barriers to faith. Our focus this week will be to clear up exactly what it means to be a Christian. We will be doing what the Apostle Peter, writing to the far-flung churches of the first century, instructed believers to do when he said: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” Last week we looked at a barrier to faith but this week we will look at the message of Jesus – the Gospel – and we will try to understand how it is different from “religion.” We will be looking at the very core, the center – the sum and substance – of our faith. If someone is wrestling with faith, we want to make very clear what that faith is and what it means to believe, because it is often not what you would expect. We will be working through chapter 11 of The Reason for God titled: Religion and the Gospel (for those of you that like to do your homework ahead of time.) If you are unsure about what you believe or know someone who is wrestling with the claims of Christianity, this would be a great week to show up and think with us.

Dear Friends and Family,When questions come up in life, where do you go to find the answers? If you’re anything like me, first turn is probably to Google. That works out well many questions in life– how tall was the tallest man ever? Robert Wadlow (1918-1940) stood at 8’11” and is the tallest person recorded in history.Boom! Google for the win!That’s great for many questions but Dr. Google has left me an anxious mess every time I have turned to it with medical questions – it always seems to think I have weeks-to-months to live. Worse than that, if you ask Google what your purpose is, why you’re here, what’s the meaning of life, or if there is a god, you will get the algorithm’s best attempt to match the relevance of your search terms with content that it has crawled for on the world wide web, your assumed meaning and intent, your geographic location, and the freshness and popularity of the content it is going to offer you.Most of us instinctively know that some questions are too big and too important to leave to a search engine algorithm.So where do you turn when it comes to the big questions of life? This week we will look at the Bible and try to determine why it has become such a popular place for people to turn when searching for answers to life’s biggest questions. We will talk about whether it is reliable and what sorts of questions it can help us answer. We will take an honest look at a common objection to the claims of Christianity – “You can’t take the Bible literally.” Join us as we jump in and wrestle honestly with this serious roadblock to faith for so many.

Dear Friends and Family,It’s for FREEDOM that CHRIST set us FREE! Galatians 5:1Every person and culture has to decide right and wrong for themselves. Which creates spaces with a lot of rules. Which creates a lot of people who want to be rule breakers. When God created the world there was only one rule. The one rule was God’s way of giving people the choice of making Him the authority in their lives. The tangible way God did that was by telling people not to eat the fruit of one particular tree. But at the heart of that rule was the heart of the people that rule was given to. Would they submit to God’s authority, or would they choose to be their own authority?God is all about freedom and knew that we could never be truly free without Him. We tend to think of freedom as being independent from any restrictions, but the truth is we need restrictions to be truly free.Join us for part 2 in our series “The Reason for God” entitled: Why are there so many rules. We will look at where true freedom really comes from and how we can live in that freedom that Christ provides in the here and the now as well as forever. Living life to the fullest!

“Mama – tell me a story about when you were a little girl.” Or “Mama – tell me about the day I was born.” Every mom and every parent has heard some version of this question. Children love stories – about animals and children and kings and princesses and monsters - and especially stories about themselves and their parents. We are story-telling creatures. For thousands of years, even before writing was invented, humans told stories. Stories about how the world began, about how it will end. Stories about the gods who must mysteriously control the rain, and the sunrise, and the plants that sprouted out of the ground. Stories about themselves – their tribe, their people, their origins, their purpose.All of us have a big story – a meta-narrative – some vision of reality and our place in it that we implicitly live by – the frame on which we weave together the disparate facts of our lives, of history, of science, of pain and loss and joy and love. We weave all of this together into a story – either consciously or unconsciously. If all our facts and perceptions are right and true and good, we get a good story – a story that “works” – a story that meshes well with reality. The more of our facts and perceptions that are mistaken, or false, or painful – the less well our story will “work.” We will find ourselves getting nasty surprises and unexpected outcomes when our assumptions about the story we are living in turn out to be false.This week we begin a new 6-part series, based on Tim Keller’s book “The Reason for God.” We will look at some of the big questions that many people ask as they are trying to understand the big story they are living in, their story, and how both of those stories mesh and make sense.“What Story Are You Living In?”I hope you’ll join us this weekend as I introduce this series that our teaching team will share, look at the big question of “Can there really be just one true religion?” and end with the good, true story God tells through his son Jesus.

Dear Friends and Family,Why on earth did Dr. Luke devote so much space at the end of his book of Acts to a voyage, a storm, a shipwreck, and a snakebite? Is he a trusted reporter of the early church and the ancient events portrayed in Acts? Take time prior to this Sunday to read or listen to Acts 27:1-28:31. I think you will be impressed at the precision, accuracy, and vividness of his narrative. Hint: Pay attention to the pronouns he uses in the story. Some scholars say there is no better detailed record of the working of an ancient ship in all of classical literature.Luke’s account even out does the vivid descriptions of Homer in the Odyssey and in the Old Testament book of Jonah! Ask most people about the way Luke ends the book of Acts, they’ll say, “That’s no way to make the NY Times Best Seller list!”Does any of this make sense? I think you will marvel at the answers and application for us today!

Join us as we dive into Acts chapter 9 and the story of Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. This is one of the most powerful and riveting stories of life-transformation in the whole Bible! As Saul encountered the risen Christ, his life was forever changed. His zeal for the law was transformed into a passion for the gospel. His hatred of Christians was transformed into a love for all people. And his pride and self-righteousness were transformed into a humble dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit.WE can learn a lot from the story of Saul’s conversion. It has life-changing implications for EVERYONE.Come and hear how this story relates to our history as a church, where we are today, and where we are heading. 

The Wild Ride continues as we look back at the book of Acts and how it is changing our future! This Sunday we will ride the DeLorean back to the beginning of the early Christian church as we first take a deep look at who the Holy Spirit is and the power it gives to those who have it, and secondly the life change and unbelievable unity that the Holy Spirit brings to people from every culture, race, political view, and tongue as they put the resurrected Christ above everything else!The Book of Acts takes us on a journey of explosive growth and discipleship as the first Christians experience the power of the Holy Spirit released first with the disciples and then through churches in local communities just like ours! Come join us as we this Sunday as we worship and learn more about the living God who loves us so much He gave His Son to save us!

You couldn't miss it when you walked in the room… Some would say it smelled earthy. Frankly, it just stank of body odor and worse. Peter had no doubt stepped in it again.  Each man in the room was wondering where the servant was who was going to wash their feet. After all, they were certainly too important to even consider stepping up! Just when the tension in the room reached a breaking point, in walked Jesus. Instantly, He saw what was happening and without breaking stride, He walked over to the jar of water, took off His outer coat, wrapped a towel around His waist, poured water into a basin and knelt down, “Judas, can I wash your feet?" Master?Knowing that God had put everything under His power, that He had come from God and was returning to God Jesus got on His knees and served. So, why serve? Because Jesus did! Because when we serve in Jesus name it sucks the cynicism out of a lost and dying world. This Sunday we are holding our annual Local Missions Fair. Our Local Missions team along with our 13 ministry partners will be offering you opportunities to serve those hurting and hopeless in our community as the hands and feet of Jesus. An unexpected thing happens when we serve…Sunday we will go "Back to the Future" as we dive into the book of Acts in this very special, interactive message series.

There is one word that keeps showing up to describe people’s reaction to Jesus – they were amazed! They were amazed at His words, His actions, and His approach to life and offer of forgiveness to all who would come to Him. Then the unthinkable happened one Friday. Jesus was crucified, hope was lost, and the disciples were confused, scattered, and afraid. But everything changed again on an early Sunday morning, when the disciples looked inside an empty tomb. The most amazing thing happened - the stone was moved, the darkness was lifted, and Jesus had risen from the dead.Join us this Easter weekend as we look at this amazing news with fresh eyes and discover how through the resurrection of Christ, each one of us is continually being offered the same amazing opportunity that invites us into a changed life full of love, joy, peace, and hope.

Dear Friends and Family, When Jesus comes to town, the most unexpected things happen. You never know where He’s going to go. You never know what He’s going to do, and there is always an unexpected turn of events. This Sunday marks a very important day on the calendar in the life of the global Christian church! It’s the first day of Holy Week, also known as Palm Sunday, which commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem — an event mentioned in all four of the gospels in the Bible. It’s the only day Jesus ever rode into town, and even before He arrived, He started doing and saying the most unexpected things! Who is this guy? He raises the dead. Gives sight to the blind, and rearranges the furniture (so to speak) in the temple of God. Who does He think He is, the owner? Come and enter into a part of the greatest story every told. Experience some of the events leading up to the triumphal procession, the procession itself; and some of what follows.

Dear Family and Friends,Many of us wrestle with the gap between feeling like we are not enough and our dreams, between who we are and who God says we are meant to be. So many times we feel like we have messed things up, or, in some ways, have not measured up, so we end up asking, “Why Me?”. We are not alone in this; Moses, Gideon, Elijah, Jeremiah, and Peter all felt this way, that they were not enough, asking “Why Me?”. And guess what? They weren’t. But with God in the fire with them they were used to change the world. And God can be in the fire with us. With Him, it can change our world!So, Join us for part 2 of our series “WHY” as we talk about how you and I are not enough, but with God in the fire with us, we are. And just like the Bible heroes, God will use us to do amazing things, in the here and the now, regardless of your age or previous mistakes! It’s never too late to live out your calling!

Dear Family and Friends,This week kicks off our new Why? series. Any of us who have been around a three-year-old are very familiar with this question! Sunday, we start with, Why Pray?Over the next five weeks, we will look at the why question from five different angles that will help each of us take our next right step in our walk with Jesus. Come listen, learn and experience God as we seek to help you answer your why, in light of God’s “whys”, illuminated by the Bible.

Dear Family and Friends,This Sunday, we will conclude our series on the book of Judges by taking a closer look at the life of Samson. By many accounts, he is the worst of all the judges. His life is full of deception and scandal, and his moral failures are too many to count.A man chosen by God to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines… but yet he made a series of foolish choices with real life consequences. Four times across three chapters we are told that the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon Samson. But yet, he forgot where his true strength came from. It’s tempting to read the story of Samson and think, what an idiot! But if we’re honest, there are several elements to his life and story that can become all too familiar if we really pay attention to what is happening behind the scenes. Together, we will wrestle with several questions based on lessons from the life of Samson. Come and learn more about how the life of a Tragic Hero relates to our story in 2023. 

Dear Family and Friends,Over the past several weeks, we have been looking at some of the stories in Judges of people who God used to rescue and bring relief to Israel in times of oppression. We've already seen that God doesn't choose leaders based on human calculations - and that is good news for all of us. In fact, the further we get into the Judges, the clearer we see that the real hero is God - and he can call up and empower and work through anyone. Join us this week as we look at the story of Jephthah - a man who God works through to rescue Israel, even though he has some serious flaws. And we will see that God is moving his story forward, remaining faithful to his people, even when there is a lot of confusion and chaos. Because God's story is ultimately about his faithfulness to us - a faithfulness and commitment that has been there from the very beginning.

Dear Family and Friends,This Sunday, we will continue our series through the book of Judges by looking at the story of a very unlikely hero, Gideon. When God calls him to accomplish something great and amazing, Gideon reminds God of his inadequacies. When God calls him by a new name, Gideon struggles to see himself as God sees him. When God calls him to fight a great battle, Gideon wonders about the great odds against him. Gideon’s story reminds us that our God is bigger than our fears, our problems, our worries, and our failures. He is bigger than our sin and shame. He knows all about the Midianites in our lives. He knows the losses we have faced and the guilt and regret we carry, and yet, He offers us a better story, a better dream, a better task, a better life and best of all, a better understanding of His plan, His purpose, and His presence than we have ever known. God is with us. You are not alone.You will want to read Gideon’s story especially if you are facing long odds in any area of your life. Take about fifteen minutes this week and read or listen to Gideon’s story in Judges 6-8.

Dear Family and Friends,We continue our series on the book of Judges this Sunday, looking at the powerful story of Deborah, a remarkable leader God raised up who was not just a judge, but a prophet and a woman. Way back around 1200 BC, God was sending a powerful message when He chose a woman to serve in a position of national leadership. We’ll meet a colorful cast of characters – Deborah, Barak, Sisera, Jael, and Heber. What can we learn from them? What does the Bible teach us about God and women? How does God view the abuse of women? What kind of people does God use to accomplish His purposes? We will answer these questions and more as we discover God’s vision for the kind of kingdom He wants to build on earth. I am dedicating this weekend’s message to all the women in our community. Men, bring your wives, sisters, daughters and friends as we listen and learn from the lives of two remarkable women in Judges 4 & 5.

We conclude our series Unstuck this week. Many of us often get stuck facing moments in our lives when our spirits are crushed. These moments can sap hope, kill dreams, and rob us of the life we were meant to live. God, in reality, has great concern and compassion for those whose spirits are crushed. He wants to speak life into us and lighten our burden. Join us this weekend as we dig into Scripture and take the next step to getting unstuck.

Dear Family and Friends,We will continue our series Unstuck this Sunday, living out what Scripture tells us in Galatians 5:1 – “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” I have invited a dear friend of mine, Theresa Noye, to bring the message this weekend. Theresa is one of the most uplifting people I know. She has spoken extensively on multicultural issues, special needs, and how we can all live out our God-given potential. We will honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this weekend, as well as celebrate our Haven Special Needs Ministry.

Is there an area in your life where you feel stuck and can’t seem to move forward? Cluttered calendar, same old routines, relational breakdown, malaise, and meaningless rhythms? You are not alone. A nationwide survey revealed that a large segment of the American population feels stuck—stuck in routine, relationships, finances, job, career, or spiritual walk. Over half admitted they feel they are living some version of the 1993 classic film, Groundhog Day.Over three weeks, we will look at biblical examples and solutions from God’s Word to help us experience freedom and the abundant life Jesus promises us. We will discover ways we can become unstuck and thrive this year. The first step is to acknowledge we are stuck and ask for help. What happens next?

Dear Family and Friends,Happy New Year! A new year brings a sense of anticipation. We dream a bit, we hope, we make resolutions. Join us this Sunday, January 1st, as we look at God’s faithfulness in the past and offer the coming year to Him in what will be a special worship service as we look at a memorable story from the Old Testament with powerful lessons on how to step into the future with God. Change can sometimes be hard, but a new year offers us a new opportunity to live the flourishing life Jesus promised us. After the last three years, a fresh start has never been so welcome!

The movie "I Heard the Bells" is based on the life of one of the greatest American poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He had achieved considerable success in his lifetime when tragedy struck. Facing intense personal heartbreak in the middle of the bloodiest war in American history, his life was overcome with grief, disillusionment, and a deep sense of hopelessness. How do you find hope and healing when everything has fallen apart? Then one day, through the darkness came the sound of church bells ringing in celebration of the Christmas season. And he picked up his pen once more and wrote the carol, "I Heard the Bells." Join us as we hear the Jesus story afresh, looking at the life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and discover how God is bringing hope, peace, and joy into our broken world.

401 years ago New England colonists and Native Americans sat down together to celebrate a Harvest Festival of thanks. Both cultures had traditions of giving thanks to God for the provisions in their lives. While Thanksgiving would not become an official American holiday for more than 200 years, the inspiration of that moment of fellowship and thanksgiving has reverberated down through our collective memory. Fellowship and thanks have sadly been too often absent in our history, but each year, we have an opportunity to renew commitments to acknowledge our dependence upon the generosity of God and our obligation to share that with whatever humans God has brought close to us. On Thanksgiving Day, all of us will sit down with family and friends to give thanks for God's blessings and provisions. As Dr. Wang reminded us last Sunday, as he shared the pictures of relief work in Ukraine, many will mark this Holiday in fear and need. Our world is always this mix of joyful gratefulness for the goodness of God and sorrowful intercession for those who have been robbed of their share of God's bounty in our sinful world. Thanksgiving is a day for Thanks, and as we do that, let's lift up the needs of our world to the Lord and ask Him to point us to opportunities to share and bless as we move into the holiday season.

Our journey through Immerse (New Testament) will take us through the book of Matthew next week. As we learned earlier in the series, the four Gospel accounts provide a rich and unified picture of Jesus. Matthew is perhaps the strangest choice for a Gospel writer. A tax collector by profession, Jewish by birth, Roman by employment, yet called by Jesus to be a disciple. He offers a deeply textured picture of Christ. He depicts the story of Jesus as something new that is rooted in the old. He begins with a royal genealogy and then presents the Gospel in a brilliantly structured way to help build a bridge connecting the story of Jesus with the Hebrew Bible’s story of salvation and the promise of a coming King. Join us this weekend as we learn how to read, understand, and interpret the good news of Jesus according to Matthew.

We continue our journey immersed in the New Testament this week in the gospel according to Mark. I have invited a college friend of mine to share what it means to take the gospel and live it out in a way that impacts our world. Shane Claiborne and I first met at Eastern University in the nineties, shortly before he left for Calcutta to intern with Mother Teresa. Shane is the founder of The Simple Way and has written several bestselling books and has been featured in numerous magazines and television programs and is usually booked out for years. Erika and I had the privilege of visiting with him and his wife Katie last week. In what will forever be for Erika and me a memorable walk with them down the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, we saw the scope of The Simple Way and Shane and Katie’s work among the poorest neighborhoods in America. I kept thinking of Isaiah 9:2, John 1:5, and James 1:27. We walked away encouraged and inspired. I am looking forward to hosting this very special couple and dear friends this weekend – don’t miss it!

You are invited to the feast! The king carefully prepared his guest list, making certain that all the right people were invited. No expense was spared; this was going to be a wedding celebration that would be talked about for a long, long time. The responses began to trickle in… “Sorry, can't make it, we have tickets to the game that day”… “Wish we could, but my daughter has a cheerleading competition that day”… Each excuse seemed even more inadequate than the one before…So, the king did a very unexpected thing… He sent his messengers out into the city and invited all of the hurting, struggling and hungry folk to the party… and they all came! There was still room, so the king sent his messengers back out. This time they went into the countryside… the highways and the byways… They invited all those who worked from sunup to sundown… struggling to put food on the table for their children… turns out they all had completely empty social calendars… Nothing and no one would keep any of these invited guests from coming. This week we are talking about how we can invite the hurting, hopeless, and helpless to the Kingdom feast here in Frederick.

Headlines have named the past 2+ years many things, including The Great Resignation, The Great Reshuffle and the Great Reset. We were all forced to scale back, reassess and re-prioritize in response to a rapidly changing context. Naturally, this has also applied to our life together as a community. While our mission remains unchanged, our methods must adapt to an ever-changing world. Don’t miss this Sunday as we unveil our plans for the future. For the first time we will be showing a digital tour of the renovated west wing of the building. God is up to something new in our midst and He’s using us, His Church, to be ambassadors of hope and healing to a hurting and seeking world.

Over the last several months, our elders have been reading through NT Wright’s book, The Day the Revolution Began. Last week, we discussed chapter 12 where we dug into how God wants us to be fully functioning, God-reflecting human beings, and that Jesus came to bring us back into and be part of the new creation not just as beneficiaries, but as active participants. One way we do this is through our missions. We have a Damascus Road tradition of celebrating all of our missions the last two weeks in August each year. Last weekend, Pastor Roger gave us a fantastic report from Honduras, Nicaragua, and Johnstown, PA while challenging us to live out our God-given mission. This weekend, we will celebrate our missions in India, Germany, and Africa. Don’t miss it!

We wrap up our series on Summer at the Movies this week. Join our church community in one of our Sunday worship services where we will look at the movie and discover the greater truth of God’s Kingdom coming in our midst. We’ve been looking at how movies give us a way to discerningly use terms and stories of our age to talk about God and the greater truth of His Story. The movie echoes the spiritual truth that God has gifted each of us uniquely and created us to be a masterpiece! Too often, we shrink back when confronted with that idea. I am too young, I am too old, I am too inadequate, I am not brave enough, good enough, smart enough, I have too much baggage, I am buried in guilt and shame, I am broken…the list is endless. But these are false messages hiding the truth about you. It’s hidden. But it doesn’t have to be. Let’s embark on a journey this weekend to see what this masterpiece looks like.

We are looking at how movies give us a way to discerningly use terms and stories of our age to talk about God and the greater truth of His Story. The apostle Paul did something similar in Acts 17 when he used terms and a story line that were familiar to the people in Athens so that he could help them understand the bigger God story and the good news of Jesus.

Imagine you are destitute, hungry, abandoned, ostracized, and cast out of the town you live in right now. Then imagine circumstances worsen! There is a famine, you are starving, a foreign power invades your city, and you enter into what looks and feels like a scene out of a dystopian movie. Things look hopeless, but then an extraordinary thing happens. You stumble across a pile of extremely valuable treasure. We are talking great food, clothes, gold, silver, the works. It is way more than you can ever use in a lifetime. This is incredible news in a time of mass starvation and extreme suffering. What do you do? That is the question we’ll tackle this Sunday as we look at a somewhat obscure and yet fascinating story from Scripture that teaches us what we are to do as recipients of some truly incredibly fabulous news.

We will wrap up our series this week on the parables by looking at the short, but powerful story of The Midnight Visitor. It is also one of the most misunderstood parables of Jesus and has often been interpreted in a way that profoundly distorts our view of God. This Sunday, we will sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to this story afresh and rekindle our vision and passion for the one thing you and I will not regret on our death beds—the one thing that will keep the mighty stream of God’s Spirit and power at work in us; the one thing that will keep our commitment to unity above any pull toward division, dissension, or a coldness of heart; the one thing that Martin Luther once said, leads to “a climbing up of the heart unto God.” Join us this weekend as we unpack one of the most intriguing stories of Jesus. I am praying each of us will walk away having both humbly learned from Jesus and deeply encouraged by Him.

What do you do when you read a passage of scripture that confuses (or worse yet, disturbs) you? Traditionally there are three options:1. Ignore the passage all together and focus on others 2. Try to qualify or contextualize the passage to soften it or make it more palatableOR3. Dig in deep and try to figure out what it’s really saying and why  This week we will be tackling the Parable of the Shrewd Manager and it is historically a parable that has elicited either option 1 or 2. We, of course, will take option 3 and try to find out what on earth this passage means and why on earth Jesus, through Luke, thought it was important to include in scripture.

Dear Family and Friends, In talking to other pastor friends, it struck us just how many conflicts we have all had to sift through in these last three years. To be sure, disagreements and conflicts are a staple of any relationship or community, but the pace, frequency, and sheer number of things people debated over (and divided over) accelerated in this season. We often think of the early church as a place where everyone got along and it was all one big happy family. Scripture paints a different picture. In fact, very early on, the church grappled with some serious issues (see Acts 5 & 6 for example). This weekend, we will conclude our Game Change series by looking at some key principles the early church leaders adopted in handling serious conflicts. It was a game changer. I am praying each of us will walk away both humbly learning from them and deeply encouraged by their example. I look forward to seeing you in person or online this Sunday!

He is Risen!He is Risen, Indeed! This ancient call and response - known as the “paschal greeting” - is a familiar Easter tradition. But why do we say this? What do we mean, what do we understand when we say these words? When the sun dawned on Easter morning, no human yet grasped that reality had fundamentally changed - a shift in history, in the fabric of the universe had occurred. But the moment we begin reading the last chapter of Luke, we start to get hints of this changed reality - a change so momentous, that those who first encounter it do not see it - they need divine assistance to “open their eyes.” But as this new reality dawns - oh my - it shakes the foundations of the world. Human assumptions about reality must fundamentally change as Jesus’s resurrected body has fundamentally changed. Join us for the Sunday after Easter - as we walk with the women to the tomb and two disciples on the road to Emmaus and experience with them the reality that when the Risen Lord comes into our life, nothing will ever again be the same!

Malachi burst into the scene at a time when the people seemed preoccupied, apathetic, distracted and wondering if following God made any sense. He did the same for us last weekend as we dove into this little book with a big message. He challenged us and got us energized to move from apathetic faith to a life of vibrant commitment to God. This weekend, we’ll hang out with Malachi some more and hear his call to live as covenant people in all aspects of our lives. The prophet casts a compelling vision for an abundant life. But vision alone is never enough. So he gives the people a fantastic call to action meant to transform the amazing vision of a fully committed life to God into a beautiful reality. Don’t miss this week! And remember, it only takes about eleven minutes to (slowly) read through the book of Malachi. Do it this week – some day when we are all on the other side of eternity, you will thank me for making you do this!

“Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 Last week we learned what it means to love as Christ loves. We learned that to really understand what love looks like, what love does, how love acts, we must look to Christ and respond as Christ responds. We love because He loved – and oh, how he loved us and loves us! This good news of the gospel empowers us, to not only love those who are unlovely, but it moves us beyond mere feelings and into acts of service and action for others. Come discover how it is that the bombshell truth of the gospel transforms us, our churches, and communities, motivating us to bear the burdens of others because Christ bore ours. Come and learn how the gospel causes us to serve others from a place of security and strength – because we have been forgiven and accepted. We have been saved to serve. We now live to love, and this love causes us to be like our Lord who says, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) Will you let him come along side of you and shoulder your burdens today? He will if you let him. And when he lifts yours, you will in turn be empowered to lift the burdens of others. Join us this week for Week 3 of our Genius of One Another series as we learn another facet of what it means to “fulfill the law of Christ.”

What does a sick woman, an insane man & a dead girl have in common?They were alone…The woman was bleeding, hopeless, alone in the middle of a crowd…The man was living alone in a cave. Not safe to himself or anyone else…And the girl, she was lying in a room. Alone, dead, beyond help & hope.This Sunday we start a new series, "The Genius of One Another”. For the next five weeks we will be doing a deep dive into one of Gods greatest gifts to each of us, to all of us, one another, community, us, all y'all!This Sunday members of Cross Pointe Healing House will be joining us for both services. We will meet their pastor and their children have agreed to perform a powerful dance number. Serving Together! Why? Because together we can go places that we can't & won’t go alone.

We live in a weary world. One filled with division and fear. More than ever before, we need a message of peace, heavenly peace. Yes, peace. The Gospel of Peace came to us through the provision of the babe sleeping in a manger who would one day hang high for you and for me.That kind of peace provides abundant power for daily living. That kind of peace ushers in calm in crisis. That kind of peace yokes a weary and burdened soul with the Prince of Peace.

In Philippians 4:11-13, we see Paul conclude this timeless book by revealing the “secret” of being content despite his circumstances. What does this mean for us as followers of Christ today? Is it even possible to find contentment during life’s difficult circumstances? Let’s unpack these verses together as we discover what it means to have a faith that defines our circumstances, and not the other way around.

Have you ever been talking to someone and then, in a light bulb style ah-ha moment, they reach into their coat pocket, pull out some breath mints and offer you one? Nice gesture, right? But don’t you get the impression that maybe they’re trying to tell you something? Maybe you’re overthinking it… or maybe this is, as you suspect, their way of telling you that you have fallen victim of halitosis.These little veiled and strategic exchanges happen all the time between people and most of the time they are about much larger issues than a case of stinky breath. Sometimes a hard word comes in an indirect way and we have to be really listening to perceive that the word is actually directed right at us.This week we’re going to explore the apostle Paul’s not-so-subtle corrective word to two of his friends at the church in Philippi. Somewhere in our exploration we might just find that he is reaching into his coat pocket to offer us a breath mint too!

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

We are on week four of a six-week journey of deep reflection as a church. We are on a pilgrimage together discerning God’s heart for us and our future. We are rediscovering our mission to be a community of light in a world facing much darkness.This weekend, I’ve asked some of our elders to join me in leading us through a weekend of worship, scripture readings, and prayer. The Bible tells us to pray continually (1 Thess 5:17), where two or three are gathered, there Jesus is (Matt 18:20), that if we ask anything according to God’s will, He hears us (1 John 5:14), that in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, we should present our requests to God (Phil 4:6), that God’s house shall be called a house of prayer (Isaiah 56:7). Jesus prayed often and in all kinds of circumstances. He healed people through prayer. The Holy Spirit came upon Him as He was praying. He was transfigured with divine glory as He was praying. In His moments of crises, He prayed. Join us this weekend as we do this together and then commit to a life of worship, scripture reading, and prayer. These are crucial disciplines to experiencing the abundant and flourishing life Jesus promises us. Come prayed up, because God is about to do something in our midst!

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

I was heading to Germany for a baseball camp on Friday… so of course as I was getting out of bed on Monday my back went out. I could barely walk let alone drive so I did what I always do… I called Dr. Jon Davis, my chiropractor. By Thursday, surprisingly although I had gone to see him a couple of times, I still hadn’t found any relief. When I tried to get out of bed on Thursday to go to my men’s table, I almost couldn’t do it… I finally struggled to my feet and somehow drove to Panera. Driving was agony… and as I did my best Tim Conway imitation shuffling into the restaurant, I remember thinking “why in the world am I here?… and how can I get on the plane tomorrow?” I told the men at my table how worried I was and as you might have guessed, they immediately circled around me and prayed. Truthfully, I had no hope, no faith, it would change anything, until I stood to leave… NO PAIN!! NONE!!! Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw THEIR faith, He said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” Matthew 9:2 I can’t get there from here….. BUT WE CAN!

Picture it: Peter, the deeply repentant ‘denier of Jesus’ is now walking along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee with the crucified but risen Jesus at his side! What a morning: first a miraculous catch of fish, then breakfast around a charcoal fire (just like the one where Peter denied Jesus 3 times), both provided by Jesus, who intentionally and mercifully gives Peter 3 opportunities to reaffirm his all-in faith. Then Jesus tells Peter that he (Peter) will indeed die for Jesus someday and says: “Follow Me!” (John 21:19). Now their walk together. Absorbing it all, Peter turns to see John following them, and ask Jesus: “LORD, what about Him?” What will his story be? How will his life go? Jesus responds: “What is that to you? You follow Me! (21:20-22).” That’s our topic, our theme and our application this weekend: What does it mean truly, daily, to follow Jesus? How do we discern our “next right step” on that journey?

Many centuries ago, the wise King Solomon wrote, “I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:4). At Damascus Road Community Church, we believe God did not create us to pursue meaningless goals. Deep down, the desire to better the world is embedded in our hearts, and it comes directly from God. If you have ever wondered whether the nine-to-five routine was it, or if life is more than just ramping up the speed on a hedonic treadmill, it could be God nudging you to live beyond yourself. Join us this weekend as we celebrate multiple God-stories and look at God’s great design for each of us—a life lived in community with others, calling us all to go from being wind-chasers to world-changers.

It beats, it breaks, it soars, it aches. It can be hard or soft,It can be empty or full. It’s the origin of courage and the home of despair. It can fail or overcome. It can be big or shriveled. It can be divided or steadfast.  There is more said about the Heart in both popular culture and biblical imagery than any other part of a human being or human body. It could definitely be titled “King of the Organs." It is sung about in every genre of music and poetry where it is credited as the source of emotion, motivation, pride, courage, empathy, and even, at times, intellect. Join us this week as we explore what the biblical writer meant when he instructed: “above all else, guard your heart”. More than that, we will explore what it means to have a heart that beats after our heavenly Father.

There are two spiritual tests highlighted in Proverbs: Good times and bad times. These circumstances show our character and our heart status. These tests can also expose sin in general, our idols in particular. We can choose whether to deal with them or deny them, but if we decide to deal with them with God by our side, we will gain wisdom and will not stay the same.

This weekend, we launch a brand new series titled Wisdom. If you are wondering how to live wisely in an age of outrage, how to handle your relationships in a way that honors both God and people, and if you desire to make decisions that will not lead to regret, then wisdom is required. In this series, we will look at the book of Proverbs and explore how we can live wiser and end up with fewer regrets.

Mother’s Day can be a day that seems exclusive – only relevant to those who have borne children. But it is really a day for everyone – because we all have a mother! The quality of that relationship – good, strained, or non-existent – inevitably has a huge impact on the life of every human being. If you’ve had a great mother, we rejoice and celebrate with you. If you had a complicated or missing mother, we sympathize with you. This week, we will be looking at the story of a faithful and faith-filled mother, and how her story can inspire all of us.The story of Hannah opens the book of 1 Samuel, a book which begins the saga of the monarchy. This unfolding story of the monarchy – a succession of warrior kings, some goodish and many quite bad, which ends in captivity and exile -- is introduced with the story of a barren woman, longing for a child. In Hannah’s story, we see weakness and vulnerability paired with an astonishing faith in the God of Israel. When he grants her request for a child, Hannah prays a powerful prayer extolling the God who brings down the mighty and lifts up the humble. Her words will be echoed centuries later in the triumphant prayer of another mother, Mary. If Israel’s kings had lived and governed according to the words of Hannah’s and Mary’s prayers, what a different trajectory Israel’s story would have had.Motherhood is not for the faint of heart! It is filled with joys, challenges, vulnerabilities, and ultimately stretches us to our limits. But in Hannah’s story we see a model of how weakness and vulnerability can be submitted to God in a way that leads to victory rather than defeat. And that is a message that is relevant for all of us – men and women, fathers and mothers, young and old, single, married, or child-free. Please join us as we allow a mother to point us toward the God who brings down the mighty, lifts up the humble, and watches over his children.

This Sunday (in what will be my last message before I head out for my sabbatical) we conclude our series on Who is Jesus? by looking at one of the most Christocentric passages of Scripture. This vision of Christ is crucial if we are to catch God’s vision for us as a church and as individuals. Imagine a community where we continue to form and sustain a culture where people bring people to meet Jesus, where every follower of Jesus is on a pathway of growth, and disciples making disciples become the norm. Imagine people embodying the church in their homes, neighborhoods, workplaces and every domain of our region and beyond. Imagine a place in our world where each person discovers their soul’s innermost purpose and missional impulse to make a difference in our world (where anyone can come, no one is perfect, and extraordinary things start to happen). Then imagine every individual in DRCC fully grasping what God offers us in Jesus and living out of that identity – a child of God, redeemed, restored and reconciled. Knowing that in Jesus, your past has no power over you and your future is secure. And in Jesus, you get to be part of the church that hell can’t stop! Come and see and become part of the movement.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/whoisjesus5

Session 10:Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. We invite you to join us for this 10-week class each Tuesday at 7pm. This class includes a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions can be submitted via chat during the sessions.Download the message notes: https://tinyurl.com/revelation-p10

Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. We invite you to join us for this 10-week class each Tuesday at 7pm. This class includes a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions can be submitted via chat during the sessions.Download the message notes: https://tinyurl.com/revelation-p6

Do you ever feel like an outsider? Like you don’t belong? That you don’t have enough… faith, or goodness, or right connections, or talents, or knowledge, or achievements, or value to matter to God or others?Join me this week as we visit the story of Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute in a city destined for destruction. Her situation seems desperate and her worth in doubt, but she emerges from the pages of scripture as a hero, and her model of faith reverberates through history--all the way into the New Testament where she is second only to Sara, the matriarch of Israel, for the most references by name of an Old Testament woman. What is it that takes her from the edge of annihilation to a pivotal and lasting legacy in the story of God’s people? Tune in to find out!DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/stepout4

Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. This is part 5 of a 10-week intensive study. This class included a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions were submitted via chat during the sessions.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com.  We continue the series, “The Truth About Us,” by looking at how technology plays such an outsized role in helping people determine the truth about themselves. There are many good things about technology. There are hundreds of ways technology has made life easier for us. We can connect with family and friends across the country and overseas, we can zap food in seconds, and we can catch up on what’s happening in our world in real time. But there is also a dark side to technology that can pull us away from who we were meant to be. Join Pastor Rajendra Pillai for the last message of this series where we will look at God and technology and what the Bible has to say about all this. The beauty of technology is that while we can’t meet physically, you don’t have to watch alone so be sure to share this video with a friend. NEW TO DAMASCUS ROAD? Text HEY to (301) 888-6922 today to get connected or…  NEW YEAR, NEW YOU Let’s say hello to a new year of possibilities ahead! Our winter semester began January 18, but it’s not too late to join one of the new online classes, groups, and opportunities to serve. Register today:  https://damascus.com/winter2021  INTERESTED IN MAKING AN IMPACT? Consider giving toward the ministries at Damascus Road: https://www.damascus.com/give   LET’S CONNECT Complete our digital Connection Card to get connected, request prayer, comment, or information about what’s available for you at Damascus Road: https://tinyurl.com/drcc-connect   STRUGGLING? We have a prayer team ready and waiting to pray for you. Let us know how we can pray: https://tinyurl.com/howcanwepray  JOIN A SMALL GROUP ONLINE GROUPS are available: https://www.damascus.com/groups  WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE? We have ongoing opportunities to safely serve our neighbors:  https://damascus.com/serve  WHAT’S FOR CHILDREN & YOUTH? Visit our Children's Ministry to learn about Kids' Church At Home and other upcoming events: https://www.damascus.com/children  Learn about our Special Needs Ministry, HAVEN:  https://damascus.com/children Learn about our Middle and High School programs: https://www.damascus.com/youth

Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. This is part 1 of a 10-week intensive study. This class included a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions were submitted via chat during the sessions.

In this message, we will walk with the three Wise Men, the distinguished foreigners who visited Jesus after his birth, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Discover how this part of the Christmas story intersects with our own as Associate Pastor Armando Lopez delivers the message.

Did you realize that our lives will shrink or grow to the level of our attitude? Associate Pastor Armando Lopez brings a message that outlines how gratitude - recognizing the good things in our lives - redirects our attitude and leads us to experience a fuller life. Thanks for joining us for part two of, “In Gratitude.”

Did you realize that our lives will shrink or grow to the level of our attitude? Associate Pastor Armando Lopez brings a message that outlines how gratitude - recognizing the good things in our lives - redirects our attitude and leads us to experience a fuller life. Thanks for joining us for the first installment of this two-part series, “In Gratitude.”

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. “Surrendering” to a sworn enemy is a horrible thing. It is always forced, always hated. At best, it means confinement, imprisonment, the complete curtailing of our highest capacities and hopes. At worst, it means unspeakable cruelty and death. It requires hands up in a defenseless posture of “giving up”—knowing we are sacrificing so much we love. But in the lexicon of an all-loving God, surrender is not about “giving up” anything ultimately, except our selfishly small and self-directed life. Surrender is to stop playing ‘god’, it is “giving over” ourselves in trust to the true God who wants only our best—eternally. When we respond to the God who “first loved us” in surrender the outcome is always the healing and expanding of all that is good within us. We’ll apply this to Jesus’ call in this message.

What is the bogeyman’s name and what is his game? This weekend we will unpack Isaiah 41:10 together by asking a few questions... What are you believing to be true about the shadows in your life that are a lie? What life would be available to each of us if we believed God’s promises more than we believe the shadows?So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. // Isaiah 41:10

We continue our series, Damascus Road’s Most Loved Passages with a study on Jeremiah 29:11 This verse has inspired and encouraged millions of people. It is also one of the most misused, misunderstood, and misinterpreted verses in the Bible! These words are so apt for our current times and is loaded with tremendous reassurance and extraordinary hope!

This weekend, we are launching our brand new summer series – Damascus Road Most-Loved Passages. You will remember we took a vote on favorite passages you would like to hear a sermon on and hundreds of votes came in. I will tackle the one that got the most votes—fully one-third of you voted Proverbs 3:5-6 as your favorite passage. We will learn what it means to be wise.

We are on a six-week journey as a church to love God more faithfully, follow God more trustfully, and listen to God more mindfully. Each week, we are looking at different characters from the Bible and learning how they coped with a difficult phase in their lives and came out strong. This weekend, we will look at a particularly dark season in David’s life. Yet, he was able to come out of this long and extremely challenging season of his life filled with hope and courage. We will learn from David how to stand strong with hope and courage even when life places us in a cave of despair. At the end of the service, I will lead us in communion. So, if you could have some bread and juice ready during worship, that would be great!

A virus creating havoc in our world, layoffs at work, slowdown in the economy, panic among people. Sudden and drastic change is everywhere and uncertainty, it seems, has taken a lease next door and set up shop. But what if faith, not fear, was our default reaction to the uncertainties in life? Envision a day when you could trust more and fear less. What would that look like? Join us this weekend as I kick off a brand-new sermon series on living courageously with undying hope in uncertain times. This is a great series to invite a friend or neighbor to join you online. Send them the link. I also wanted to give you two quick reminders – if you have prayed Scripture over your home, let us know on our social media. It’s one way we can encourage and spur one another (Hebrews 10:24-25) in these days of social distancing. Also, I will lead us in communion this weekend. So, if you could have some bread and juice (water is fine too) ready during worship, that would be great! I look forward to joining you online to worship our Lord this weekend!

I feel a deep sense of urgency regarding this weekend’s message. Every day, we are presented with two ways to live. How we make that choice impacts the narrative arc of our life’s story. Jesus says a lot of deep and profound things in Luke chapters 12 and 13. Toward the end of His discourse, he says something that a lot of us who have grown up in church have probably heard more than once. He says, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” What is this narrow door? How is it different than the wide door? What’s on the other side of these doors? So much of what we do is to help each other (and others) recognize the right door to walk through. Because the stakes couldn’t be higher on which door you choose to enter through. Eternity hangs in the balance. Set aside 13 minutes this week and read Luke 12 and 13 (I timed it!) and come prayerfully as we look at one of the most powerful sayings of our Lord.

Isn’t it annoying when you discover that your phone has only 5 percent battery left? Ever feel like you’re walking around on near empty battery? You know God is there and He has a purpose for your life, but most times it just doesn’t feel like it. You start to wonder; Is there purpose in the everyday mundane rhythms of my life? Be encouraged! There is fuel for your soul! Watch as our Executive Pastor Jason Earle unpacks the power source available to us.

Many of us have experienced disappointment, loss, loneliness, and missed expectations; these are all an unfortunate fact of life on this side of eternity. As a result, we often try to protect ourselves and our emotions by lowering our expectations, guarding our hope, and dreaming smaller to avoid being hurt and let down. We all learn to establish “realistic expectations” … but what happens when we step out in faithfulness, give Jesus our obedience, and invite Him into the equation?Join us this week as we take a look at several different stories in Luke 8 and see what happens when Jesus steps in and shatters what we thought we knew about our relationships, our lives, and our dreams for the future. Take a few minutes this week to read through the chapter and meditate on what these stories tell us about the role that Jesus wants to play in our lives.

Caesar is not Lord! Join us as we journey through the story of Jesus' birth during a time when Caesar thought he was and had it all. Who is Lord? Who is the real King?

What kind of mental image forms when you hear someone described as “a holy person,” or even “a really holy person.” Is your mental picture the first person you want to invite to a party? Is the picture in your head who you really want to become? Maybe not. Perhaps because we tend to think of holiness far more in terms of subtraction instead of addition. But what if holiness is the fullness of love—in an earthy, relatable way. Jesus was the guy everyone wanted to have at their party—except for the “holiness by subtraction” people of His day. He who is pure-holiness-embodied was the One the rowdiest and earthiest characters of His day “drew close to and heard Him gladly”—i.e., they thought He was really cool! So let’s talk about Christ and our Character and what it is exactly that the Spirit of Jesus wants to accomplish in us.

This weekend I begin my final three messages as Senior Pastor before we celebrate together Rajendra’s installation as our next Senior Pastor on November 3. I pray these are NOT my final messages at DRCC, but they are the last in my current staff role. So for these three messages I chose the three core themes of my teaching ministry; then realized they mirror the same three themes of my first three messages 27 years ago. Not surprising really. They are, for me, the heart of why DRCC exists. So join me in a series reflecting on “The Beginning and the End” as we look at:Christ and His Cross: Jesus FOR Us (October 12-13)Christ and Our Character: Jesus’ Spirit IN Us (October 19-20)Christ and His Community: Jesus AMONG Us (October 26-27)

From the start, as a church we have always placed premium value on training and discipling the next generation. This weekend, join me along with Roger Record and Michael Yudt as we share details of a multi-year planning process we are rolling out for our children and youth ministries. This is an indescribably important investment for us and one that we believe will bring a rich harvest for the Kingdom of God. We have a dream of seeing our church continue to grow as an inter-generational community of God where each of us knows and practices the value of pouring into and discipling our children and young people. As we all gather around this mission, my hope is that one day, may each of us receive the greatest commendation any human being can ever receive, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Unselfish serving sucks the cynicism out of seekers. We all sense it—the beauty of someone doing something that requires some sacrifice for someone whose need is real and who can’t repay. We see in it a hint of the Cross, and sense in it the smile of God. We see the kind of heart that kind of serving forms in people who consistently live to give—and not just get and get and get until they arrive at death safely, as they too become more beautiful in their soul. Our friends outside the community of Christ see it too, and they aren’t always sure what to make of it, but they are attracted by it. It sucks cynicism out of them and opens up dialogue. Join me for part 2 of our series on our PATHWAY to a Christ-centered life as we explore the circles of impact that ripple into eternity which our serving and giving create. We have a very “low-hanging fruit” way to dive in to making a difference together this weekend; and for those who come to the Saturday evening service, a free meal! See you this weekend.

This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to lifeEzekiel 37:5 Have you ever found yourself in front of a large group of people doing something you are not at all good at? NO!!!! That would be RECKLESS!!! I'm sure all of us have had that dream and were really glad to wake up. This weekend, men from 20+ churches in the area, are coming to Damascus Road to do something they are not good at, in front of a lot of people they don't know. Seems RECKLESS!! Why would they do that? Have they all lost their mind? Maybe these men have simply reached a place in their lives where they realized that life on their own looked a lot like the dry bones talked about any Ezekiel 37. Each of these men are experiencing a Reckless love that is transforming their lives from dead men walking to fully alive men dancing.

This weekend we’re beginning a new 4-part series called “The Elephant in the Church.” My hope is this series will help us build bridges with our LGBTQ friends. Far more than abstract questions about how to relate to some group “out there,” we are talking about neighbors, co-workers, close friends and family members who identify as LGBTQ—each a precious and unique individual with her/his unique story, each a person Jesus loves and died for. All generalities are dangerous, but one that is true is that the majority of people who identify as LGBTQ also identify as Christian—at least in their heritage. Yet most leave the church! Why? Our culture’s spotlight on LGBTQ issues gives us a tremendous opportunity to model Jesus. For the truth is, one question stands behind every other question: How do we faithfully live and love like Jesus, who is the fullness of “grace and truth”? Grace and truth, equally—and (thankfully for us) always in that order. So together let’s construct a framework for dialogue on how to be a community we all want to run to—not from—in our struggles.

Whose shoulders do you stand on today? What male influence is in your life right now that you can thank for steady support, wisdom, encouragement and sometimes correction? Bring them to DRCC this Father’s Day weekend where they will be honored and encouraged. You won’t want to miss it!Click the link below to watch the video of Derek Redmond mentioned in the message.

Last weekend, we launched our series The Pursuit of Happiness and looked at the true and only source of lasting joy (if you missed it, you can catch up on our app or web site). But we are not meant to be just passive recipients of lasting joy. It manifests itself in certain lifestyle changes and behaviors that result in a life of deep meaning. Join us this weekend as we explore the topic of happiness and look at the four ingredients that go into making the secret sauce of lasting happiness!Check out the video that Rajendra mentioned in his message with the link below.

One of the most famous lines from the Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Everyone wants to live a happy life, but what does happiness exactly mean? What does happiness look like? How can we pursue it? And if we find it, is it possible to hold on to it? The Bible has some surprising insights on living a life that is overflowing from the inside out. In this two-part series we look at what true and lasting happiness really is and how each of us has been given an invitation to live a life we won’t regret.

End of time and post-apocalyptic films have been a dominate factor in the movie industry for two decades—and they are increasing. The books are legion which claim to predict in a complex series of events the way human history on this side of eternity ends. To date, their cumulative batting average is .000. People are confused: rapture, tribulation, multiple judgments, temple rebuilt, antichrist reign, Armageddon… So, as we continue our series highlighting the Biblical promise of “The Renewal of All Things,” let’s focus in on just what the Bible says clearly and over 300 times about the Day human history culminates in God’s new beginning. It all comes down to one Day, just one: the Day of the LORD. Together, using a front-to-back Biblical collection of statements, we will explore what God, Jesus, prophets and apostles say will happen “on that Day.”

At the renewal of all things, God will do for our entire planet and for every person in Christ, exactly what He did for Jesus on that first Easter Sunday morning. It will be the re-union, the complete restoration and re-uniting of heaven and earth, of God and man, of body and soul. It will be a healing in which everything you were created to do best and everything you want to do most will merge into endlessly creative life. The dream of this is buried deep within you: “God has planted eternity in every human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:10). Join me this weekend as we build on Clay’s message and continue exploring: Eternity and the Renewal of All Things.

Over the last seven weeks we have listened in as Jesus talked about two different ambitions (to be honored by men or by God); two different treasures (stuff in this life or impact for eternity) and two different kinds of righteousness (my own or His). Now we come to the end of His message and Jesus brings all His earlier teaching down to one choice—again with two options. He will hit it again and again, telling us our decisive choice involves picking between two gates, two roads, two destinies—revealing which one of only two foundations every life is built on. Join me this weekend as we consider whether we are building on shifting sand or the immovable Rock.

In the eighth episode of our series The Jesus Ted Talk, we are studying just one verse—Matthew 7:12. This has come to be known as the Golden Rule. Jesus brilliantly summarizes His sermon into one single principle of application. He bookends His sermon by referring to the Law and the Prophets. What does this mean? Does this principle really work? How can we put it into practice in our day?

Q&A from Part 7 of Why Believe in Christianity class.

Jesus makes an extraordinary claim in Matthew 7:7-11 about the power of prayer. We will explore His words in these verses in the seventh part of our series The Jesus Ted Talk. Truth is, most of us struggle when it comes to prayer. If you have ever been dissatisfied with your prayer life, felt guilty about not praying enough, confused about why God doesn’t always answer your prayers, wonder if prayer even works, then you will not want to miss this weekend. Join us this weekend, as we continue our journey through the Sermon on the Mount and look at some of Jesus’ teachings on prayer.

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies!” We often find things in the bible that are hard to understand - difficult to wrap our minds around - but not this week; this week we will explore a command of Jesus that is very easy to understand but very hard to actually put into practice: the command to turn the other cheek, to do good to those that oppress you, and to give to those that wish to do you harm. If that wasn’t enough, Jesus concludes our passage this week with the admonition to “be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” This command of his seems so impossible, so impractical, so unattainable, that it could be tempting to ignore, downplay, or explain it away. Join us this week as we tackle what might be Jesus’ most radical ethical mandate - to love our enemy. Read Matthew 5:38-48 before this weekend and come ready to wrestle with this tough teaching.

This weekend we will continue our series on the Sermon on the Mount by looking at Matthew 5:17-32, especially Jesus assertion that he came to “fulfill” the “law and the prophets.” We will look at what Jesus meant by “fulfill” – his radical claim to be the surprise “ending” or completion of the Story of Israel. And we will look at how Jesus teaches us to re-read that story – told in the Old Testament – in light of himself. We will see that Jesus claims to complete and “fill out” God’s vision of “whole living” – of human flourishing – of what it means to live in loving relationship to God and others. Jesus’s vision continues to exert a radical call on our lives as Christians – a call to live out his kingdom vision in ways that are just as counter-intuitive and surprising today as they were when he first preached the Sermon on the Mount.

Q&A from session 3a.

Session 2 Q & A time with Pastor Richard Fredericks and Elder Michelle Rader.

Pastor Richard Fredericks unpacks why we can believe there is a God.

The Bible tells us that we have been made a new creation by “God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18). What is this ministry of reconciliation? How are we to interpret its meaning and application in our lives today? Join us this MLK Weekend as we reflect on how God has committed to us the powerful and precious message of reconciliation and expects us to be His ambassadors in carrying His message to every corner of our world.

Our Advent theme is “Consider Christmas.” We considered what the Christmas story teaches about Jesus’ call, gift and love; and why they matter to us. For our final message we will consider Jesus’ impact on human history, on our lives—especially in one crucial area. Many greater thinkers (from Plato to Nietzsche to Martin Luther King Jr) have made the argument that our picture of God (or lack thereof) determines our view of ourselves and others. How we think God relates to us significantly impacts and often even determines how we relate to others. If so, then the greatest impact of Jesus, even above our salvation, is found in these ten words: “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father!” All of who Christ is, what He did and said—including His birth—offer us our truest picture of who God really is. They reveal the heart of the One we hope to spend all of eternity with. And that is good news.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “It has never been quite enough to say that God is in his heaven and all is right with the world; since the rumor is that God has left his heavens to set it right.” So as we stand at the manger, we marvel at the miracle of who this Baby was and is and how His life profoundly changed our world. He grew up. He died on the cross. He was laid in the tomb. He rose from the dead. He is seated at the right hand of the Father. And one day, He is coming back again to set our world right. Join us this weekend as we look at Jesus and consider the gift of Christmas. I also want to encourage you to bring your best first-fruit gift this weekend as we start our two-year journey to take our next big hill together. Let’s start strong as we move into the next chapter of God’s unfolding story of DRCC. Also, remember this weekend is our annual Children and Youth Christmas Choir. We will have four services this weekend – 3:30 and 5 pm on Saturday and 9 and 11 am on Sunday. Come early!

"O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually." Psalms 105:1-4Join us this weekend as we celebrate and give thanks to God for his many blessings to us as a community and as individuals. We will worship and praise him, explore scripture’s perspective on giving thanks to God in good times and hard times, and look forward in thankful anticipation to the coming celebration of Gods greatest gift to us, himself."Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" 2 Corinthians 9:15

People love Proverbs 3:6-7: “Trust in the LORD with ALL your heart, lean not on your own understanding, but in ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” Rightly so. It is a great promise. But it hit me this week: the next thing God does is give us His practical illustration of one key way to trust like that, and it is very pertinent to this weekend: “Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the first-fruits of ALL your increase. Then…” (Proverbs 3:9) = it goes on to describe partnership with God. I’ll let you read that part for yourself; but I have found Him to be absolutely faithful to His side of the equation. If DRCC is where God has called you, this weekend is mission critical! NOW is our time to step up, to plan and build for all the children and adults God is sending our way—to participate in an enduring God-story. It is our two-year commitment card weekend. We have started well: Sixty-five couples or single adults from our staff and key volunteer leaders made early commitments. Over 75% of them said this was the greatest financial investment in Kingdom work of their lives—and the average committed increase in their giving was actually 100%! Which is our goal = 100%... participation. Those leaders represent about one-tenth of the adults in our congregation. We have begun well, but we take a hill this size only when all of us take our next right step and do our part [whatever that is] in following God’s heart to our future. Please step up, step in—and let’s do this together. See you this weekend.In Christ,Richard FredericksSenior Pastor

As painful as some memories are—of things we have done or said which we wish we had not done or said—my guess is that those will not be our biggest regrets when we actually stand in the presence of Jesus, still bearing the scars of the Cross on His hands. Our greatest regrets will be realizing all the things we could have done and should have done for Him that we dodged or ignored due to selfishness, the smaller life we lived because our fear silenced our faith; and we quietly believed in our hearts we knew better than God how to manage our lives. That lesson specifically applies to this stretch in our life together—but please hear me: it applies to so much more. Join me this weekend as we consider the one guy who got out of the boat—and what the eleven missed who didn’t

Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt—and the LORD your God redeemed you.Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ…without hope and without God in the world.But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Remember therefore what you have received and heard—and keep it!In the great story of human redemption, God makes crystal clear again and again how important it is that we “remember.” Who we were before Christ. What God has done for us in Christ. Often the shortest route to repentance and renewal is to remember what God has done for us. G. K. Chesterton said: “If the Gospel is true, the primary characteristic of a Christian should be gratitude.” The Christians faith centers in “the Gospel,” which is not good views or good advice—it is good news! It is remembering what God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) has already done for us as the basis of our identity and hope. Join us this weekend as we prepare to take the next right step together in our journey, this day we will pause and rehearse—remember together—how God has led us.

We live in a world where stuff is glorified. People spend their entire lives working harder and harder to accumulate it, children fight over it, siblings get torn apart because of it, and nations go to war over it. But the Bible paints a very different picture of stuff and what it means to honor God with our stuff. And when that happens, a new form of culture gets shaped and formed. Join us this weekend as we look at the kind of culture where the upside-down, right-side up Kingdom Economics is practiced, and how it leads to the experience of a flourishing, thriving, and abundant life (the way we were meant to).

This week is our opportunity to celebrate all that our children have been learning in our Children’s Ministry teaching this summer, on the theme of Jesus Rescues! We will dive into one of the stories our kids learned, the story of the Prodigal Son – a story about the intense drive for independent, indulgent living that we all have. But at some point, like the Prodigal Son, we all find out that we need more than just ourselves and material resources to live a sustainable, satisfying life. We need each other, and, most of all, we need the Father who waits to rescue us from the pig-pen where our illusion of independence dumps us.

We continue this weekend in our series on discovering and living our lost lines. Our lost lines have not changed. The Line-Giver has not changed. And what is amazing about our Line-Giver is that He is so extravagantly generous. He will not withhold the lost lines from someone who has been hard-hearted and rejected Him. He will not turn away anyone who may have adopted a wrong set of lines. He keeps broadcasting the lost lines in a global nonstop simulcast. And Jesus makes it very clear that there are four types of reaction people have when they receive their lost lines (and only one of them leads to a fruitful, abundant, and meaningful life). Join us this weekend, as we learn how to tune into this global simulcast.

Happy Fathers Day!This week we will talk about what a good father is and what a good father does. While we have all have had different experiences with our earthly fathers – some of us have been scarred and some of us have been sustained – we are all children of the same heavenly father. No matter where we’ve been and no matter what we’ve done, our heavenly father sees us from far away and comes running out to meet us and welcome us back home.At the same time, our heavenly father knows what’s best for us, and desires that we live up to the calling that he has placed on our lives. Join us this week as we explore our complex and often misunderstood relationship with our Father.

Have you ever found yourself in a place you don’t want to be, receiving a call you don’t want to answer or taking a risk you don’t want to take? In our lives, we often find that one of these applies to us if not all of them. This week we will take a journey through the book of Esther and see how Esther responded to make her mission impossible a mission accomplished and discover how we might do the same.

Work is the largest time commitment in the average adult lifespan,an even bigger slice of life than sleep for at least a forty-year stretch.A recent Gallup Poll found out that 77% of full time workers said theymildly disliked to intensely hated their job. 77%! Yet the average workweek is expanding towards 50 hours per week.The Bible = work: 800 times, more than worship, praise, prayer combined.Laura Nash, senior research fellow at Harvard Business School:“Many Christian businesspeople experience a radical disconnectionbetween Sunday services and their Monday morning activities, describinga sense of living in two worlds that never touch each other.”• Our primary vocation = TO BE God’s image bearer.• Our secondary vocation = TO DO our work as a steward of creation.Jesus is LORD. Jesus didn’t create secular and sacred spaces.He invaded our most ordinary spaces to reclaim them for God.And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it ALL in the nameof the LORD Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.Colossians 3:17Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the LORD,not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritancefrom the LORD as a reward. It is the LORD Christ you are serving!Colossians 3:23-24“In the beginning, God created…” God is a Worker. A Creator.

NewFreshOriginalUniqueDistinctiveWe come to the end of our journey with Ruth and marvel at the conclusion of this beautiful story. We hunger for such an ending to our story and wonder if God can do something new and fresh with our lives. The Scriptures insist that there is this mysterious, divine, remarkable transformation that happens for anyone who is in Christ. Our job is to be like clay in the potter’s hand. To be available and ready and willing to grow and learn and be inspired by the work of God in us.The one thing we cannot do, dare not do, is to remain where we are and stifle the work of the Lord in us and through us. We must remain open to the new things, better things, nobler things and healthier things He wants to do in our lives each day. We’ll see how this happened for Ruth and learn how this can happen for us. In the meantime, read Ruth 4:13-22 ahead of this weekend (and see if you can find at least two really odd things about the genealogy at the end!).

We continue our study of the book of Ruth, reaching a pivotal climax where Ruth will risk it all to make a bold request. In so doing, she places herself in a position of vulnerability, at the mercy of a man who has the power and opportunity to take rather than give. We will see how this story turns out very differently from earlier stories in the Bible. And we will look at how Ruth embodies the hope and trust of all those who seek the Lord in a time of transition, vulnerability, and need.

In a defining moment, Ruth proclaims these unforgettable words, “Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” God often uses ordinary people—who are fully committed to Him—in extraordinary ways to change the world. If Ruth chapter 1 makes us sad, chapter 2 will make us glad! A period of famine will be turned into a season of abundance. Take a moment to read through this masterfully-written book of only 85 verses this week. Then join us this weekend as we take a look at what happened at the barley harvest and learn some profound lessons on the theme of kindness.

Okay, this is it. We are about to come up for air after our deep dive into a little Bible book about an angry, stubborn prophet asked by God to do something big that “by God--he just doesn’t want to do!” And the reflection in the mirror is unsettling. In Jonah’s final chapter it is God’s turn to come into sharp focus: His character, His concerns, His compassion and His last question to Jonah. A question left hanging in the air, still unanswered when the book ends—because it is a question for us too. How much are we really willing to accept God’s radical grace and compassion for people we neither like or value? How much are we willing to let God’s compassion guide us? How much will we trust God when He acts contrary to our settled agenda, then calls us to do the same? How deeply do we get God’s unearned grace for us? When push comes to shove, who is on the throne in my life…really? Join me this weekend as we close off the story that leaves us wrestling with the question.

Ever run from God? Ever tried to head west when He says east? Tried to duck out when He says stand up? Are you running now? New Year’s Eve weekend Senior Pastor Richard Fredericks launches our January series on the tiny, powerful book of Jonah with this challenge: “It’s really not about the whale.” The heart of Jonah is about: “Running from God—how, where and why we do it.” In 48 verses total, Jonah explores our anger at God when He doesn’t meet our expectations, our second guessing of God’s will, and our aversion to caring about those not like us the way God does. Above all, Jonah is about God’s mercy and relentless grace reaching out to our proud hearts.

It's not only amazing how God showed His love, but when He showed His love. "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8). Join us to hear the powerful truth of when God saved us.

Many members of our church, especially those who have attended the annual Willow Creek Leadership Summit, have asked about our heart for the Refugees of the world. Their plight is the single biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet, with over 20 million people driven from their homes, jobs, families and roots, often with no notice, now packed into huge, subsistence level camps. This weekend at our Worship Services we want to make a small dent in this huge problem. We are teaming up with World Vision, the largest Christian refugee relief organization in the world, with an excellent track record, to dedicate ourselves to understanding “the least of these” in the face of those, who like Jesus, had to flee for their lives and live as a refugee because of a repressive ruler or regime. For the first time in our history, we are going to ask you to participate in two offerings in one service: the first is your (I hope and pray) regular systematic giving back to God to support all our ministries and missions as a community of Christ. The second is a one-time, special (please make it as big as possible) offering that will go 100% to the World Vision Refugee Fund. This is who we are—people who actually believe Jesus that it is more blessed to give than to receive, that have been given much and who follow Him in the way of service.

In his marvelous series, Rajendra Pillai spoke about the special talents God gives every human masterpiece. In addition to our unique talents, the biblical author John the Elder teaches that there are two gifts every person possesses. In fact, John says each follower of Christ must manifest, above all other qualities, TRUTH and LOVE. How are we to develop our gifts of truth and love today? Does telling the truth conflict with being loving? Who are contemporary models of truth and love? Matthew Fredericks, former teaching pastor at Union Church, Hong Kong will share a millennial's perspective, based on the biblical letters of John and his experience of five years of ministry in Hong Kong, on our call to represent Christ's truth and love in Maryland and to the ends of the earth!

This week we come to The End of Us vs. Them? as we conclude our series looking at the biblical call to tear down the walls which divide us. We will look at 1 Corinthians 11-12 where Paul details how the church – made up of each and every one of us ¬– is the body of Christ. This body – us – in our life together and our witness to the world – is to be the visible image of Jesus in this world. How are we doing? We will finish as we began this series – celebrating the Lord’s Supper – the meal given us by Jesus which symbolizes and enacts our unity with him and each other.

Last weekend, we talked about practicing the presence of God as the foundation to our current series, The Way of Jesus. If you missed it, here’s a link to the podcast. This weekend, we will look at Status. Our world defines a successful life in terms of power, prestige and possessions. Jesus had a whole different take on this and calls His people to a risky, sometimes demanding, often counter-cultural way of life. A life that radiates with fullness and joy and meaning and love. Join us this weekend as we walk through the Roman colony of Philippi and see how Jesus subverts their thinking and their culture and their way of living. For extra credit, read Philippians!

We continue our series this weekend by looking at one of the most unlikely heroes mentioned in Hebrews 11… Rahab, the pagan prostitute. The author of Hebrews turns the spotlight on the great twist and grand wonder of God working in the life of someone who radically trusts in Him. We will learn what happens when a person without hope (and without much of anything else) hears the message of God and responds boldly and obediently. There is a reason why her story is in the Bible, why she is honored and why her story can be our story too.

This weekend we launch our winter series. It is a careful study of the people (a surprising cast of characters) in Hebrews 11, whom God commends for their bold trust in Him. I will not say this will be a transformational series, because how much it transforms you—is up to you. I will say that the two questions that form the base of this series are right at the heart of our side of the “God-us” relationship: Can I [really] trust God [with everything]? And as we grow in answering ‘yes’ to that question, we increasingly realize it was never the real issue. The bigger question is: how much can the God of grace trust me and you with the life He wants to give us? Like a carefully planned road trip, we will begin this series by defining our destination. If you want to prepare, read Hebrews 11:39-12:3.

Join us as Pastor Rajendra continues our series through the gospel of Luke.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. We've launched a deep dive into what Jesus said is one of the two greatest commands "on which everything else God has ever said" is hinged: His call for us to actively and intentionally practice sacrificial love toward those who live right around us or work right next to us - to LOVE WHERE WE LIVE! Imagine what might be happening in our region a year from now if we take this challenge seriously. What will happen as we begin connecting and caring about our neighbors with greater, Holy Spirit-led intentionality? Let’s imagine that... DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/notes-10-3-4 LEARN MORE: https://damascus.com/neighbor

Dear Family and Friends,It hardly seems possible that I preached my first sermon at our church in 2001. I hope you can join us this Sunday as I will be preaching my last sermon at DRCC. While Erika and I feel deep sadness, sadness isn’t the only emotion we feel. We are grateful for the many kingdom stories we have been privileged to be a part of. I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak to you one last time on Sunday to share my heart with you—to convey both my gratitude to you and to encourage you to stay rooted in Jesus. I am praying God’s grace and wisdom on you and our leaders and I am praying for DRCC to experience greater kingdom victories in the future.

Just because a storm comes doesn't mean we aren't going to get to our destination. What we can count on is Jesus will show up in the storm and be enough to get us through!

Dear Family and Friends,We will be launching a new sermon series this weekend on the book of Judges titled Unlikely Heroes. The book of Judges has been described as one of the most thrilling, colorful, and disturbing books of the Bible. It has themes of great faith, lies, political intrigue, violence, idolatry, power, uncommon heroism, love and death. More than anything, it portrays God’s repeated faithfulness even though God’s people repeatedly rebelled against Him and failed Him. While these things happened a long time ago, their stories are in the Bible because we may not be all that different from them! This season, we will learn about how God raised some ordinary, unlikely heroes to lead and guide His people during turbulent seasons. Join us as we seek to discern God’s calling upon us as flawed, everyday people to step into freedom from the negative cycles in our lives, in our families, and in our culture. We just have to make sure we are listening, we are available, and we are willing to be used by God. 

Dear Family and Friends,Scripture tells us, on that first Christmas Day, God came to be with us! If you have ever felt lonely or isolated or left out or betrayed, you will want to meet Jesus. He is not somewhere else in the universe, beyond the galaxies—distant, disengaged, disavowed—but here on earth, dwelling among us. This is God in flesh—breathing, talking, walking, eating, sleeping, laughing, weeping, experiencing pain, sorrow, rejection, friendship, and betrayal. Join us for one of four identical Christmas services as we look at the Christmas story afresh and stand before the manger with an awe-inspiring wonder – this is Immanuel, God with us!

“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;  The Wrong shall fail;  The Right prevail;With peace on earth, good-will to men.’” So ends, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, Christmas Bells, written at a dark period in his own life, and the life of America – written in a time when his own personal darkness reflected the darkness around him and threatened to overwhelm him. The last two verses are a contrast, a portrayal of two different paths for dealing with the darkness: fear or faith, despair or hope, hate or love. Wrong and Right, War and Peace, Darkness and Light are ever locked in battle in our world, and in our own lives. And in every age and any circumstance, we have the choice as to which path we will pursue in response to this battle. Join us this week as we finish our exploration of Wadsworth’s poem – which ends with the clear choice of faith, hope, and love. 

We continue our Christmas series, “I Heard the Bells.” It is the title of a Christmas carol written by one of the greatest American poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This week, we will dig a little deeper into parts of his life that felt dark and hopeless. His world was not unlike ours. Hope, peace, and joy seem to be in short supply these days. Hope has been replaced by weariness, peace has been overcome by stress, and joy has been overwhelmed by anxiety. The Christmas story in Scripture reorients our internal compass, from a life of darkness to light, offering us genuine joy and meaning. Join us as we retell the Jesus story, rediscovering how to be people of light walking in the land of deep darkness.

We continue on to week 7 of our series, Immerse, where we are immersing ourselves in the words of the New Testament. This week’s readings will take us through the book of Hebrews. Although we do not know who wrote the book and when exactly it was written, Hebrews calls us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and to not give up in the face of hardship and persecution. The book is a wild ride of sorts, taking us from a discussion about angels, to Abraham and Melchizedek and other figures in the Old Testament, to a description of the furniture in the tabernacle, to multiple and repeated discussions about blood and sacrifice. Some would argue these aren’t exactly hot topics for Christians today. But there’s more! Join us this weekend as we dig deep into a book of the New Testament many Christians in our day find strange and difficult, but I would argue it has a fascinating and powerful message for our times.

Welcome to week 4 in our Immerse series. I cannot wait to be together this weekend as we will look together at how we as Christians can have joy by living life as a living sacrifice, lived out in surprising ways! We will find all of this in the letters of the Apostle Paul, especially Romans (particularly Romans 12), written to the early church. Letters that were written to the first ever Christian churches, churches that he helped start on mission trips. Paul experienced and lived this kind of life! Believe it or not a life you and I can live out today!

Fred Rogers was for decades an American cultural icon, with his children's television show, "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood". An ordained minister, his Christian faith was the driving force of his life and "way of being." He viewed his television show as a ministry and both in his talks to children as well as his many relationships with a wide variety of people, always strived to treat everyone of every age with honesty, kindness, grace, and respect. These themes come through brilliantly in the movie and remind us of the power and attraction that comes from a life well-lived on behalf of others. We could use more people like Fred Rogers in public life today.

"Beloved, let us love one another..." - 1 John 4:7A simple command. Not easy to do! It wasn’t easy for God either. He sent his son as a sacrifice for us - because He loved us. To show us what love looked like. To show us what love does. Only in light of who He is and what He has done for us, does God call us to love one another.Join us this week for Week 2 of our One Another series, as we look at the calls of scripture for how we relate to One Another because of how God relates to us.

While 2021 is behind us, the ongoing pandemic season has been filled with learning moments for all of us. Not everything has been bad. Difficult seasons often help bring laser like focus to things that are truly important. It has the potential to help us stay rooted and established and grow stronger in the most significant areas of our lives. Join us this weekend as our elders lead us this weekend with worship, scripture, and prayer. Don’t miss starting the year right!

It’s considered the most wonderful time of the year, but Christmas this year is coming at a time of loss, pain, sadness and weariness for many of us. It can be difficult to find hope, joy, peace, and love in a season that is supposed to bring these things into our lives and homes. Even though this stretch has been hard, we can find strength, comfort and yes, even rejoicing in Jesus’ birth. Join us this weekend as we embark on a four-week journey of retelling the Christmas story, rediscovering not something new, but what is already true about Christmas and about us. We will discover that a life filled with hope, peace, joy and love is not only possible, but available to all who are willing to accept it. Come ready to receive the gift!

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling weary. The pandemic has taken a major toll on all of us. Our health constantly being under assault by this new and evolving virus. Significant disruptions to our everyday routines and feeling of normalcy. Loss of loved ones. Loss of jobs or unpredictable income. Strain at home with spouses and kids. Aging parents in facilities that have been locked down. Feelings of relational isolation and loneliness. The pandemic of politics dividing family and friendships.We’ve all experienced loss and grief to some degree during this stretch. And we’re still suffering the effects. How do we press on through the loss, pain, anxiety and division? Hope and healing are possible. Let’s see what the Apostle Paul tells us as he writes from a jail cell…

This week we continue our Philippians series - following up on last week's stirring description of greatness according to Christ. Philippians 2:5-11 is clearly the climax of the letter - really of New Testament theology as a whole. We'll look at the rest of chapter 2 and Paul's description of what it looks like to live in light of the Christ Hymn. We'll see that Paul envisions lives that mirror Christ's life - lives of sacrificial service, lives of love and joy, lives that shine and bring light to others. In a dark and crooked world, Paul envisions Christians living in communities that are bright little points of light, beacons of hope and comfort. That vision is just as much our call today as it was in Philippi.We'll also be celebrating Richard and Sallie Fredericks, the founding couple of Damascus Road Community Church. We will share the story of how DRCC came to be, and the vision that continues to guide and radiate out the love of Christ into our community. Whether you're new or been around a long time, you won't want to miss the opportunity to celebrate this wonderful couple.

Jesus gives some strong life advice in Matthew when He says:“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” Matthew 16:24-26It is possible to waste your life. Few things make me tremble more than the possibility of taking this one time gift of life and wasting it. I am reminded of an old plaque that says: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” What are you going to do with the one life you’ve been given? Will your life be a life filled with moments of eternal significance or will it be a life lived balancing between fear and comfort? When you reflect back on your life what will be your legacy? Will it last beyond this life? Join me this Sunday as we look at how not to waste your life as you will be presented with real and meaningful ways to not let that happen and how you can live a life that matters. The world needs the gifts and the hope in Christ that you can bring. In a world living in desperation, we as Christians have the hope that this world so desperately needs, the hope that only Jesus can bring. There are precious few years in our one life on earth. How are you going to live it? YOU DON'T WANT TO WASTE YOUR LIFE. Then, imagine we as a community living our lives out together not wasting years but living them unified in Christ, living them together to the fullest. That would change everything!

Don’t miss this weekend as we launch out on a six-week journey of deep reflection as a church. We will look at how our world, our nation and our community has been impacted over the last two years. We will take a pilgrimage together discerning God’s heart for us and our future. We will rediscover our mission to be a community of light in a world facing much darkness. We will zoom out and look at the big picture, walking closely with God and with each other. My prayer is that we will see hope overtake despair, a great healing descending upon the church, a celebration of people from all backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities, and God’s community resolute in their aim of leaving the lasting legacy of people, our neighborhoods, and our region transformed. And it all begins this weekend—something is about to happen!

“A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.” Proverbs 13:22 “It just never seemed like my dad was there. Even when he was there, he wasn’t. I thought surely he would step up when I started to drown in my addiction… nothing. Nothing but silence. If it wasn’t for my grandpa I don’t know if I would be here today. As an Anglican priest he was my lifeline to hope and love and God…” Who has helped you become the person you are today? Was it your dad, your mom, maybe a coach, a favorite teacher, maybe like Lee it was your granddad. Take ten minutes this week, get a pad of paper, a pen, and write down everyone God has brought into your life to father you? Write down their names, write down what they left you as an inheritance. This Sunday is Father’s day. In Pilgrim’s progress Bunyan said, “If a man would live well, let him fetch his last day to himself, and make it always his company-keeper.” It’s never too late to leave an inheritance for your children’s children… Let’s go on a journey together to discover how!

Session 11:Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective.This class includes a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions can be submitted via chat during the sessions.Download the message notes: https://tinyurl.com/revelation-p11

We continue our series “Who Is Jesus?” as we look at a passage of Scripture that shows us how different people reacted to Jesus. We will come to see the people Jesus spent time with, what that means, and what it shows us about Jesus.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/whoisjesus3

This Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week. It’s Palm Sunday, also known as Passion Sunday. About 2,000 years ago, Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem as the prophesied, expected King. The people were shouting “Hosanna!” as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. However, these shouts of praise would eventually turn into shouts of “crucify him!” on Good Friday. Yet this was all part of God’s plan. There was a different battle that this King riding on a donkey came to fight.I’m looking forward to our time together with anticipation of what God will do.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/drcc-palmsunday

Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. This is part 4 of a 10-week intensive study. This class included a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions were submitted via chat during the sessions.

Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. This is part 1 of a 10-week intensive study. This class included a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions were submitted via chat during the sessions.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. This second installment of the message series, “Embracing the New,” wraps up with Blake Dunlevy and Michelle Rader unpacking the Damascus Road Winter Pathway with ways to position yourself to grow in faith, hope and love.

As we will see, Romans 8:28 is not the “pillow passage” of living in comfort, but rather the comfort of living in the reality that God, through His Son, Jesus, who has redeemed all of creation, including YOU! With that, I hope that you will worship with me this weekend as we celebrate God’s work and your response to His calling.

How much does God care about freedom? Enough to go to the Cross to preserve yours. So much that the apostle Paul could say: “Wherever the Spirit of the LORD is—there is freedom.” And: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand fast in your freedom…” The great question in judgment is not whether God wants us to be free, but what we do with our freedom—our genuine ability to choose, to go this way or that way. Revelation is a book of judgment—a whole series of judgments—beginning at the Cross, flowing through history to a final and eternal verdict; and judgment is all about God taking our freedom seriously.

It is so good to be back, even if we are all living in this new, strange reality of a COVID world. But this pandemic makes what we are about to do together as a congregation even more important. We are going to dive into Revelation, the last book of the Bible, the capstone of Scripture where all that came before in the Bible comes together and concludes in a new beginning: a wedding and an eternal party of redemption. But Revelation is no easy book, just as this broken world offers no easy answers. We have a journey of prayer, discovery, conviction, obedient surrender and focus to take before we reach our new home. Revelation shows us the way. Join me.

I’m looking forward to being online with you this weekend. Last week, we launched our new series Standing Strong, which is all about letting faith, not fear, be our default reaction when it comes to uncertain times. This week, we’ll be looking at the Apostle Peter’s life and what we can learn from him that can help us continue to Stand Strong in uncertain times. I am looking forward to interacting with you! That’s right, interacting! I’ll be asking some questions from you that will only make our time together better if you respond to me in our chat room. And as Rajendra said last week, this is a great series to invite a friend or neighbor to join you online. Send them the link. I’m praying for you and your loved ones! May the Lord’s peace, joy and love, abound in your hearts!

As a church, our hearts and prayers are with people facing the impact of Covid-19. I proposed to our elders and trustees and have received full support from our leaders to designate a tithe of our giving from the Easter week to go toward Covid-19 Relief. We will be partnering with several local initiatives and also with our hardest hit partner churches overseas. Together, we can be a community of light by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, bringing relief, care, and hope to the hurting around the world. Truth is, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the central hinge in human history, declaring the greatest victory over the foulest enemy by the greatest hero for the greatest cause ever. As I shared in the video, the question we are all facing is how do we live this truth in the midst of our current reality? I want to encourage you to join us online for our Good Friday service. And then visit our YouTube channel for one of our six identical Easter services as I will be sharing my thoughts on how to live with undying hope and courage in the in

This weekend, we will attend a dinner party with Jesus at the home of a prominent Pharisee. But inviting Jesus into your home (or your life) can be risky, as the people assembled soon find out. Things start off tense, then get progressively edgy. Jesus refuses to follow social norms or even engage in polite, but superficial conversations. His words and conduct leave the people at the dinner party speechless. But, it also elicits from Jesus a fantastic vision of what the Great Banquet in the Kingdom of God looks like, and who gets to be a part of it. Take five minutes this week (I timed it!) and read Luke 14 and come ready to be blessed. We will also share an update about our All In Generosity Journey. See you this weekend!

Many people think God is distant, disengaged, and detached from us. This raises an interesting question: Just how approachable is Jesus? We will look at that question as we continue to walk with Jesus through chapters 5 & 6 of Luke this week. As Jesus makes His way through the towns of Galilee, He teaches, preaches, heals the sick and brings hope and healing to the discouraged and the despaired. We will pause in one particular town and look at the remarkable story of Jesus doing the unthinkable as He responds to the plea of a lonely and desperate person. Set aside 12 minutes this week and read Luke 5 & 6 as we discover how the Kingdom of God was and is breaking out in unexpected places in unpredictable ways. And every time Kingdom stories break out, it touches the human soul in ways that are deep, profound and life-changing.

We know very little about John other than he baptized so many and so often the name stuck - John the Baptist. What do you do so often that it becomes part of your name? Although we know very little about John, the gospels only tell us about three days in his life… the day he baptized Jesus; the day he doubted, and the day he lost his head… in Heaven’s economy he and his mission were so important an angel delivered the news. In Luke 1 the angel says John would go in the spirit and power of Elijah. I looked carefully and, unless I’ve missed something, John performed no miracles and truthfully didn’t do anything that noteworthy … frankly he seems a little ‘out there’… locust and honey … raiment of camel’s hair … leather girdle… hmm? The most detailed account of John the Baptist ministry is told in Luke 3:1-20. Where in there are clues about why Jesus called John the greatest of all the prophets? Ordinary man… Extraordinary Mission!

Deep inside every person is a God-instilled missional impulse to make a difference in our world. A dream to see the spread of joy, love and peace. To see hope overtake despair and light overcome darkness. The celebrating of people from all backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities. Leaving a lasting legacy of a world changed for the better. We can make it happen, together, in community. Join us this weekend as we explore how we can jump in and engage with what God is doing in and through Damascus Road in making that dream a reality.

A note from Pastor Richard...In preparing for our series: The Elephant in the Room, I have been so grateful for the counsel and perspective of Michelle Rader, our Lead Elder. As much reading, reflecting and listening to folks as I have tried to do, looking at issues and ideologies current in the LGBTQ community, Michelle has done more. And always with a Christ-centered grid. I have asked her to finish our series. Below is her thoughts on this weekend:This week will be Part 4 of our series, The Elephant in the Church. This series has raised a lot of questions for a lot of people - probably more questions than answers for many. We will conclude the series by considering how Jesus responded to a question - “Who is My Neighbor?” - and how he turned that question around. Jesus has a habit of taking our questions and giving different answers than we might expect - always with the goal of expanding our understanding of God, His Kingdom, and who is included in it.

Community. A common unity. Of what? Of people, all kinds of people, with all kinds of hurts, habits and hang-ups (to borrow a phrase) bond together by a commitment to know and follow Jesus as LORD. People doing life together. At the heart of this community are circles of authentic friendships in small groups. So if you have ever considered helping run a group, please come to our Small Group Leadership Conference on Saturday, September 7. You can register by clicking here.This weekend we continue our Elephant in the Room series on insuring Damascus Road is as embracing a place for a ‘gay’ seeker after Christ as it is for a ‘straight’ seeker after Christ. The ground is level at the foot of the Cross and there, together and equally, we all stand in need of a Savior, there God’s Spirit can heal our wounds, confront our selfishness and fears, there He calls us deeper into following Jesus as LORD and closer to each other as family. This week we’ll talk about God’s Edenic ideal, about God’s restoration of all things to His ideal, and about how God, throughout history and in our story, has continually worked for, with and through far less than ideal people and even calls them His church. Thankfully…

Q&A from Part 6 of Why Believe In Christianity.

When Jesus died on the Cross, He died to save us from something and equally to save us to/for something. The Cross provided not just one, but both of God’s greatest gifts: salvation from death’s grip and the new birth of life in the Spirit: “For God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we [now] have our redemption—the forgiveness of our sins” Colossians 1:13-14. In the security of God’s love and acceptance, by the power of God’s Spirit and through the model of God’s Son, we (all of us—the church) can now grow, step by step, into the visible and compelling demonstration of God’s Kingdom of love and joy and peace and justice in the present. For our third look at the Cross we will explore how the Cross shapes who we become as a community in Christ.

The message of Christ, to first-century listeners, was a stunner. To the Jews, anyone executed on a Cross was accursed of God, cut off from all covenant blessings—humiliated and rejected. To the Roman Gentile world, a man on a Cross was no longer even a man, but a sub-human beast, a vile criminal subjected to the most brutal and degrading death anyone had ever devised—humiliated and rejected. Why would anyone follow such a Messiah? Yet in His own teaching, Jesus, and then His emboldened apostles did not put primary emphasis on His victorious Resurrection, but on the deep meaning of His Cross as the defining center of God’s salvation. Join me this weekend for “Three Looks at the Cross” to help us understand better who we are apart from Christ (good and bad), who God is for us through Christ and who we become in Christ. There is power, joy and hope here.

Something very interesting happened in 2018. Founding or current executives from the big three: Facebook, Google and Apple all went public with concerns that excessive social media is impairing our desire and even our capacity for healthy human relationships. Nothing new—except now these warnings are coming from the people who created the technology—people with a lot to lose by speaking out. In this weekend’s message we are going to consider together author Simon Sinek’s discussion of the neuro-physical impact of screen-time (how screen-addiction is shaping our brain) in the context of the Biblical call out of isolation into an active life of engagement in community.**Due to Copyright Laws we had to remove the Simon Sinek video from both the video and audio uploads. If you would like to see the video we used click the link above titled "This Is Why You Don't Succeed - Simon Sinek on The Millennial Generation" . We are sorry for any inconvenience.**

Here we go! We start our All In journey by looking at the heart. The Bible talks a lot about the heart – more than seven hundred times. The heart is such a precious thing – Scripture tells us to be careful what you give to it to. Your whole life could be shaped by what you give your heart to. And the way to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus – being all in – is to love God with all our heart. Join us this weekend as we look at how to get a heart that is so tuned into God that it results in a life marked by uncommon boldness, radical faithfulness, and unshakeable love.

The Bible tells us that Shammua, son of Zakkur, and Gadiel, son of Sodi were esteemed leaders in Israel. Ever heard of them? Nope…you haven’t. Guaranteed. There is a significant reason why their obscurity applies to us, which we will explore this weekend. The answer has everything to do with the perspective we carry into each day, both on our present circumstances and future challenges—and how much trusting in the risen LORD factors into our planning and actions. The question we are wrestling with is: How BIG is your GOD? This weekend we explore: “The Power of a God-sized Perspective.”

Once we are clear that “there is a God—and it is not us”, then the great question of our lives kicks in. In every new challenge or crisis, each time to take our next step of obedience, we consciously or unconsciously ask the same question: “Can I trust God—can I really trust His will and way with this situation or area of my life?” (whatever it is). Someday we will realize the right question, the bigger and better question all the way along was really: “Can God trust us?” So… How big is your God? Do you look at life through the grid of getting and grasping your resources and power, or tapping in to His? Join me this weekend for a look at the only miracle story of Jesus (apart from His resurrection) that all four Gospels record—and what it teaches us about God’s most crucial equation in our lives.

First, thanks so much to everybody who sent encouragement or shared stories in response to the message about those struggling with chronic or acute mental health issues. We are becoming more and more a community we can run to--not from--in our struggles. This weekend we're having a birthday party! We are celebrating the second most important birthday in history--the birth of Christ's church at Pentecost. And the labor pains were hell. Acts 2 tells the story. Three dramatic shifts in human history began the day the Holy Spirit invaded the upper room. See you this weekend.

This weekend we begin our Journey to the Cross by focusing on one word that Jesus used so often in speaking of His death: “MUST”—as in an irrevocable requirement.“Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it MUST happen in this way?” Repeatedly Jesus tells His disciples not simply that He will suffer and die, but that He MUST suffer and die. Why? Why was the suffering and death of Christ a non-negotiable necessity in the plan of God?Let’s begin the journey to the Cross and empty tomb of Easter together this weekend.Richard FredericksSenior Pastor

We start the second section of our focus on two Old Testament books—Jonah and Ruth—this weekend. Join us as we take a look at Ruth, which is a fascinating little book involving some mega themes like love, loss, disappointment, pain, intrigue, marriage, loyalty, family, and faith. It reflects so much of our own lives and the remarkable redemption story God can weave in the midst of our mess if we let Him. God gets thrilled by the idea of bringing His redemptive power to work and create beauty even in our messiness. And He excels in this. For extra credit, read Ruth 1 ahead of time!

We continue our Advent series this weekend on the Real Gifts of Christmas by looking at Joy and Peace. Advent means the anticipation of the arrival of something or someone. There is this longing, a yearning, an ache for Someone to enter into our world to set things right. So we wait in anticipation for the coming of Christ. His arrival promises us joy and peace, which can strike some of us as odd because of all that we see in our world today—wars, human trafficking, orphans, refugee crisis, hunger, poverty, divisiveness and so on. What is this joy, what is this peace and how can you and I experience it? Join us this weekend as we explore this question.And don’t forget: come early as we will start right on time with our Annual Children & Youth Choir. It will be a joyous and dynamic service, one that you will not want to miss this Christmas season!

Last weekend, we saw the power of God breaking down our old frames. In Part 3 of our series Unearthed, we will take a look at the death to life transition that Jesus makes possible for every soul that turns to Him. And that’s not all – we are given a divine mission—to do the good things He planned for us long ago. What are these good things? How has He equipped and empowered us to do them? How do we discover that? This messages offers answers to that and more.

This week we will pick back up on the theme of Us vs. Them? by examining Jesus' call in Matthew 7 to be people that do not cast judgement on others. This instruction is so contrary to our natural tendencies and often feels impossible to put into practice in our day-to-day lives; yet Jesus stated it frankly and without any shred of ambiguity. Join us as we look at this instruction in the light of our current culture which loves judging everything from singing competitions to cupcake wars!

On the Cross Jesus took the place of total exclusion—rejected and degraded and despised by Jew and Gentile. Forsaken by God. Isolation. Darkness. Jesus went to the depths of human sin to allow His saving embrace to reach around all people—anyone willing to open their arms to Him, to the depth of His love. The Bible says He did this: “to bring us together and make us one” John 11:52. This is the essential witness of the Gospel at work in our lives—we become a community passionately committed to tearing down walls and drawing people together. Join us as we begin our Summer Series: Us vs. Them?: Tearing Down the Dividing Walls.

Every time Jesus helped someone – it cost him! Often what it cost Him was His reputation… It drove His followers and supporters absolutely mad! Why did you have to forgive the prostitute? Why did you have to touch the leper? Why were you always hanging out in Galilee? Just when He was getting some positive press, He would go and hang out at a party of sinners… Sigh. This seems to be the way of Jesus in serving… costly, hands on, messy. What did Jesus know about the heart of God? Join us this weekend to find out.

Forgiveness is a central part of our faith. Jesus frequently declared "your sins are forgiven" and also called his followers to forgive. We are all incredibly grateful when our own trespasses are forgiven but forgiving those who trespass against us can be more challenging. This week we will look at these twin sides to the coin of forgiveness - what we have been forgiven and the call to forgive. This is surely one of the most life-changing and powerful aspects of The Way of Jesus.

Remember Bruce Springsteen’s song “Glory Days”? It recounts stories of people looking back with longing at the glory days of the past. Have you had a relationship with God marked by excitement early on, giving way to questioning and disillusionment later? James 5:17 says “Elijah was a man just like me”. If that’s true, that we could be just like Elijah, then the possibilities of experiencing God’s glory are endless. Maybe you perceive the God of the Bible as a God who did bigger and better things in the past but not today. Join us this weekend as we look at how to have “Glory Days” with God now, as well as in the future.

In comfortable, consumer-oriented North America, land of individualistic self-fulfillment and endless upward mobility, the Biblical perspective on suffering is out of sync. This weekend we will explore the “Why?” question in the lives of some of God’s greatest champions of faith, when He did not rescue them from suffering or hardship. Especially, of course, His Son. We will wrestle with making character and effectiveness in God’s Kingdom higher priorities than comfort and ease as life’s great goals. Read ahead in Hebrews 11:35-39 in preparation for our study of “When Faith doesn’t Stop Suffering.”

Weakness. No one wants to be accused of it. No one wants to be in a position of weakness. Every culture honors its winners and sidelines its losers, exalts the strong and despises the weak. But not God. He despises our pride, not our weakness. He brings down the mighty from their high places and lifts up the humble. His specialty is turning those who are seen as weak into His most powerful servants by their trust in Him. This weekend we explore Hebrews 11:32-35 and a gallery of men and women whose "weakness was turned to strength" as they acted in obedience to the God.

First a note to all our men: this Saturday morning, February 11 at 8:30-9:45 am, please join me at our DRCC Men’s Breakfast. We want to talk together as men about the combination of being authentic in our journey, sane in our schedule, and used by God… and how all three can converge. Shake off the post-Super Bowl blues and come think about some things that really matter. At our weekend services we will explore the question of how far our trust in God is willing to go. When, in His wisdom, He wants to take us to places outside our comfort zone (which He does because it is the only place growth happens)… then are we still Christians? If we quietly say no, what are we missing? Come, let’s reason together.

We continue our journey immersed in the New Testament this weekend with a very special guest. I have invited a longtime and dear friend, Dr Joseph Modica to come and minister to us. He is a New Testament scholar, author, and has served as professor at Eastern University for decades. I will be interviewing him and we will glean insights from him about the New Testament and how we are to live with Jesus as Lord. Dr Modica sees himself primarily as a pastor-scholar: someone who attempts to model a robust gospel, an ecumenical spirit, a generous orthodoxy, a formative hospitality and respectful conversations. Erika and I have deep affection for him and he was a huge support to me during a particularly hard time in my life. I am sure you’ll enjoy getting to know him and you won’t want to miss what he has to say.

This weekend, we will dive into the New Testament story and read it together in a fresh way. As you have likely heard by now, we will go through a new Bible experience called Immerse (Messiah). The Immerse Bible is designed to help communities experience the Bible together in a unique and powerful way. We will read it each week, listen to the sermons, and gather in book club style discussion time in small groups where we can share what stands out to us, what seems confusing, and how what we read can change the way we live. These warm and inviting group experiences set the table for authentic community interaction around the text. You’ll find details on this, how to join a group if you are not in one, and how to get a hold of the Immerse reading plan at damascus.com/immerse. I’ll share the vision behind this and some key things to look out for as we embark on this adventure this weekend. Don’t miss it!

Our mission is to proclaim Christ and present everyone mature in Him (Colossians 2:28-29). Damascus Road is not just a church with a location. We are an unstoppable movement of God’s people on mission, part of Jesus’ plan to bring transformation and healing to our communities. Healing in us. Healing through us. Healed people heal people. Our leaders have spent many months praying and discussing on four important ways we will live out our God-given vision that we pray just opens the tap and releases God’s redemptive and healing power all over our region and beyond. My biggest prayer is that none of us will miss out on what God has planned for us in this next stretch, which I believe is “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever” (Ephesians 3:20-21). Amen!

Uncertainty. Unprecedented. Unpredictable.All of these words have been (over)used to describe this current season of our lives. We struggle to find meaning in the ordinary, peace in the busyness, and the fullness of life when life itself seems to have been upended. While we can all learn from the past, Scripture insists our destiny in Christ is to display God’s workmanship in us. It happens when we open ourselves to the Master Artist doing His work unhindered on the canvas of our souls. And the church, our church, is meant to be like an art gallery, a collection of hundreds of God’s masterpieces, working in tandem, like a tapestry of great, beautiful, and awe-inspiring design, bringing hope and healing to a hurting and needy world.Join us this weekend as we launch into a three-week series called HEAL, where we will look at God’s calling and vision for us as a church for the next five years. Imagine what would happen if we took the gospel and become the church in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools as God’s agents of healing through Christ working in and through us!

Join us for a special weekend led by some of our elders, trustees, staff, and other leaders for a weekend of worship, scripture readings, and prayer. The Bible tells us God’s house shall be called a house of prayer (Isaiah 56:7), we are to pray continually (1 Thess 5:17), where two or three are gathered, there Jesus is (Matt 18:20), if we ask anything according to God’s will, He hears us (1 John 5:14), and that in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, we should present our requests to God (Phil 4:6). Jesus prayed often and in all kinds of circumstances. He healed people through prayer. The Holy Spirit came upon Him as He was praying. In His moments of crises, He prayed. We will do this together and then commit to a life of worship, scripture reading, and prayer. These are crucial disciplines to experiencing the abundant and flourishing life Jesus promises us.And let me remind you one more time, every time you pray, something happens!

A 18 year old girl named Valery from Tegucigalpa Honduras joined our mission Honduras team this summer. After 4 days with our team she said to me “A few years ago I read a book that talked about a time when some teenagers were Christians. But I thought they were extinct! The love and grace I have experienced has shown me that teenage Christians still exist! And that Jesus is not extinct!”This is just one of the many God stories that will be shared this Sunday as we celebrate a Jesus who is not extinct but alive and well! A Jesus who is still changing lives all over the world and in our backyard! A Jesus who came to serve and not to be served (Matthew 20:28).

Join us for week one of Summer at the Movies. We will look at how popular stories in our culture help us better understand God’s Big Story. We will do so with movie clips, theme, and inspiring messages. Invite someone to come with you and watch How to Train Your Dragon on our lawn this Saturday at 7:30 pm (movie is free with snacks available for purchase). And then join the community in one of our Sunday worship services where we will look at the movie and discover the greater truth of God’s Kingdom coming in our midst. In this movie, watch how two groups that formerly had nothing in common clash and then come together. Jesus is everywhere, even in many of our stories. We will dig a little deeper and see how this story gives us a chance to look at Jesus, our world, and life itself through fresh eyes.

Over the last several weeks we have examined parables from the greatest storyteller this world has ever seen. Jesus used these parables to help us understand God and his kingdom better. This week we will be examining the short, yet profound parable of The Lost Sheep - a story that so beautifully encapsulates The Good Shepherd’s pursuit after his lost sheep. God’s willingness to risk it all by leaving behind the ninety-nine to go after the one that is lost illustrates the depth that God loves his sheep; no matter where they’ve been. Restoration, recovery, protection, joy, and peace can all be found when we stop running and allow God to be our shepherd.

Come join us this Sunday as we celebrate Father’s Day, Kids Camp, and dive into the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). As He often did, Jesus used this parable to challenge the religious establishment of His own day. However, it’s also a challenge to all of us today, calling us to examine our own hearts and homes, and to reflect on the extravagant love of God. God is on the move at DRCC – don’t miss the party on Sunday!

We have many questions. The disciples had many questions too. Jesus has answers. Often in the form of parables - stories with intent. Is your life filled with worry? Jesus tells a story which poses the question, “which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life” (Luke 12:25-31)? But he doesn’t stop there.Do current events have you stressed out? Do you wonder what’s going to happen next? Perhaps like the disciples you’d like to privately seek out Jesus and fire a bunch of questions at him about signs of the times, His return, and the end of the world? (Matthew 24:3).Most of us are familiar with Aesop’s fables, like the “Tortoise and the Hare” or even secular parables, like Hans Christian Anderson’s, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” But while fables can hand you a moral – a rule of behavior which is woven into the story and secular parables can hand you traditional folk wisdom; neither of these can give you insights into the Kingdom of God from an up close and personal perspective. Nor can they help you catch a glimpse of the time of the end or even what happens at the end of all time – from an authoritative source.Want to know who God is and how He acts toward humanity? Look to the parables of Jesus. Want to see what humanity is and how humanity should and may become from God’s perspective? Only Jesus the master storyteller can reveal that. This week we continue our series, Parables – The Stories of Jesus. Come, listen, and catch a glimpse of those getting ready to step into eternity “When the Son of Man comes in His glory . . .. (Matthew 25:31).

Jesus told a lot of stories - parables - to illustrate and illuminate the reality of the Kingdom of God. A new reality was breaking in and he chose not flowery or philosophical descriptions of this new reality, but stories - kings, servants, fathers, children, widows, rich, poor - characters from all walks of life. And these characters bring to life the character of this new kingdom. This week starts a 6-week series on the parables of Jesus. Join us this Sunday as we look at the parable of The Unforgiving Servant - a story that illustrates the lavish grace of God in contrast to the human propensity for stinginess and self-righteousness. The grace and forgiveness of God is always wider, deeper, and more generous than anything we can imagine.

“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” ~1 Peter 4:10God gave you your gifts and talents for a reason and He delights in seeing you use them.In most sports, there is that feeling you get… like when you “barrel up” and hit a baseball on the sweet spot of your bat, and the ball soars over the fence, and you know the bat was used exactly how it should be used. When you helped someone in need and what they needed is something that you are gifted at! You Walk away feeling a pure joy spoken of in scripture! Always be watchful for that same feeling. When you find yourself in the middle of a task, hobby, a job, or serving and notice that same satisfaction, know that you have found the point where your God-given talents align with the tasks He has laid before you. When you approach the point where your gifts and calling intersect, you have found your sweet spot. Living like God has created you to live!This Sunday is part 2 in our Game Changer series entitled “Living in your Calling”. We will look at how being obedient and humble before God will have you living out your created calling. Living a life that you were meant to live. A life not without problems or pain yes, but more than that, a life filled with joy, intimacy, contentment, and fulfillment. A life that could change everything!

We are launching a three-week series this Sunday, looking at some revolutionary ideas Jesus unleashed that were game changers. This weekend, I will look at one of the most remarkable passages in the book of Acts. It documents how the church was formed, how it functioned, and what it was known for in its earliest days. This passage is crucial if we are to catch the vision for us as a church and as individuals. Imagine a community where we continue to form and sustain a culture where people bring people to meet Jesus, where every follower of Jesus is on a pathway of growth, and disciples making disciples become the norm. Imagine people embodying the church in their homes, neighborhoods, workplaces and every domain of our region and beyond. Imagine a place in our world where each person discovers their soul’s innermost purpose and missional impulse to make a difference in our world (where anyone can come, no one is perfect, and extraordinary things start to happen). Then imagine every individual in DRCC fully grasping what God offers us in Jesus and living out of that identity – a child of God, redeemed, restored and reconciled; knowing that in Jesus, your past has no power over you and your future is secure. And in Jesus, you get to be part of the church that hell can’t stop!

Every woman, whether a biological mother or not, has influence in the lives of those around her. God has uniquely created each of us to be nurturers, caregivers, and mentors. The message will focus on the real-life version of motherhood that includes joy and fulfillment as well as struggles and trials. We all know this journey isn’t a fairy tale, but Jesus provides comfort, rest, hope and encouragement during every season. He’s with us every step of the way as He reminds us in Matthew 28. Together with community, we can do the hard stuff and celebrate the victories along the way.

We continue this week in our series “He is Risen Indeed!” by taking a look at how the Jesus movement went viral. Working through the first couple of chapters in the book of Acts, we will discover some crucial insights on the kind of people we were created to be and the amazing, tremendous, expansive task our Lord began at Easter and now trusts us with. Just like the world of the early church, a world of “deep darkness and flickering starlight, where terrible things happen and wonderful things too, a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive,”* we too are called to be witnesses to the good news that Jesus is risen indeed! And the news of the creation of new community in Jesus goes viral—then and now, with its glorious creator and designer and its most marvelous resident leading the way. The God whose presence fills each person with uncommon love, unceasing joy, undying hope, and unwavering courage. May’s God’s Spirit fill each of you as we work together to fulfill His mission.

This week I was reflecting on Paul’s Spirit-inspired words to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 8:9 as we stand in reverence and awe before a blood-stained cross, an empty tomb, and the rock-solid promise of eternal life in Christ. It’s been two long years of a pandemic, the relentless march of a devastating virus, the loss of loved ones, the masks, lock downs and quarantines. We have all felt the impact of it. Many in our world feel hopeless, confused and afraid. The story of Easter starts that way. On Friday, Jesus was dead, hope was lost, and the disciples were confused, scattered, and afraid. But then Sunday arrived! The stone was rolled away, the darkness was lifted, and Jesus rose from the dead. Join us this Easter for inspiring worship and a hope-filled message on how the good news of Jesus came in a messy world and how it can radically change your life now and forever. The tomb is empty and hope is alive! God’s invitation to a life full of peace, hope, and love is open to anyone who is willing to accept it.

If you look back at your life and focus on the moments that you made some of your biggest mistakes, they were most likely times when you were bored. Bored with nothing to do, bored at work or school, bored relationally, or just bored with life in general. The Old Testament of the Bible closes with the book of Malachi, which talks about the people of that time being bored. But in its final chapter it points to a day of joy and triumph for the righteous (Malachi 4:2-3). A day not filled with boredom, but a day filled with unspeakable joy to the people of God.On that day, "The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings" (v. 2). The Lord Jesus, who often seems in eclipse, will shine forth in all his brilliance. And his "wings" (rays) will touch all his people, bringing warmth and healing them of all their diseases.On that day, the people of God will be like calves, who having been released into the sunshine from their dingy stalls, kick up their heels in sheer exuberance. Well, guess what? That day is upon us and available to us right here, right now! Join us as we talk together about how we can go from boredom to living a life of fullness, always living in anticipation of what’s next. Living your best life! Something big is about to happen. You don’t want to miss it!

The prophet who wrote the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, has an important message for the people of his time and ours – namely, how we can live our best lives. His words are the last prophetic word of God until John the Baptist appears on the scene, some four centuries later. Malachi calls people out of an apathetic commitment to a vibrant relationship with God. His words contain the reassuring promise that there is a day coming when God will set things right. We will dive deep into this important little book and walk closely with this messenger from God for the next three weeks as we prepare our hearts for Easter.

“For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you also are doing.”1 Thessalonians 5:9-11Jesus and the apostles took many opportunities to encourage through word and deed. The apostles also command us to encourage one another and then go on to model how to encourage one another.Would you like to know how to become a son or daughter of encouragement?Join us this week as we conclude the Genius of One Another series learning the importance of “Encourage One Another”.Remember we "Spring Forward" with the beginning of Daylight Saving early this Sunday morning, March 13, 2022 (we lose an hour – don’t be late 😊).“You have not chosen one another,but I have chosen you for one another.”C. S. Lewis

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”– Philo of Alexandria“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacityto be transformed?”– Gloria Jean Watkins (aka bell hooks)It is so cliché and yet so unavoidably true: sometimes the easiest parts of the bible to understand are the hardest parts to put into practice. In Ephesians, the apostle Paul directs us to Be Kind and Forgive one another – so much easier said than done and yet, we all feel in our souls that these are the right things to do.This week we head into the fourth week of our sermon series unpacking the “one another” statements of scripture. It is striking to me, and I believe it will be striking to you as well, how applicable the ancient words of scripture (written 2000 years ago and 6,000 miles away) are to the day-to-day world that we face in 2022 here in North America.Join us this week as we do the hard work of peering deep in the mirror and asking what it might look like for us to truly live lives modeled after Jesus – lives that are marked by limitless kindness and a blank check of forgiveness in an unkind and unforgiving world.As Blake mentioned, check out "The Lost Commandment" by Dave Greber. https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Commandment-Missed-Jesus-Really/dp/0825429358

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;and by night, but find no rest.Psalm 22:1-2These words give voice to the experience of utter aloneness and despair that too often overwhelms many of us in the darkest points in our lives. Often these dark points are precipitated by deep trauma – physical, emotional, spiritual – a sudden painful, unexpected, traumatic event or series of events which overwhelm our ability to cope, to understand, to defend ourselves. The experience of trauma plunges us into the depths where it is a struggle to survive, let alone heal, connect, or feel joyfully alive. The reality and experience of trauma raises profound questions about God and his goodness, about our own identity and path forward, and about our relationships with others. Where do we turn when trauma has shattered our sense of safety and self to the point where we don’t know how to move forward? How do we find God, ourselves, and re-connect to others? How do we support and care for each other in life’s darkest periods?Jesus spoke these words from Psalm 22 when he was overwhelmed by his experience of physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma. He joins us in the deepest depths so that he can raise us up to new life – a new life where the scars are still visible, but so also is renewed hope and community.Please join us this weekend as we address the subject of “God and Trauma” – the final message in our God and Mental Health series.

During week One in this sermon series on God and Mental Health, we heard Pastor Rajendra Pillai lay the groundwork for this very important discussion. It’s time to break the silence, it’s ok to admit that we need help, and it’s ok to seek and get help! We all need it, including our children and youth who are facing unique and unprecedented challenges. Everyone has a part to play in reaching the next generation, and families need your support now more than ever!  This 3-week sermon series won’t cover everything, but is designed to be the beginning of a larger conversation. Come join us this Sunday as we continue the conversation centered in Christ!

Mental health challenges have risen sharply in our nation during the pandemic and yet, it remains somewhat of a taboo subject in churches. Being a Christian doesn’t mean you are immune from mental health challenges. But we also know that the Gospel is everywhere, even in the shadows of mental health issues. You are worth everything it takes to get better. We want to be a church community that accepts, loves, prays over and walks with all who are struggling as one Body, one community, and one family in Christ.Starting this week for the next three weeks, we will talk openly and redemptively in a shame-free environment to attempt to discern our stories and struggles through the pages of Scripture and find healing in the broken places. Feel free to spread the word to someone who could benefit from joining us for this series. And come prayed up!

Last Sunday, we looked at three resolutions we will not regret in 2022. We dreamed who we could become and what we could do if our entire church community made these resolutions together for a new beginning and we helped each other live them out. The goal being that we become a community that is fully devoted to our God and displays outrageous love for people. I can’t wait for the incredible stories and inspiring testimonies to emerge from our midst this year! This Sunday, join me as I talk about what it means to love God with all your mind. We will also discover how the battle for change and growth is often fought, and won or lost in our minds. No matter what circumstances we faced in 2021, we can thrive in 2022 by cultivating a worshipful heart and developing a renewed mind.

Happy New Year! About half of us make New Year’s resolutions. Within weeks, many give up and only one out of five of us stick to the original resolutions as we get caught up in the busyness of life or get plain distracted. Change is hard, but a new year offers us a new opportunity to live the flourishing life Jesus promises us. What if our entire church community made some resolutions together for a new beginning and we helped each other live them out? After the last two years, a fresh start has never been so welcome! Join us for a two-part series titled Thrive 2022 as I walk us through the three resolutions we will not regret in 2022.

The weary world rejoices! We’ve been living that statement all month. Scripture teaches us that a great light has appeared in the darkness (Isaiah 9:2) and Jesus said anyone who follows Him will never walk in darkness (John 8:12). In a world full of uncertainty, pain, and suffering, we declare hope; where there is darkness, we share light; where there is fear, we infuse courage; where there is despair, we stand by faith. And so now, a weary world can indeed rejoice. We can experience the thrill of hope that comes from knowing Jesus. His offer of peace is available to everyone who is willing to receive it. And every soul can feel its worth.

Hope! We all hope for something. Lack of hope is death to the human soul. But what happens when the thing you are hoping for is taking a very long time or worse, never happens? What do you do with the weary burden of hopelessness? Where can we find fresh and abiding hope? We are looking at the Christmas story these days from the lens of a weary world. A world that Jesus came into and called all the weary ones to exchange their weariness for His rest. Join us this weekend as we experience the thrill of hope Christmas brought to people then and brings to people now (and don’t miss part 2 of our special video production of the Christmas story told through the words of DRCC kids!).

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

I know a lot of our folks are traveling and reports from the travel and leisure industry tell us that this is not only the busiest travel month of the year, but that this weekend is the busiest travel weekend of the year. If you have been or are traveling, I am glad you are taking a break, but don’t miss this weekend! We are on the second of our six-week series on the book of Philippians, looking at how living life in the way of Jesus often seems like a paradox. Last week, we looked at how a small-group sized group of diverse people who faithfully answered the call to be partners in the gospel changed the destiny of an entire continent. This weekend, we will look at some of the most power-packed words in all of Scripture. How can you and I live a great life? Where does true greatness come from? How do we accomplish great things in life? Join us this weekend as we look at one of the most Christological passages in Scripture and learn what it truly means to live in the way of Jesus. I want to encourage you to read the joy-filled, power-packed, and encouraging book of Philippians this week (it takes only 15 minutes max to read the entire book!).

/ˈperəˌdäks/noun: a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.Dear Family and Friends, The Way of Jesus often seems paradoxical. The least are the greatest, the weak are being made strong, the servants are the heroes, outsiders become insiders. Paul is writing this joy-filled letter from a prison! Join us for a six-week adventure, as we put on the lens of Philippians and learn that a life lived in the reality of the Kingdom of God is a life that is markedly different from the one our world prompts us or even pushes us to live. In the midst of all the crazy stuff going on around us, we are peculiar people, living in a reality that allows us to be joyful, experience peace beyond human comprehension, and live in uncommon unity. Following and living for Jesus in a post-Covid world is living life as a paradox, which when we come to think of it, is what it always meant to live in the reality of the Kingdom of God.

We are on week five of our six-week journey of deep reflection as a church this Sunday. We are on a pilgrimage together discerning God’s heart for us and our future. We are rediscovering our mission to be a community of light in a world facing much darkness. For two thousand years, we have been handed a priceless legacy. Every generation must wrestle with the question, "God did amazing things through the local church—lives transformed, addictions broken, sins confessed, hearts changed, families restored, people reconciled, orphans and widows taken care of, the sick healed, the blind given sight—God did all of these things before, can He not do it again? Has the Holy Spirit lost any of His power?" Our world has changed. Our God hasn’t. Imagine being part of a community where the claims of Christ were being presented in a winsome way, a church where anyone could come in, no one was perfect, and anything was possible. A church that was reflective, egalitarian, globally aware, culturally engaged, and Jesus-centered. A church that exercised courageous faith, innovative risk-taking, prayerful leadership and handed the torch of faith to the next generation burning more brightly than the one before. This weekend, we will unpack how you and I can join in God’s great invitation to be part of just such a movement.

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

We are on week three of a six-week journey of deep reflection as a church. We are on a pilgrimage together discerning God’s heart for us and our future. I believe Mr. Rogers was on to something. This weekend we will take a look at how God's Word consistently calls us to grow both in our relationship and knowledge of Him and to relationally connect with others, doing life not in isolation, but in community. My desire for us in this next season is that we will lead our generation into a transforming relationship with Jesus, and authentic community with each other, so that we and all our neighbors in our area and beyond can flourish. Come prayed up, because God is about to do something in our midst!

The gospel, as Paul says in Romans 1, is the power of God for salvation to all who have faith. God's power defeats sin and death and raises us up into new life in Christ - Good News then and now. Romans, in the words of one scholar, is "the epistle of life." In it, Paul unfolds the Good News of the God who "gives life to the dead" (Rom 4:17) in order that we might live in "newness of life" (6:4) now, and have "eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21). How do we enter this new life and what does it look like for those who are "in Christ?" How does God, through the blood of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit, create "new life" communities from diverse groups of flawed and limited human beings? How do those people respect, love, grow, learn, and live together? Those questions were just as pressing in Paul's day as in ours. Thank you for joining lead elder, Michelle Rader, for this 10-week study of Romans, as we study this great New Testament book which unfolds the depths of God's grace and mercy towards us while also calling us to participate in a life and community of love, peace, justice, and hospitality.

This is a very important weekend for us as a church. I will be giving out important details, including a statement from our elders and trustees, on next steps relating to our All In journey—where we’ve been, where we are, and where we are going. Don’t miss this weekend!  The theme for this weekend is this – life is often lived in the messy middle. Sometimes it is hard to see too far ahead and know which way to turn. But Jesus assured us He will be with us always, His Spirit guiding us through any and all situations. This weekend, we will zoom out and take a look at the big picture of God’s story, then find our place in it, and along the way learn how God often does His finest work right in the middle of the mess. Come prayed up, because God is about to do something in our midst!

Genesis 3 says that God will send an heir to crush the head of the one who is causing all the pain and death in this world. An heir who will bring hope and life to every community all over the world! Scripture shows us that every time the Snake Crusher shows up things change for the better. Hunger, Sickness, worthlessness, self-worth, identity, families, wrongs righted, the way God was viewed, were all changed for the better. Most people would do anything to spend time with the Snake Crusher because He always left behind hope, love, joy, and a future. The good news is this was not limited to just ancient times. Today, when the followers of the Snake Crusher show up, there is still change! Positive, life-giving change in people, families, and communities all over the globe! Join me this weekend as we look at the change that is happening all over the world when the followers of the Snake Crusher show up, and how you can become a Snake Crusher that can bring hope to friends, families, neighbors, co-workers and people all over the world!

We have a long-standing DRCC tradition of ending the summer by celebrating all of our missions. Despite the restrictions caused by Covid, through the generosity and servanthood of our congregants, we were able to impact the lives of thousands of families in four continents. This weekend, I have the pleasure of leading us in giving God the glory for the great things He has done through our church in India, Germany, and Puerto Rico. Next weekend, Roger will walk us through the many God-stories in Honduras, Nicaragua, and South Africa. We are actively pursuing God’s mission for us as described by Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20.

Wisdom: We all want it. We know we need it. And we are often deceived into thinking that folly is wisdom. We aren't alone. Way back at the beginning in Genesis 3, the serpent convinced our first parents that they could become wise by eating forbidden fruit, the fruit God had warned would lead to death.  In Proverbs 8, we hear the ringing words of Lady Wisdom:To you, O People, I call out,and my voice calls to all mankind.  You who are naive, discern wisdomAnd you fools, understand discernment....Blessed is the one who listens to me,watching at my doors day by day,waiting beside my doorway.For the one who finds me has found lifeand received favor from the Lord.But the one who misses me brings harm to himself;all who hate me, love death. (Prov. 8:4-5, 35-36)True discernment, true wisdom, leads to life. And conversely, false wisdom is actually death in disguise.So where do we find God's true, life-giving Wisdom? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that it is found in Christ crucified - the crucified Messiah is the wisdom and power of God. The serpent hid death in a false promise of life and wisdom. God displays true wisdom and life in the death of his son on the cross - it is in knowing Christ that we come to know and understand the wisdom of God - the true wisdom that leads to life and joy and peace.  A life of wisdom looks different than you think. Join us as we conclude our Wisdom series by a study of how Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8 points us to the Wisdom of God in 1 Corinthians - Jesus, the wisdom and power of God - and what this means for our life today.

The generous are joyful. Less fearful. More grateful. It is a great truth of this counterintuitive kingdom we are a part of. Jesus said the more we give away, the more we blessings we have—that our life does not consist (despite 10,000 adds) in the abundance of things possessed, but in the depth of our relationships, especially with the God who “so loved the world that He gave…” Our goal is to be more like the God of the Cross and less like Satan, who is utterly wrapped up in himself and his own ego (see Isaiah 14:12-15). So join me as we explore the wisdom of Proverbs on the use of God’s resources in our lives and explore the truth that our resources are truly renewable and life-giving when we live as rivers, not reservoirs, for: “The generous will themselves be blessed” (Proverbs 22:9).

It’s good to be back with you after my sabbatical. This weekend, I will share some key thoughts and reflections from my time away. In our world, our nation, and our church community, we have (and are continuing) to wrestle with a sea of changes none of us could have anticipated. Throughout this journey, we have committed to deepen our understanding of what it means to follow and proclaim Christ and present everyone mature in Him. So what does the road ahead look like in pursuit of God’s mission? How do we navigate this season and what’s ahead? How do we stay anchored on what is truly important? Join us this weekend as I walk us through some thoughts and reflections about God and about us that I hope to build into a more detailed series this Fall. A message that I hope will encourage you and embolden you to press on as we seek to become what God has called us to be.

This weekend, we are talking about a very important subject: Justice. We will take a look at what Proverbs and other passages from the Bible have to say about justice. A life of wisdom is lived out in the moral realm, doing what is right, just, and fair (equitable). And so, as Christians, we are to have a biblically-centered view on what justice is.

Join us this weekend as we continue on with the Wisdom sermon series by looking at Proverbs 22:6 (NIV), “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” Everyone has a role to play in reaching the next generation for Jesus. That includes you! Let’s celebrate what God is doing in our community, while also having a honest conversation about the challenges facing parents and guardians today in raising kids. It’s not easy, and the whole church is needed in order to raise up a generation that knows and loves Jesus!

I almost gave up on a dear friendship that I have enjoyed for over ten years. 2020 was hard on relationships. Perhaps you struggled relationally in 2020 too. Perhaps you lost some friends in 2020 due to all the upheaval around us. This weekend we will go to the scriptures to frame the relational trauma that we experienced. Proverbs chapter seventeen and verse seventeen says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity. It may be helpful to think about our friendships through the lens of confidants, constituents, and comrades. Each play a role in our lives but only one is born for adversity. Of course, Jesus is our ultimate model of what it means to be a friend. “This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father." - John 15:12-15 (The Message) “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” — Walter Winchell“A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.” — Unknown“A friend who understands your tears is much more valuable than a lot of friends who only know your smile.” — Unknown“A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.” — Donna RobertsThis week, I want to talk to you about, ”Fighting for the Friendship.”

To do or not to do? That is the question this weekend. Often, the quality of our lives is impacted by the decisions we make. So how do we make decisions without driving ourselves crazy about what may be, or about what we have chosen to do? How do we grow in wisdom when it comes to our choices so that we can choose rightly and live with fewer regrets?

Session 13:Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective.

The 3rd speaker in our summer series on Proverbs needs to repent before they teach. At first, a summer in Proverbs seemed a bit much. But once they dove in they realized NOT SO! The Proverbs themselves call us to listen carefully, focus intently and apply intentionally (22:17) to attain wisdom--and for those who do—such rewards. They are not a quick list of absolute promises or prophecies, but the enduring principles foundational for a wise and God-honoring life. Join us as we knock down one of the dumbest of old sayings—that “sticks and stones break our bones, but words can never hurt us.” Not so, says Proverbs, but rather: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). Our theme is WORDS and Proverbs teaches our words have huge impact on others and ourselves—now and for eternity.

Session 12:Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective.This class includes a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions can be submitted via chat during the sessions.Message Notes: https://tinyurl.com/revelation-p12

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”With that one profound and deeply meaningful statement, John the Baptist described Jesus in a way that connected the scarlet thread running all through the Bible with Jesus. This weekend, we will look at the question of "Who is Jesus?" from the viewpoint of how all of Scripture was pointing forward to and finds its fulfillment in Him. Understanding this truth about Christ will help us discover our place in the universe and live out of a position of deep confidence no matter what is happening around us.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/whoisjesus4

We continue our series on Jesus by looking at one of the most memorable and powerful scenes from the gospel accounts of Jesus. Jesus takes his friends for a walk and reveals something about Himself that changes the trajectory of their lives. His one question at the intersection of social, economic, and religious power structures brings into focus the response of ultimate allegiance each one of us is called to give. We will either give it to Jesus (earth’s only rightful and righteous King) or to someone or something else. And that allegiance has the power to change the trajectory of our lives like it did for the disciples. In this message, we look at Jesus and His question that can change your heart, your mind, your outlook, your life, and your future for all of eternity!Download the message notes: https://tinyurl.com/whoisjesus2

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com.This Easter message by Senior Pastor Rajendra Pillai launches us into a brand-new series looking at what the Bible has to say about Jesus and how His life and legacy changes everything – and what that means for you. Thanks for joining us for the first installment of “Who is Jesus? - The Risen Savior” where we will find unwavering hope in this uncertain world.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/drcc-easterSPANISH TRANSLATIONVisit: https://tinyurl.com/drccespanolID De Evento: DAMENESPNEW TO DAMASCUS ROAD?Text HOPE to (301) 888-6922 today to get connected or…DID YOU SAY ‘YES’ TO JESUS TODAY?We’d love to celebrate with you and get some resources in your hands: https://damascus.com/jesusINTERESTED IN MAKING AN IMPACT?Consider giving toward the ministries at Damascus Road: https://www.damascus.com/giveLET’S CONNECTComplete our digital Connection Card to get connected, request prayer, comment, or information about what’s available for you at Damascus Road: https://tinyurl.com/drcc-connectSTRUGGLING?We have a prayer team ready and waiting to pray for you. Let us know how we can pray: https://tinyurl.com/howcanweprayJOIN A SMALL GROUPONLINE GROUPS are available: https://www.damascus.com/groupsWANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?We have ongoing opportunities to safely serve our neighbors: https://damascus.com/serveWHAT’S FOR CHILDREN & YOUTH?Visit our Children's Ministry to learn about Kids' Church At Home and other upcoming events: https://www.damascus.com/childrenLearn about our Special Needs Ministry, HAVEN: https://damascus.com/childrenLearn about our Middle and High School programs: https://www.damascus.com/youth

This weekend, we conclude our series The Secret Sauce. We are looking at our 3rd secret ingredient that has helped shape who we are as a church. That ingredient is community. It is in community that we live out our commitment to the cross and our commitment to one another. But how does that show up? What does it mean? And how is it formed? I’m excited to be with you this weekend whether that is online or in person. I am praying that God moves powerfully in our midst, leading us to continue to be a community of light by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/secretsauce-community

Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. We invite you to join us for this 10-week class each Tuesday at 7pm. This class includes a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions can be submitted via chat during the sessions.Download the message notes: https://tinyurl.com/revelation-p9

We are on week two of our series, The Secret Sauce, where we are looking at the three main ingredients that make up the secret sauce of Damascus Road. Last weekend, I talked about how moving forward making sure we are keeping our focus on the cross. This weekend, we will look at how our confidence and commitment are unwavering in the vision our Lord has given us. And then next weekend, we will look at how we will do these things being rooted in community and serving. This weekend, we will also celebrate our two-year All In journey and the many, many ways God used our community to impact our world and grow His Kingdom. You will hear stories and get an update on what’s next. And then we will dive into a passage of Scripture that will remind us of exactly what it is that we are building our confidence on and committing to as we look forward expectantly to what God has in store for us. We will also reveal a surprise you won’t want to miss!DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/secretsauce-commitment

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. Join us as Pastor Rajendra Pillai launches us into a brand-new series looking at the main ingredients that make up the “Secret Sauce” of our church community. We will focus our attention on keeping the main thing the main thing and learn what the Bible teaches us about the three things that will help us stay anchored no matter what 2021 brings our way.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/secretsauce-crossNEW TO DAMASCUS ROAD?Text HEY to (301) 888-6922 today to get connected.DID YOU SAY ‘YES’ TO JESUS TODAY?We’d love to celebrate with you and get some resources in your hands: https://damascus.com/jesusINTERESTED IN MAKING AN IMPACT?Consider giving toward the ministries at Damascus Road: https://www.damascus.com/giveLET’S CONNECTComplete our digital Connection Card to get connected, request prayer, comment, or information about what’s available for you at Damascus Road: https://tinyurl.com/drcc-connectSTRUGGLING?We have a prayer team ready and waiting to pray for you. Let us know how we can pray: https://tinyurl.com/howcanweprayJOIN A SMALL GROUPONLINE GROUPS are available: https://www.damascus.com/groupsWANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?We have ongoing opportunities to safely serve our neighbors: https://damascus.com/serveWHAT’S FOR CHILDREN & YOUTH?Visit our Children's Ministry to learn about Kids' Church At Home and other upcoming events: https://www.damascus.com/childrenLearn about our Special Needs Ministry, HAVEN: https://damascus.com/childrenLearn about our Middle and High School programs: https://www.damascus.com/youth

Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. We invite you to join us for this 10-week class each Tuesday at 7pm. This class includes a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions can be submitted via chat during the sessions.Download the message notes: https://tinyurl.com/revelation-p7

Sometimes God calls us into amazing stretches with Him; stretches where He demonstrates great power and we get to experience big victories and the wonderful feeling of success. Those high heights, however, are often preceded by times of great testing or trial or difficulty that God needs to bring us through before we’re ready for the wins.Glory follows sacrifice.This week we will look at the story of Gideon – an Old Testament figure that is praised in Hebrews 11 for his great faith in God. Gideon trusted God to carry him to victory in battle, even after God whittled his vast army of 32,000 men down to a meager group of 300 soldiers. Gideon experienced the real and tangible deliverance of God, he experienced victory upon victory, he experienced great wealth as a result of the victories – but before all that, God called him to a far more difficult display of courage and trust. Join us this week as we explore the terrifying act that God called Gideon to before he could trust him to lead the nation and experience success.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/stepout5

Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. We invite you to join us for this 10-week class each Tuesday at 7pm. This class includes a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions can be submitted via chat during the sessions.Download the message notes: https://tinyurl.com/revelation-p8

This weekend, church happens on Valentine’s Day, and I’m really looking forward to our time together. The team has prepared a special element to celebrate Valentine’s Day that you don’t want to miss out on. I’ve titled my talk “Worth the Fight.” Because sometimes our faith is a fight. Our relationships are a fight; our marriages are a fight. And what comes out of the fight can be worth it, when seen through the lens of the cross. I pray that as we head to a weekend where earthly love is celebrated, that you feel the heavenly love of God for you. Only Jesus is worthy to save us, and he looked at us in our brokenness and counted it as worthy of dying for us to restore us to God. There truly is no greater love for us to celebrate than God’s love for us revealed in Jesus Christ.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/stepout-3​

Sacrifices had been offered, prayers had been prayed. In fact, the whole village had prayed. She didn't know what else she could do as she watched her only son's labored breathing, slipping further and further away. She believed without doubt and yet... and yet, he continued to slip further away. Truthfully, her faith died when he did! Darkness. Nothing left to do but walk toward the triumphant grave.When suddenly...Join me for a message for those of us who aren't strong enough, smart enough, or righteous enough. No faith? No hope?DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/stepout-2

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com.This message is the first of a new series, "Step Out: The Call of Faith," with Associate Pastor Armando Lopez. More often than not, when God calls us to trust him, it is a call to step out in faith. It’s a call to go beyond our comfort zones. It’s stepping out into the unknown. But how do we do so, when we feel stuck, afraid, confused, or worried about where God is leading us?DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ml6adHkjekuHpfY3jjvKsCZWNnqTkE9f/view?usp=sharingNEW TO DAMASCUS ROAD?Text HEY to (301) 888-6922 today to get connected or…INTERESTED IN MAKING AN IMPACT?Consider giving toward the ministries at Damascus Road: https://www.damascus.com/giveLET’S CONNECTComplete our digital Connection Card to get connected, request prayer, comment, or information about what’s available for you at Damascus Road: https://tinyurl.com/drcc-connectSTRUGGLING?We have a prayer team ready and waiting to pray for you. Let us know how we can pray: https://tinyurl.com/howcanweprayJOIN A SMALL GROUPONLINE GROUPS are available: https://www.damascus.com/groupsWANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?We have ongoing opportunities to safely serve our neighbors: https://damascus.com/serveWHAT’S FOR CHILDREN & YOUTH?Visit our Children's Ministry to learn about Kids' Church At Home and other upcoming events: https://www.damascus.com/childrenLearn about our Special Needs Ministry, HAVEN: https://damascus.com/childrenLearn about our Middle and High School programs: https://www.damascus.com/youth

Revelation is God’s last Word to us in Scripture, written to clarify, not confuse. It equips us to understand how the powerful love of Jesus overcomes evil’s counterfeits from John’s day to ours. All the promises and prophecies of the Bible converge in this final unveiling of the crucified and risen Christ as Lamb and Lion. The curtain is pulled back. We see history from God’s perspective. This is part 1 of a 10-week intensive study. This class included a time for instruction and a Q&A session where questions were submitted via chat during the sessions.

We continue to dig into Scripture this weekend and discover the truth about us. How do we keep our core purpose and identity as a community of God intact in a world that is constantly pulling us in every direction? How do we stay focused on our key goals when distraction is everywhere? How do we make 2021 the year of keeping the main thing the main thing? There are exciting days ahead for our church (and I’ll share more this weekend). We know God is not calling us to business as usual and there’s a whole future we’re going to look toward. Join us as we look at one of the more obscure and strange stories in Scripture to discover the truth about us as a community of God.DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/notes-1-17

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com.  Today’s new series, “The Truth About Us,” begins with Pastor Rajendra Pillai laying out how difficult seasons often help bring laser-like focus to things that are truly important. The ongoing pandemic has been filled with learning moments for all of us. We have discovered things about ourselves, our families and friends, our community, and our world. So much in this season has been demanding and daunting, but not everything has been bad.  It has the potential to help us stay rooted and established and grow stronger in the most significant areas of our lives.  Let’s examine the ways we can remain steadfast, strong, and courageous in the year ahead.  DOWNLOAD THE MESSAGE NOTES:  https://tinyurl.com/notes-1-10  NEW TO DAMASCUS ROAD? Text HEY to (301) 888-6922 today to get connected or… HANG OUT after today’s service via Zoom where members of our Welcome Team are ready and waiting to answer your questions and get you connected.  Sign up for a Zoom link: https://www.damascus.com/church-online  NEW YEAR, NEW YOU Let’s say hello to a new year of possibilities ahead! Our winter semester begins January 18 and is packed with new online classes, groups, and opportunities to serve. Here’s your last chance to register! Details:  https://damascus.com/winter2021  INTERESTED IN MAKING AN IMPACT? Consider giving toward the ministries at Damascus Road: https://www.damascus.com/give   LET’S CONNECT Complete our digital Connection Card to get connected, request prayer, comment, or information about what’s available for you at Damascus Road: https://tinyurl.com/drcc-connect   STRUGGLING? We have a prayer team ready and waiting to pray for you. Let us know how we can pray: https://tinyurl.com/howcanwepray  JOIN A SMALL GROUP ONLINE GROUPS are available: https://www.damascus.com/groups  WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE? We have ongoing opportunities to safely serve our neighbors:  https://damascus.com/serve  WHAT’S FOR CHILDREN & YOUTH? Visit our Children's Ministry to learn about Kids' Church At Home and other upcoming events: https://www.damascus.com/children  Learn about our Special Needs Ministry, HAVEN:  https://damascus.com/children Learn about our Middle and High School programs: https://www.damascus.com/youth

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. Every life is really just a collection of days, each one so short. The choices we make, hour by hour each day determine the quality of our life. Character is cumulative. Use each day wisely. In this first installment of a new series with the message entitled , “Embracing the New: Begin With the Big Rocks,” Pastor Richard Fredericks will share how we can believe in resurrections - in the miracle of new beginnings, dramatic changes of heart, the breaking free from soul-destroying lies and addictions into new life, the healing of relationships.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. Scripture tells us, on that first Christmas Day God came down! He is not somewhere else in the universe, beyond the galaxies—distant, disengaged, disavowed—but here on earth, dwelling among us. Forming friendships with people He created, walking the earth He made, inhabiting the planet He tossed into space. What does this mean in the year of the pandemic, unrest, uncertainty, loss, and pain? Pastor Rajendra Pillai will lead us as we look at the Good News that rings out on all the dark places and discover that even in the dark, the offer of a life filled with hope and meaning is not only possible, but available to all who are willing to accept it. Come ready to receive the gift in this Christmas Eve message!

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. In this message, will walk with Mary, the mother of Jesus, for whom life did not turn out the way she hoped or planned or even prayed for. But by trusting God, even in her pain and anguish and confusion, she found a life that was more than anything she could have imagined. What happened with Mary can happen with you in this season. Discover that even in your disappointments, a life filled with hope and meaning is not only possible, but available to all who are willing to accept it.

It is an amazing story of hope, peace, and joy passed down for two thousand years. But hope, peace, and joy seem to be in short supply these days. Hope has been replaced by weariness, peace has been supplanted by stress, and joy has been smothered by anxiety. The Christmas story reorients our internal compass, from a life of futility to genuine joy and meaning. Watch this first installment of “Walk Through Christmas,” retelling the story by walking with some of the key characters in the Christmas story, rediscovering not something new, but what is already true about Christmas and about us.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. Loving your neighbor as yourself is hard. It takes commitment and sacrifice, but Scripture says we should “Love God with all of our heart, mind and soul, and love our neighbors as ourselves.” It's about finding your superior satisfaction in loving God first, and then having the capacity to love our neighbors as ourselves. Join Youth Pastor Roger Record as we close out our series, Love Where You Live” and we learn what it means to be a “THIRD DAY NEIGHBOR”.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. We continue the series, “Love Where You Live,” Part 7 with Pastor Rajendra Pillai talking about how to live daily and fully in the reality of the kingdom Jesus established. When we do that, we will stay strong and grounded, no matter who wins and who loses an election. Remember: Our God has always, He does now, and will forever reign.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. We continue the series, “Love Where You Live” with Part 6 delivered by Pastor Rajendra Pillai who believes God has a word for the church so listen with attentive hearts and minds and pray for the healing of our community and nation in the wake of this election season.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. We continue the series, “Love Where You Live” with Part 5 delivered by Outreach Pastor Paul Foss who will deep-dive into what it means to be a neighboring church. Paul will challenge us to consider those in our neighborhood who are struggling. What great things does God have for them – and where do we fit in?

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. We've launched a deep dive into what Jesus said is one of the two greatest commands "on which everything else God has ever said" is hinged: His call for us to actively and intentionally practice sacrificial love toward those who live right around us or work right next to us - to LOVE WHERE WE LIVE! Imagine what might be happening in our region a year from now if we take this challenge seriously. What will happen as we begin connecting and caring about our neighbors with greater, Holy Spirit-led intentionality? Let’s imagine that...

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com. Jesus said this matters most: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-40). Truth is, loving our neighbors can seem like messy, unpredictable, time consuming and hard work. But what if Jesus really meant what He said? What if loving our neighbors is exactly what Jesus is calling us to do now? What if loving our neighbors in this season of pandemic, uncertainty, and divisiveness unleashed a wave of love, joy and peace in our hearts and our region? Maybe, for the very first time, we might even experience this deep abiding sense that we are actually doing what God has called you to do in our neighborhoods? And we will do it with hundreds of other singles and families all across our region. This weekend, Pastor Rajendra Pillai starts us off on a series on loving our neighbors because Jesus loves them so much. Join us as we launch into one of the greatest adventures this year by taking Jesus at His word and explore the hows of loving our neighbors.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. In this message, we will roll out our core values here at Damascus Road. We will look at them from within the context of the first community Jesus established. He chose twelve men to be part of His community to carry His mission forward. Why did He pick these guys? What kept them together? What made this community so great and grounded? How can we become a community like that? Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. In this message, we will hear from our children, youth and special needs leaders and celebrate what God is doing and hear how we are committed to equipping the next generation. Want to learn more about Damascus Road? Visit us at https://damascus.com.

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. This message concludes the Damascus Road’s Most Loved Passage series. The passage is Matthew 6:33, which says, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Let’s dive in! Learn more about Damascus Road Community Church: damascus.com

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. The twenty-third Psalm is perhaps the most-loved, best-known, and most-quoted of all the psalms. There are few passages in all of Scripture that can match its beloved status. It is an invitation to anyone to enter into a distinct and particular way of living, with the Lord as the Good Shepherd, who provides every essential thing needed to live a life of lasting security and fulfillment. Learn more about Damascus Road Community Church: damascus.com

Welcome to Damascus Road Community Church, located in Mount Airy, MD and serving the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area. Thanks for joining in to our brand-new summer series: Damascus Road’s Most Loved Passages. Today Michelle Rader, Damascus Road Lead Elder, will unpack Philippians 4:6-8, where we will learn what it means to be “anxious for nothing.” Learn more about us: damascus.com DOWNLOAD TODAY'S DISCUSSION NOTES: https://tinyurl.com/mlp-02

If you could have any one superpower-just one, what would you choose? Pastor Rajendra brings a message of unity as he outlines Pauls call to the church. Suit up Church!

The 6th and final message in Pastor Richard's Revelation series takes us first to the DE-creation judging work of God, as He withdraws His protecting hand and allows the full consequences of human rebellion to come to fruition; followed then by His gracious RE-creating work, bringing back to their original beauty and potential His entire creation along with all who will turn to Him in trust as their true God.

Over the past two weeks Pastor Richard Fredericks has unpacked how Revelation (like the 65 books that proceed it) speaks to the issue of injustice and to God’s judgment in favor of the oppressed. And equally: to our call to be God’s hands and feet in that process. In our relatively safe, comfortable lives we often miss or forget those messages. In this message we will explore more major keys for unlocking the depth and beauty of Revelation as God’s final word to us in Scripture.

Last week we took a long look at Revelation’s picture of the all-too-attractive pervasiveness of Babylon as Satan’s counterfeit kingdom. In this week’s message, we’ll dive deeper to discover God’s true Kingdom. Together we will use these as our framework for how to live now, and how to bring God’s vision of justice and grace to a hurting, divided world.

Read Revelation carefully and you will be struck by how much is devoted to detailing God's description of, and retributive judgement on, Babylon. Revelation has seven major sections, and two of the seven (4 of 22 chapters) are dedicated to describing what Babylon is, why it must come down, and how it will come down in order for the Kingdom of God to fully rise up!

Pastor Paul Foss starts the conversation that needs to happen...a start on a long road to racial unity and reconciliation that is needed in this country.

Most people seem to have a plan on how life ought to go—from point A to point B. We hope and expect it will be a gradual, mostly comfortable, fairly rewarding journey with no major side trips. Then the unthinkable happens. An unexpected detour leads us to live life the other way. We've been on a six-week journey as a church to love God more faithfully, follow God more trustfully, and listen to God more mindfully. Each week, we are looking at one character from the Bible and learning how they coped with a difficult phase in their lives and came out strong. This weekend, we will conclude our series by looking at a lot of biblical characters who ended up living life the other way. And the valuable lessons they learned about hope, courage, and faith. Don’t miss this weekend as we will also take a few minutes and go over our church family album! I look forward to having you join me and the church online to worship our Lord.

I hope you have been encouraged as we have focused these past 3 weeks on Standing Strong during these challenging times. We will continue our series this weekend looking at the life of the Caananite woman and learn from her example what are some things we can do to remain strong in these times or whenever we are faced with one of life’s challenges. Take some time this week and read her story found in Matthew 15:21-28 and come ready to be encouraged as we meet this weekend in online church. I’m looking forward to sharing with you and “seeing” you soon!

For the last several weeks, we’ve been following Jesus as He makes His way towards Jerusalem. This coming Sunday, Palm Sunday, we celebrate Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem. The King has arrived! There’s reason to celebrate! There’s reason to hope. But as we’ll come to see, we’ll go from celebration to weeping. For Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem is leading to his betrayal, arrest, and death. Where, we might ask, is God in the tragedies? Michelle and I are expectantly looking forward to our online services, where we’ll spend time with you. We pray for God’s peace over you, and for the hope we have in Christ to further anchor your hearts in him.

I'm so excited for our time together this weekend online, and I'm looking forward to seeing what God does in us and through us.This week, I'll have the privilege of being our guide through the gospel of Luke.We're looking at Luke 17:1-10. It’s all about faith. I’m praying God gives us the courage to do what He’s calling each of us to do, as we continue to take our next right step.

The question before the church is, how are we, as disciples of Christ, to live in these times?

Theologians almost universally agree that the parable of the shrewd manager in Luke 16 is the most difficult and complicated teaching of Jesus and one of the hardest to interpret. While there are many ways to interpret this parable, we will look at how this teaching of Jesus can shake us out of complacency, instruct us on who God is and who we are in Him, remind us how we only have a small window of opportunity to do something meaningful with our lives, and jolt us into action. Take 4 minutes and 30 seconds this week (I timed it!) and read Luke 16 and come ready to be blessed and discover and take your next right step. See you this weekend!

The Joy of finding lost things! I am so excited for this week’s message based on the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15. In this chapter, the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin prepare us for the parable of the prodigal son and his brother. The lostness of the younger prodigal son is no accident. It is willful. He sins his way out of the house. But this story is about more than the son who left and came back. It’s a story also about the son who stayed and never entered. It’s a story in two parts, with two different ways of living, both taking us far from the Father’s heart. But this story teaches us about the very nature of God the Father. A message that will touch many hearts again and some for the very first time. A story about a God who loves so much, He runs after His creation to bring them into relationship with Him and to bring them home. Invite a friend; this message may change the direction of their life into eternity.

Do you feel like you have a lot of questions about Jesus – who he is and what his call on your life really means? Do you ever think you need to get all your questions answered or have a better understanding of the Bible and God before you can fully surrender and get in the game?This week we look at how Jesus’s followers were full of confusion and questions and misconceptions about Jesus, God, and the Kingdom – and yet, that didn’t stop Jesus from inviting them to start proclaiming his kingdom and sharing his power and authority with them. The Christian life is a “learn as you go” enterprise – and perfect people with perfect understanding are not expected or required. We will look at how Jesus invites his followers to join him in the work that - up ‘til now - they have watched him do – and they are super excited when they find that they can do the very things they see Jesus doing! Yet at the same time they also continue to struggle with understanding this new kingdom and how it works. Time and time again they learn that their vision is much smaller than Jesus’s vision, yet he graciously shares and teaches and mentors them in all their confusion – comforting and inspiring for those of us in the same boat today!

We continue our pilgrimage through Luke and stop at the town which served as a base for much of Jesus’ ministry – Capernaum. In an event that will mark a turning point for Jesus’ ministry, we see His reach extending to those outside the Jewish people. In a particularly fascinating exchange, Jesus praises the faith of a man who has much to teach us. Read up on Luke 7 (it only takes 7 minutes) and join us this weekend as we walk with Jesus and listen in on a conversation that teaches us how to live in a way that makes Jesus, in essence, say “Way to go!”

Happy New Year! It is that time of the year when hundreds of millions of us around the world will be making resolutions for the new year (and many will break them by the end of January). What if I told you there is one particular resolution you can make that can have a cascading effect on all other aspects of your life? This weekend, we will dwell in Luke 4 and hear Jesus clarify His mission (and that of His followers) and how that might influence our lives and our mission in 2020. Set aside 6 minutes and read up on Luke 4 and come with expectant hearts. And consider the one resolution that can have the maximum impact in your life in 2020.

Here we go! We are off on our Adventures in Luke (take 9 minutes and read Luke chapter 1 this week). We will focus in on Luke 1:26-38 this weekend. Mary was a young, poor teenager from an obscure Jewish village called Nazareth when the angel Gabriel surprises her. Gabriel informs Mary that she has been chosen by God to be the mother of a son. And that this Son was not any ordinary son. He would be the Son of the Most High, the Davidic King of Israel, the long-awaited Messiah who will establish a kingdom that will never end! And what was even more surprising to Mary was the fact that she would conceive miraculously. The Spirit of God would create a miracle in her womb. Join us this weekend as we continue our journey through Luke and listen afresh to the Christmas story. By the way, you might want to come early as our annual Christmas Choir will start with a prelude 5 minutes before our regular service time!

The Gospel of Luke gives us one of the fullest accounts of the life of Christ. Luke insists that the coming of Jesus is good news for everyone and so we find stories involving women, children, Gentiles, the poor, the sick, the helpless, and the outcasts. And in the new community that Jesus started, anyone could come in, no one was perfect, but when they met Jesus, extraordinary things start to happen. It happened then. Can it happen now? Join us this weekend as we start a 19-week immersive journey through the Gospel of Luke starting with the infancy narrative over this Christmas season and ending with the resurrection on Easter weekend 2020.

These three words start off one of the most famous and recognizable passages in the Bible. This week we are going to try to put on the ancient lenses of faith and see what this creation narrative would have looked like to the original audience. That is going to take us on a journey from the beginning of time, through the temple of God, and to a vantage point where we might see a different perspective on ourselves and the God that made us. Join us this week as we explore what it means to be made in the image of God and to be a part of his very good creation.

In continuation of our conversation from this weekend, please consider:Setting aside 15 minutes and reading or listening to the book of ColossiansChoosing one weekend over the next month to come early to churchWe have looked at how Paul makes it crystal clear to the tiny, little church in the not-so-important town of Colossae that the mission of the community of God is to proclaim Christ and to present everyone mature in Christ. This weekend, we will take a look at the kind of people God entrusts this sacred and serious task to. What implications did this have for the early church? What implications does this have for us moving forward? Come with ready hearts and minds in anticipation of what God can and will do when we decide to be all in!

We are starting a new sermon series titled 20/20. We will try and get a glimpse of what God might have for us moving forward. What if the future vision of Christ for us is to continue to form and sustain a culture in our church where people bring people to meet Jesus, where every follower of Jesus is on a pathway of growth, and disciples making disciples become the norm? Where people embody the church in their homes, neighborhoods, workplaces and every domain of our region and beyond. Where hope is found, authentic love and acceptance get experienced, and the radical grace and joy of Jesus get dispensed with reckless abandon. Where each person discovers their soul’s innermost purpose and missional impulse to make a difference in our world. Where anyone can come, no one is perfect, and extraordinary things start to happen. What if DRCC is no longer just a location, but a movement of people who understand we are Jesus’ plan to transform and heal the world? Come prayerfully over the next three weekends as we explore these questions with our ears attuned to the whispers of the Holy Spirit!

In the fall of 2013 I had prayerfully come to the conviction that God had equipped and positioned Rajendra to someday be our next Senior Pastor. I began a quiet dialogue about this conviction with our Trustee Chair, Lori Ermi and our Lead Elder, Paul Foss. The dialogue continued with successive Elder and Trustee chairs for two more years, until we asked Rajendra to prayerfully consider this calling. He and Erika did—for nine months! Rajendra expressed his sense of God’s leading in this, and we then took it to all the Elders. There was unanimous consent. Ultimately the Elders and Trustees in a joint meeting, made the recommendation to the congregation to affirm Rajendra’s role and calling. After three congregational meetings, you have overwhelmingly affirmed that recommendation. Now, this weekend at our three worship services, it is our pleasure together as a congregation to formally and prayerfully install Rajendra into his new role as Senior Pastor of Damascus Road Community Church. This is a moment in the life of our community, the culmination of seven years of prayer, dialogue and reflection, that you don’t want to miss. Pray for Rajendra as he steps into his new role as the chief servant of this whole body of Christ (see Matthew 20:25-28). He is ready…

The initial vision of Jesus, in the final book of the Bible, pictures Him (“One like a Son of Man”) walking AMONG the seven lampstands (Revelation 1:12-13). Then we are told the seven lampstands are the seven churches (1:20). Where do you find Jesus now? You find Him among His churches. He declared His long-term agenda to His own disciples: “I will build MY church…” He declared His oneness with His church to the persecuting Saul—what happens to His people happens to Him: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting ME?” For our final message prior to the transition weekend we will sum up Jesus work FOR us on the Cross, and His work IN us by His Spirit, as all intended to culminate in His work AMONG us as His “ecclesia” = the gathered together people of God on a shared mission. We were not only saved FROM something, but TO something. Join me this weekend as we consider the collective call of Jesus on our lives together as His people.

If you want to scare Christians, tell them to “evangelize”—just get out there and lead someone to Christ. Even those who are sold out to Jesus, who know the Bible pretty well and who have a beautiful testimony of His work in their lives still get nervous. Maybe because the idea of us all heading out as individual ‘evangelizers’ is not really how Jesus intended it to be done in the first place, or how the Spirit wired all of us all to play our part. Join me this weekend as we continue our PATHWAY series by looking at the beautiful way the Body of Christ can work together to share Jesus and draw people to Him—knowing that people come to Christ best on the arm of a friend.

There are a few regular drumbeat themes at DRCC, but no two are more important than: 1.) the Cross of Christ as the lifeblood of our faith and 2.) the identity and the power of a community of ordinary people functioning together as the Body of Christ. Our focus on these two themes is a reflection of the New Testament’s focus. With just five messages left as Senior Pastor, I want to spend one camping at Calvary the entire time (though all five will pass by the foot of the Cross) and two exploring Jesus’ clear call out of our religiously or irreligiously isolated lives into a shared mission, where we use our God-given gifts to create a Biblically-functioning, servant-hearted community. This weekend join me as we think through the practical applications and lasting impact on us and those around us of “Doing Life Together”—the central element of our PATHWAY strategy.

Easter morning has happened. The tomb sits empty. Some women report to have seen Him alive. The disciples are confused and afraid. Now it is late Sunday afternoon. Where is the risen Christ? What is He up to? What are His top priorities, post-resurrection? This weekend begins a four week series exploring the key life-disciplines that move us down the PATHWAY to maturity in following Jesus—step by step. Our first step in this series is to look at what Jesus thought was the most important thing to nail down on His first day out of the tomb—on the day He began His new beginning for the whole world. Twice Jesus makes one focus His priority on that day—and it is still a focus that speaks to our priorities as those who follow Him today. Join me as we consider together: who are we really listening to?

Jesus embodied the fullness of both grace and truth always, equally, in every situation. Grace—and truth. Not sometimes one and sometimes the other. Grace and truth perfectly blended, perfectly united. We need both, equally, to follow Him: His grace gives us our relationship with God. And by His truth we are set free to flourish. God’s truth frees us to flourish. But only through the Bible can know the truth of who Jesus is, how He lived and what He taught. The Bible is our authoritative source, given to us by God through the apostles of Christ under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This weekend we will look together (from within our framework as struggling sinners surrendered to the LORD) at defining passages of Scripture on God’s will for marriage and sexuality. See you then.

We continue our series on Grace this week (if you missed church last weekend, you can catch up on our web site). John Stott rightly observes, “The Gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving. The symbol of the religion of Jesus is the cross, not the scales.” Many Christians have an easier time being saved by grace than they do living in grace and thereby extending grace to others. However, God’s grace is at the core of the kind of life He calls us to live, and it mirrors the heart of the One who calls. Once we encounter true and authentic grace, we allow the enduring, powerful, life-giving work of God to continue unhindered in our lives—and rediscover that God’s grace is not only amazing, but abundant. Join us this weekend as we study one of the parables Jesus taught to show us how God’s grace is not only outrageous, unmerited, and marvelous, but also life-affirming and sufficient for anyone who is willing to turn to Him.

What is grace? It is a word we use a lot, but for many of us, grace remains a vague concept, disconnected from our daily lives. But a true knowledge and experience of grace offered to us through the gospel of Jesus Christ can free us from the tyranny of a performance-based faith, it can open our eyes to the reality of God’s power at work in and through us, and it can rewire our understanding of who all can be part of the grace-dispensing community of Christ. God doesn’t offer us wimpy grace, but a sort of wild grace that stuns us, shapes us, encourages us, strengthens us, and grips us by our very souls. It is like a rushing stream that offers both a cool drink and a wild ride at the same time. Join us over the next two weekends with ready hearts and minds to encounter authentic grace!

The Day of the LORD! “On that day,” for every redeemed person in Christ, and for every square inch of His once “teeming with life” creation, God will do exactly what He did for Jesus at His resurrection on that first Easter morning. The resurrected Jesus is our model of the new, powerful, eternal and fully united to heaven and earth life that we wait for—when “the time comes for God to restore everything, as He promised…” Acts 3:21 The last, great promise of God in the Bible is: “Behold, I am making all things new!” (Revelation 21:5)—not: I am making all new things. God has never intimated that His goal is to change us from embodied humans called to reign on earth (Rev 5:9-10) to cloud-hugging spirits. Join me this weekend as we wrap up our series on the plan of God for all creation captured in Jesus’ declaration that His return will bring “the renewal of all things” (Matthew 19:28).***The video that was shown by Pastor Richard in this message was created by The Bible Project. If you want to see more of their videos or learn more about them click the link below.***

At times life feels topsy-turvy, confusing, misguided; in desperate need of rescue and solid go-to Mom advice! In Jeremiah 29:12-14 the Lord says, “Then you will call on Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.” Our first instincts can often fall captive to our natural instincts. Worry, insecurity, frustration and doubt often saturate these spaces of our heart to the point of feeling lost and abandoned. However, God offers us a new way to live; a place where God’s reality meets our limited perspective of known and unknown variables. A life FOUND in HIM! This Mother’s Day join us for a fresh perspective on living in FOUNDNESS!

Christians should care more about ecology than anyone else. Join us this weekend to learn why as we begin a new series, "The Late, Great Planet Earth Renewed" with Dr. Richard Fredericks and guest speaker, Dr. Clay Peck, of Grace Place outside of Denver, CO.

Everything can change in one moment. Earlier that weekend, Jesus was dead, hope was lost, and the disciples were confused, scattered and afraid. But everything changed on an early Sunday morning two thousand years ago, when the disciples looked inside an empty tomb. The stone was moved, the darkness lifted and Jesus rose from the dead. Join us this Easter weekend as we look at how everything changed in one moment for the disciples when they encountered the Risen Christ. Through the resurrection of Christ, each one of us is continually being offered the same moment that invites us into a changed life full of joy, peace, hope and love. 

Travel today to the “Old City” of Jerusalem and you still find, just outside the Eastern Wall of the Temple Mount, across the narrow Kidron Valley—an ancient grove of olive trees. Gethsemane. The name means “olive press,”—the huge stone press used to crush the oil from ‘ready for harvest,’ olives. Here, in the deep of night, Jesus and eleven disciples arrived from an upper room and a Passover meal. Here, in the early morning hours, Jesus’ twelfth disciple would betray Him with a kiss, triggering the events leading to His death. But Jesus would be ready. Through an agony of spirit deeper than any fear of death, deeper than the physical pain the Cross itself the decision would already be made. It was at midnight in the garden, in sweat and blood and prayer, that the fate of humanity hung in the balance. This weekend we celebrate the joy of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the decision He made on that “midnight in the garden.”CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO SEE THE VIDEO OF "JESUS IN GETHSEMANE" THAT RICHARD SHOWED DURING SERVICE.

Q&A from Part 8 on Eschatology.

This is Part 7 of Richard's Why Believe in Christianity class. Richard talks about what the Church is, and why it is so important.

Pastor Richard Fredericks teaches on DRCC's Core Belief #5.

In part 6 of our series The Jesus Ted Talk, we look at the words of Jesus on worry. Worry can suck the life out of us. It makes us say prayers of little faith, worship without joy, and live without hope. Worry and anxiety makes us fearful, they suffocate any sense of gratitude, kill dreams, and rob us of the life we were meant to live. Maybe worry and anxiety are very real for you. Jesus, in reality, has great concern and compassion for those who worry and are anxious. He wants to speak life into us and lighten our burden. Join us this weekend as we look at the passage of Matthew 6:25-34 in the Sermon on the Mount and study the blueprint Jesus provides on how to live without worry.

Q&A after Part 5 Teaching.

This weekend’s Ted Talk is on “Jesus’ Prayers—and Ours.” In keeping with the series, we will look Jesus’ model prayer within the context of His overall goals in the Sermon on the Mount; and within Matthew’s overall presentation of Jesus as the fulfillment of “all that the prophets have spoken.” Our key focus is on prayer as friendship with God, the God who knows us inside and out.

Q&A after teaching 4.

Is there a God? Yes or No? Either way you answer, this question helps shapes the rest of what you believe.

Let's take a look at Matthew 5:13-16 and explore the world behind the text. Jesus spoke these words to a specific group of people in a specific culture at a specific time. And the world behind the words of Jesus goes all the way back to Genesis 12:2-3 when God blessed Abraham and made a promise that through him all the people of the earth will be blessed. There is also a reference to a “covenant of salt.". Then Jesus uses the metaphor of salt and light to describe how this blessing will go out through His people and community. We will then look at the world in front of the text—that’s us. And how the words of Jesus has such tremendous potential for changing our world. In this message we look at how we can not only live the blessed life in the Kingdom of God, but share it with others in ways that impact them for time and eternity.

Jesus proclaimed the gospel by announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God (Matthew 4:17). And then in the Sermon on the Mount (the teaching of Jesus found in Matthew chapters 5-7), Jesus used word pictures and real life analogies to illustrate what life looks like for someone who is part of His kingdom. Jesus was not establishing a new form of rules-based religion. Rather, He described His kingdom’s values, ethical standards, and attitudes relating to anger, money, hatred, worry, prayer, sexuality, and relationships with others. The Sermon on the Mount is the closest thing to a manifesto that Jesus stated. And the people were left amazed (Matthew 7:28). Let's discover together what life in the Kingdom of God looks like—a blessed and abundant life. If we pay close attention to it, we too will be left amazed!

This is a Question and Answer time after the teaching time for Part 1- Why Believe in the Bible.

Jesus…yes. Almost everyone likes Jesus even if they don’t like the church. A majority of Americans claim to “believe in” or “follow” Jesus. But I have learned to ask in various ways: which Jesus? My Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness friends have a very different Jesus than I do. The t-shirts depicting the “NRA Jesus” holding assault rifles on each hip seems a far cry from the Jesus of Scripture. In defense of their political ideology, we have political cartoons demeaning the “Republican Jesus” or the “Democrat Jesus.” Truth is, we all tend to love some parts of Jesus and His teachings and dodge others—according to our preferences. Here is the question for me, for all of us: Is the Jesus of Scripture transforming me more and more into His image—or am I conforming Him into my image? Join me for a new series on “Jesus—Yes! But which one?”

There was a time when people anticipated sitting down weekly for their favorite TV show. If they missed out, they had to wait again until next week. Through Netflix however, we can tune in anytime we want. What if the church functioned more like Netflix and less like old TV? Although, we can only tune into a service once a week, we are a body of people who have been given unrestricted access to Christ and His community."Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts."Acts 2:46"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."Hebrews 10:24-25

The rich young ruler decided the cost was too high and decided today was not a good day to make such a costly decision. King Herod was curious but put off seeing Jesus until another day. The immediate always overwhelms the important doesn't it? Simon hoped that today might be the day that he would finally meet the consolation of Israel. Anna the prophetess was running out of days. And finally, in the fullness of time... Today! God left His throne and broke into darkness as the light of the world. What sacrifice would love make? How far would love come? Let's rehearse and remember together the story of when love came to town!In Christ,Paul FossDirector of Outreach & Men's Ministry

Every December I hear some version of this – what’s happening to Christmas? Why do I have more stress than peace? Why is my life filled with more worry than worship? Why is my heart more weary than joyful? We don’t need to discover something new about Christmas. We need to recover what’s already true about Christmas. Join us this weekend as we look at the Christmas story through the eyes of someone who had all the reasons to be stressed, worried and exhausted. Instead, her legacy is one of incredible trust in a God who can and does bring transformation, hope, joy, and peace.

Would you take a moment and read Acts 2:42-47? These verses contain a remarkable set of words, and they have inspired millions of people over hundreds of years. The community Jesus started was so amazing, so transcendent, so remarkable, that these people were, the text tells us, champions of generosity. This explosion of generosity stunned the world and fueled the expansion of the Kingdom of God. The Acts 2 church stood up to the challenge of their day. Now it’s our turn. We have this awesome legacy and a holy responsibility to build and pass on the flame of the gospel to the next generation. Join us this weekend as we look at what happens when a church gets full of people whose hearts are all in with God.

Do you ever feel like the life you’re leading is not operating on all cylinders? That you were created for something “more”? This weekend, we’re going to explore ways to have a relationship with Jesus Christ that could be deep, intimate and personal. In Matthew 4, when Jesus called out to Peter and his brother, Andrew, while they were fishing, he said, “Come follow me”. At once, they left their nets and followed Him. God used them to change the world after they developed an All In relationship with Jesus. For each one of us, Christ is offering something “MORE”. Come this weekend as we explore the possibilities.

This week’s message is really a dialogue—a time to talk together. So let’s talk! Taking the key perspective of the first three messages in our series: “How Big is your God,” we’ll apply them to who and where we are in our shared story as a community. We’ll talk about where we are going (our 2020 strategy)—and why. This message will set the stage (contextualize) for our seven week ALL IN journey. In the best and simplest way I can, I will try to share the God-story ahead of us in terms of what it means for each of us. On the eve of heading out with 57 pilgrims to walk in the footsteps of Jesus in Israel, I look forward to following in His steps here, with us and through us. See you this weekend.

Every September I do a couple of messages focused on vision-casting the direction we believe God is leading us for the next year. These are crucial, heart to heart weeks for our community. These next two weeks I will share those messages, as part of our “How Big is your God?” series. In week one of this series, we wrestled with the fact that God does His work through us, not apart from us: our trust—His power. Last week we looked at living with a God-sized perspective. This weekend we will begin to apply all this to the opportunity we have, here, now, together—to truly be a Community of Light to a huge wave of new neighbors. It is a God-story in the making, and it has already started. Last weekend we were 3 children shy of 300 children for the weekend, with ten new families visiting. God is handing us the next phase of our life together. Let’s use it well. Join me as we look at my favorite Bible promise about life as a Christ-follower, as the bedrock for our unfolding congregational vision.

Jesus gave His disciples a powerful mandate in Matthew 28:19-20. His words to the disciples (and to us) are so expansive, so radical, so transcendent—so much bigger, and broader, and higher, and deeper that if you call Him Lord—you will start thinking in terms of not just your tribe, but every tribe. Not just your camp, but every camp. Not just your people, but every people. And what is inspiring to me is just how many people in our community have bought into the world-impacting, selflessly serving, servanthood embodying vision of Jesus (Way to go, Damascus Road!). Last weekend and this weekend we are celebrating the actualization of the words of Jesus through us. Join us this weekend as we look at the Lord’s work through Damascus Road in India and Africa.There is no greater buzz you can get from anything else than being on mission for Jesus!

There is nothing like riding your bike into a valley and feeling the air get suddenly cooler, or smelling a patch of honeysuckles; hearing a water fall before you see it; or seeing a bear lumbering through the woods with nothing between you and him. Freedom! Life didn't start out the way anyone would've hoped or planned. The baby couldn't have been born under worse conditions… Nobody wanted him, Actually it seemed like it was even worse than that… It really did seem like everybody was against him. He wasn't the first baby born with all the odds stacked against him that's true... that's one of the heartbreaks of the world we live in. I wished I could say that that was the worst of it, his birth and from there things got better… but they didn't. Before he even could walk those in charge tried to kill him and his dad, mom and he barely made it out of town alive… Running! Life wasn’t easy for the Original Outlaw… neither is it for us. Let’s go on a journey of adventure, danger, risk, and see where it takes us together. You ready to ride?Paul FossDirector of Outreach

We conclude our journey of seeking, discovering, and finding our lost lines by looking at how Scripture exhorts us to live our lost lines within the context of a community (as promised, I will talk a little about the myth of the American cowboy!). The theme of a deep sense of love and community is at the heart of the ensemble Jesus put in place for the world to find and live their lost lines. In a world marked by so many divisions, what if the community Jesus founded got passionate about finding and living our lost lines, walking in unity and in sync with our Line-Giver, giving sacrificially, serving joyfully, and loving selflessly? Join us this weekend as we explore and catch this greater vision.

Over the last three weekends, we have been journeying through this idea that a lot of people in our country and our world are living a different story from the ones they were meant to live. We have considered the claims of Christ against that of many others. And we looked at how God is broadcasting our lost lines in a nonstop global simulcast. This weekend, we will look at how do we actually go about discovering and inhabiting the story we were meant to live. The Bible gives us lots of clues and we will look specifically at four things we need in our lives if we are to unearth and live out our lost lines.You are also in for a treat this weekend. My brother-in-law, Daya Rao, who is a well known Christian artist in India will be worshipping with us (some of you may remember him from his previous trips with us). Come early so you don’t miss this.

Last weekend, we learned how each of us is living a story. And for many of us, the story we are living may not be the story we were meant to live. So we live fractured lives. The good news is that there is a Line-Giver. The Line-Giver had grand plans for the first humans, for us. He had these awesome lines for them, for us. But the first humans decided to abandon God’s script and adopt their own—one of sin and rebellion. As the consequences of living this alternate script unfolded, it fractured the community God had in mind with humans. The lines humans chose broke the relational community between God and them and between each other. Join us this weekend as we learn more about this Line-Giver and how we can find our ways back to living our lost lines.

We are starting a brand new series this weekend, Lost Lines. Everyone is following a script. Each one of us in our town, in our nation, in our world, is living a story. And that story has been shaped and molded and fashioned by many things.I care very deeply about whether we are living the right story. A lot of people in our country and our world are following a different script, a different story from the ones they were meant to live. The influence of these stories is subtle, clever, and devastating to the human soul.And throughout history (and now through God’s Word, prayer, and His community), God keeps reminding people about their lost lines. Join us as we embark on a metaphorical journey to find and inhabit our lost lines. When we do, it invades our hearts, renews our minds, transforms our souls, and we get to enjoy a more purposeful, rewarding, and satisfying life. A life in tune with the one God wants each of us to live.

It is perhaps the most famous chapter in Scripture, rivaling Genesis 1 (Creation), Luke 2 (Christmas), and Matthew 5 (Christ’s Sermon on the Mount). At a wedding, you will or have read this chapter of the Bible sitting alongside people without faith or with a different faith. How do we explain it? How do we understand it? How are we to live by it?

Mark 1:40-45 Almost before he knew what had hit him, he had lost everything... his family, his job, all his friends. The final straw was when his church community turned their back on him and pronounced him untouchable. By law he had to stay at least 50 feet away from any other human being and to violate that law meant instant death. Can you imagine the shame and loneliness that became this man's every day? How far from Grace are you living? How did you get there? Who's to blame? Is there any way back? 50 feet from Grace…You've come to the right place!

“Whatever you do, whether through your words or your actions, do it ALL IN the name of the LORD Jesus Christ.” Colossians 3:17… That verse sums up the secret to joyful Christianity: ALL IN. It captures the essence of Jesus’ call: Follow Me. Truth is, if you have a seasoned guide leading you up a mountain or across a desert, and part of the time you follow, while part of the time you wander off—quickly the journey becomes very hard, very unsure. Once committed to this adventure called Christianity, the key is trusting enough to go with the Guide. This weekend we will look at several times where Jesus makes the call—or responds to a person’s commitment—to be ‘all in.’

Okay, truth in advertising. Our current series (Straight Talk about Us) is really talking the three basic questions of philosophy—basic because they just keep being wrestled with by people all over the world, in every age. We are applying those three questions to our life together as a community: Where did I come from? [Origins: for us = What beliefs created and define this community?] Where am I going? [Destiny: Where are we going?] Who am I, as in why do I matter? [Identity and purpose]. Last week we looked at four core convictions that birthed and shape tis community. This week we will look at where, at this point, we believe God is leading us. Then, in week three, why us being who Christ calls us to be as a community matters so much.

Memorial Day weekend is a time many people scatter to the hills, but if at all possible, make one of the worship services at DRCC—especially if this is your church home. It will be a heart-to-heart from me to you. I’ll begin vision-casting about expanding our role in this community, why that matters so much and what our future plans are for impacting our region and our mission with the Gospel. This is early prep work for the opportunity we all have to be part of a God-adventure in the months ahead, especially this Fall. To be a part of a God-story always means being ALL IN = prayerfully finding our part in following God’s heart to our future. Because we have become a size 12 foot in a size 8 shoe, we need to expand our ministry capacity by expanding our facility. This Phase 2 facility growth will lay the foundation for DRCC’s future expansion through satellite campuses and partnerships with other congregations. Join me as we begin a three part series that talks this through together.

Did you know that approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experience mental illness in a given year? And statistics show that 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 experience a severe mental disorder at some point during their life? Depression and anxiety are crippling lives and robbing us of the joy and peace God plans for us. But there is hope! Join us this weekend as Richard Fredericks tackles this often taboo topic and reveals what God has to say about it as we continue our series, Straight Talk: The Christian & Mental Health.Click link above: "TAZ ONLINE: The Pressure to be Perfect" to see the video Pastor Richard references at the beginning of his message.

God’s idea of marriage and deep love shatters our idealized western individualistic way of thinking. We often walk into marriage with high expectations that are difficult or even impossible for the other person to meet. So when challenges come, we resort to finger-pointing. But the Bible offers a definition of a meaningful marriage rooted in the idea of oneness, an idea created by Him.Join us this weekend as we engage in some Straight Talk about what this oneness is and what are some of the biggest threats against this oneness. The principles we will glean from the Bible applies to not just marriages, but every significant relationship in our lives and can transform them if we are willing to listen and obey.

We continue our series this weekend with Parenting Sensibly, Turning Messes into Successes. We took that title from a book written by Lynda Satre. For the first part of the message, I will be interviewing her on her book, which I read with great personal benefit. It is not just for parents but for anyone who has any influence over the life of a child. Don’t miss it. And it is a great weekend to invite a friend or neighbor. Join us this weekend as we engage in some Straight Talk on Parenting Sensibly with strategies based on teachings from the best Father ever.

Ever feel like your spiritual life is disconnected from your everyday life? The good news is that it doesn’t have to be if Jesus is Lord. We may be in different stages of life and our knowledge of God, but what matters is how we stay in unity, grow and support each other. Join us this weekend as we engage in some Straight Talk on tuning in to God’s presence in our everyday life, seeing how ordinary places and times can become extraordinary opportunities to live in recognition of God’s presence all around us.We will also hear an inspiring story of how one teacher at New Market Middle School encouraged her entire class to make a difference halfway around the world. Don’t miss it!.

On Friday, hope seemed lost, dreams were broken, Jesus was dead, the disciples were scattered and there were doubts, fears, and confusion. But that was Friday. Then came Sunday! On Sunday, the stone was rolled away, the tomb was emptied, the angels came announcing, the prophecies were fulfilled, darkness was ended, sin lost the war, guilt lost its power, death lost its sting and Jesus rose from the dead! What does mean for you and me? What motivated Jesus to walk down this path? What consumed His heart to leave heaven and come down to earth? Join us this Easter weekend as we tackle these questions. The answers to these questions could leave your heart startled with love and amazement, your mind renewed with hope and joy, and your life currently and eternally transformed.

This weekend we begin Holy Week and John 12 begins with these words: “Six days before the Passover.” Jesus is fully aware of what the week we now term “Holy Week”—holds for Him by way of hostility, betrayal, false accusations and condemnation…and death. He knows what will happen and why it must happen. And now He pulls out all the stops and begins to make clear and unavoidable His claim to be God’s Son and Israel’s Messiah. He rides toward Jerusalem as the victorious and righteous King of Peace who will draw the nations (Zechariah 9:9-10). Don’t miss this coming week. Don’t allow yourself to be checked out. He walked this path for us… let’s walk it with Him.

The entire life of Jesus was a prelude to the events and teachings during His final week, especially His death and resurrection. One half of all four Gospels focus on the final week of Jesus' ministry, slowing way down and absorbing us in the details - especially from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. These events are the key to understanding everything about Jesus' mission.

Can God really create beauty out of a mess? The answer is a resounding YES in chapter four of Ruth. As Ruth remained devoted to God and trusted Him with risky faith, God’s sovereign control over the circumstances of her life brings her to a place of safety and provision. The famine has been turned into a harvest. In the next scene of this marvelous story, we will see a series of events and actions that will lead to the redemption of Ruth (and Naomi). No matter how devastating our circumstances, hope is available and redemption is possible with God. Many of us love this part of the story because we want what happened to Ruth to happen to us. Join us this weekend as we study Ruth 4:1-12 to see how this happens for Ruth (and how this can happen for us) through a kinsman-redeemer.

Everyone has influence and everyone wins when a leader gets better! This annual conference is for anyone interested in becoming a better leader or discovering how God has wired you to lead. Be refreshed, renewed and sharpen your leadership skills.Session 1 is a Q & A with Pastors Richard Fredericks and Rajendra Pillai, with an insightful look at Leadership Lessons. Session 2 featured guest speaker, Dr. David Anderson, Founder and Senior Pastor of Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia, MD, who spoke on GRACISM.

Jonah confronts places in our life we don’t easily surrender to God as God. All of us. We love our faith in Jesus as long as it is a comforting idea that doesn’t interrupt our preferred routine, lifestyle, or altar our control of our preferred plans. But if we are truly following the risen LORD, He will, for our sake, interrupt our desire to have all of life on our terms--guaranteed. God does not see life as we do (Isaiah 55:8-9); and He calls us to go to new place of trust that require change and surrendering old affections or patterns. Then, suddenly, Jonah is very relevant. In week 4 of Running from God: A Deep Dive into Jonah we consider how many lines of comfort Jonah had to cross to do what God asks him to do and to care about people in the way God asks him to care. And we see more clearly a resemblance…

When Jonah was on the run from the LORD—the LORD used whatever means He deemed advisable to stop His prophet’s downward descent. First, the LORD “hurled” a great storm at Jonah’s ship, then the LORD determined the roll of the sailors dice (lots) so they pointed to Jonah, then He defeated those seasoned seafarers’ best efforts to save themselves and Jonah, and finally the LORD provided “a great fish” to take Jonah on a terrifying submarine ride of grace. This week is the tale of that whale and a whale of a tale (Jonah 1:17-2:10). The greater surprise in this chapter than the whale is that God could have easily said to this stubborn man: “To hell with you!” But He didn’t—and Jonah turned a corner. Part 3 of Running from God, a Deep Dive into Jonah considers what it took to break Jonah’s pride, as a context for reflecting on what it takes to break ours.

Imagine a situation when suddenly all eyes were on you—and serious questions started coming at you: “Who are you? Why are you here? What is your mission in life? What group or community do you define yourself by? What is your story?” Those are key questions in any life and Jonah faced them while on the run from God. That led to a terrifying ride in a submarine of grace—that brought him right back to where he began when he first said “No” to God. Come join us as we sail into a life-defining storm this weekend, in week two of: Running from God, a Deep Dive into the Book of Jonah.

This is it! Christmas Eve. Our fifth candle, the Christ-Child, the promise fulfilled: “the rising Sun has come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death—to guide our feet into the path of peace” (Luke 1:78-79). We can so celebrate—because our role in this great story is not to generate the Light that dispels darkness or transforms death into a passing shadow. It is to receive Him who does all that, to embrace again the Gift of our God who “humbled Himself” so He could be with us and save us. Let’s come like the wise men—seeking, like the shepherds—adoring, like Mary—treasuring. Come.

The flame of our second Advent candle symbolizes the Source of all other light. It is the light of love. Line up the greatest virtues of the Christian life: faith and hope and love, and the Bible is unequivocal: “the greatest of these is love “ When God defines Himself, He does it by His love. But what exactly is this love of God and how do we live in it? The Answer arrived in Bethlehem, and this weekend we will gather together around this great Light-absorbing it that we might reflect it more in our lives.

Nietzsche said that with the death of hope comes the hope for death. Hope is vital. In Luke 1:45, Elizabeth, in a rare occurrence of a woman pronouncing a prophetic blessing on another woman, tells Mary: “Blessed is she [he] who believes that what the LORD has promised to her [him] will be accomplished.” FAITH is being confident we will receive what God tells us to HOPE FOR. This weekend the Advent season begins as we light the first candle. This candle symbolizes HOPE as the first great truth of Christmas—we are the people of hope because of the advent (appearing) of the LORD, first as the Savior of all who trust Him, and finally appear as the Restorer of all things in Creation. Let’s gather together to celebrate our hope, allowing “the God of all hope to fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in Him.”

Imagine you had a disease that you had found the cure for. You were also healed by using this cure. Suddenly, you knew of a loved one or a friend who had come down with the same disease. Wouldn't you do everything you could to share the cure you found and to put your friend's and loved one's needs first? The world and so many souls are dying. We have the cure. And that’s GOOD NEWS!This weekend you will get an opportunity to learn about this cure and then start changing the world by bringing it to those locally and all over the world. Who would want to miss that? We have the opportunity to help others receive the Joy that is complete and spoken of in John 15:11. The Joy that always comes when we say God is first, others are second, and “I Am Third”.

We wrap up our series Unearthed this week by talking about The Gallery! When Jesus proposed the building of God's kingdom not in a political arena, but in the hearts of men, women and children, it was a radical idea. Two thousand years later, the strategy hasn't changed. The idea is that if we truly experience the zest for life that the Spirit of God can bring into our souls (abundant living that Jesus promised His followers), then the world will see a stunning collection of millions of God’s masterpieces, working in tandem, like a tapestry of great design, bringing hope and healing to a hurting and needy world

We look at Frames this weekend. Frames are what shrouds and obscures the masterpiece of you in a dismal, discolored, damaged, disgraced, dirty disguise. We can learn to live behind a false painting bound by deceptive frames and our true and most authentic selves remain unknown. Maybe you have traded the masterpiece God created you to be for a poor, stained, inferior, dusty version of yourself—an old picture inside a rickety old frame worth four bucks at a flea market.

Like any healthy church, Damascus Road aims to be a prevailing regional church committed to making disciples through a biblically-functioning community - known for its clarity in presenting the Gospel of Jesus Christ in creative, contemporary ways. After a year of prayer, multiple discussions and meetings, our elders, in consultation with trustees and staff, have identified three strategic goals for 2017-2020 toward this end.

We're excited to introduce this series on Unearthed, based on a manuscript Rajendra Pillai started working on five years ago (even though the book came out this summer!). We kick off the series by examining the idea that God created us to be a masterpiece! Too often, we shrink back when confronted with that idea – me, a masterpiece? I am too young, I am too old, I am too inadequate, I am not brave enough, good enough, smart enough, I have too much baggage, I am buried in guilt and shame, I am broken…the list is endless.But these are false pictures hiding the real masterpiece. Hidden behind these shabby pictures and bound by constraining frames is the real you. The new you God made when you came to Jesus. The best version of you. It’s hidden. But it doesn’t have to be. Let’s embark on a journey this weekend to see what this masterpiece looks like.

Whenever you meet God, whenever you experience God, whenever you get a grip on who He really is, it changes you into a person of mission. Someone who becomes a person on a mission, on a mission to see others experience God’s love and Grace that comes through Jesus Christ. This weekend we listen to testimonies and a message about the lives changed in Nicaragua, Honduras, Germany, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Share the joy of those who, as Acts 4:13 says, “It’s clear that they had been with Jesus”!

This week, we continue our annual tradition of celebrating our missions over two weekends. This weekend, we will focus on India and Africa and our work there. And we do this because no one else can save souls but Jesus, no one else can pay the price of our sins except Jesus, no one else can defeat death like Jesus, and no one else can bring hope like Jesus.

Every person, regardless of their age, race, gender or background, is uniquely wired by God and wonderfully made for a purpose. We teach this in Children’s Ministry. Do we still believe this as adults? Come experience a unique and dynamic worship service as we not only recap what 200 children will have learned at this year’s Getting Connected Camp (July 31-Aug.4), but in doing so, you will be challenged to think differently about your own walk with God. Plus, you will see firsthand what God is doing in the next generation as children read scripture, share testimonies, and lead us in worship. This is one service you don’t want to miss!

For three weeks we have considered the call of Jesus on us as His people to be ‘uniters,’ not dividers—to tear down walls of hostility through love. This week we turn to Ephesians 2:10-22, the Bible’s most extended celebration of this theme. It makes clear that we are not saved by our good works—but we are saved for good works; and these works “God prepared for us to do” all center around lives of reconciliation, not separation—instead of hostility a serving community offering a radical kind of acceptance in Christ, for Christ and through Christ. Come ready to wrestle with your life calling in Christ.

Ephesians 2:11-22 is a careful reflection on how Jesus’ death on the Cross impacts the divisions we create and walls we erect between one another, between our group and the “other,” (over all kinds of differences, old animosities and unforgiven offenses) than Ephesians 2:11-22. Our third study together on Us vs Them?: Tearing Down the Dividing Walls digs into Ephesians 2 and related passages to understand how and why the God of the Cross offers equal access into His community to all.

We all have to constantly decide how we view those who are not like us—the “others” around us. What do we do with people who hold to difference lifestyle preferences, politics, moral standards, religious beliefs? How do we relate to those whose views are polar opposite to ours? What value do we assign them and how does that value hold up if we think their presence may threaten our way of life? How do we dialogue with them and about them? What factors should guide our responses? Which factors actually do guide our responses? What role does our way of processing real differences play in our witness to Jesus as the Hope of the world? The Biblical response is unequivocal but, in general, the Christian community’s—not so much. Join us this summer as we talk about ways to sync up what we see in Scripture with what we see in the world. Our series is titled: Us vs. Them? Tearing Down the Dividing Walls.

When many think about grace they think of it as the vehicle for which we begin a personal connection with Jesus Christ. However, grace is also the source of strength that enables us to walk in the way of Jesus Christ. Join us this weekend to discover how grace fuels our path into a deeper relationship with Him.

We continue our journey in the Way of Jesus by looking at the heart. The Bible has a lot to say about the human heart, which signifies not only the center of our spiritual activity, but every aspect of our life. What can happen if we fully grasp the meaning of living in a way where our hearts are wide-open to Jesus, recognizing His presence in the now, and living under His Lordship each day of our lives? Join us as we look at what living a life with that kind of a heart looks like.

We are about to embark on a brand new sermon series: ‘The Way of Jesus’. We will walk closely with Jesus via Scripture in intentional discovery and learning and stretching and growing by following a Lord who calls us to a risky, sometimes demanding, often counter-cultural way of life. This weekend we look at living in recognition of God’s presence AKA how to live a joyful, abundant, overflowing, peace-filled, Jesus-centered life. Join us this weekend as we discover what life in ‘The Way of Jesus’ looks like.

Legacy. Six letters. One powerful statement. Or, perhaps a question: What will I pass down to the next generation? If my legacy is built on what I live out today, I must determine what is a worthwhile, daily investment of my time, resources, and abilities. Consider David, Daniel, Esther, Matthew, Paul, Mary, and Peter. What was the game changer in each of their stories? What empowered these flawed humans (just like you and me) to impact the world around them? Chapter after chapter of the Bible points to one clear answer: God was the difference maker in their story! It was not that they were exceptionally great. It was because they listened to THE ONE who was, is and will forever be! Join us this weekend as we discover a legacy worth living for!

What if I told you your soul comes equipped with a homing device, pulsating with a signal that aims to direct your life toward something? Maybe you have the sense of being unmoored in the sea of change our world is going through. Maybe the current circumstances of your life have rocked your story and you are looking for a great next chapter. Maybe you hunger for a world birthed anew that is not the world we live in. Join us this weekend as we look at ‘Searching…’, a quest every single one of us is on whether we realize it or not.

It heals. It gives sight to the blind. He alone is the Cure-Giver. By the victory of the cross He demolished sin and death’s destructive reign over our minds. The final revelation of His presence will complete the renewal of all things in our body and in our world… undoing the impact of sin on us and the earth. That is our hope, “the blessed hope” (Titus 2:13). We live in the time in-between, where His Kingdom is inaugurated but not yet consummated, where salvation and suffering co-exist. This weekend we will talk about how the touch of Jesus not only comes to us, but can flow through us, as we partner with the Cure-Giver in serving as His care-givers, fulfilling His new command (John 13:34-35).

Easter (the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead) however vaguely understood, still symbolizes hope, in particular hope beyond death and over death. New life. Even people on the outer periphery (or even completely outside) of life in the Christian community, once a year are drawn in to Easter. The hope of life beyond the grave has this powerful gravitational pull. And it should. But what exactly is the story of Easter about? What is God saying to us through these multiple encounters, by a wide variety of women and men with the tangible, physical, touchable presence of Jesus of Nazareth, who three days earlier had been a dead man brutally executed? Why did Jesus’ resurrection create the dynamic courage of the early church (and become such an awesome threat to both Jewish and Roman rulers)? Why should it still have the same impact on us? See you this weekend as we all gather to peer into a truly empty tomb and encounter a truly risen LORD.

The buzz of the people, the flashing of the cameras, the shrieks of the fans, the crowds pressing in as the Hollywood star steps onto the red carpet. You’ve seen that movie! That’s pretty much what happens on Palm Sunday. People are wave and scream and press in close to Jesus. What happens next is a remarkable set of events that will go on to change the world. And in the events of that week our current stories are deeply embedded. Come and discover Palm Sunday and Holy Week in a fresh new way this weekend.

She was overlooked and judged by everyone. Her whole life was spent in the shadows, hiding in plain view. Everyone knew her as the lady of ill-repute, most didn’t even bother to get to know her name. Most of the men knew where she lived but would never admit it. Have you met her? What could she possibly teach us about serving from an overflow? What overflow? Her life was a tragedy, a waste, a mistake… or was it? Let’s look at her together through the eyes of Jesus and see if the story changes.

Lord Acton hit the nail on the head: “Power corrupts…and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Moses was right in Deuteronomy 8, when he explained why the LORD often has to hold back from blessing us the way He desires: “You may well say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this prosperity for me… then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God!” Jesus never said: “Take up your mirror and follow Me.” We have finished our gallery of ordinary heroes who became extraordinary by their obedient trust in God and answered ‘yes’ to the question: Can God be trusted? In our last message in our series on Hebrews 11 we turn to the deeper issue: Can God trust me? What person can be trusted by God with meaningful or powerful gifts in her/his life?

This week we will continue our Hebrews 11 series, looking at the second half of Moses’ life, which is referenced in verses 28 and 29. These verses commemorate God’s great saving acts of Passover and the parting of the Red Sea, in order to lead his people from slavery to freedom. Hebrews looks back to both the Passover and Christ’s transformation of that original freedom festival into the Lord’s Supper and the New Covenant. The question which faces each person today is the same question Israel faced: Will we stay in slavery or move forward by faith into God’s freedom?

Abraham Lincoln experienced many defeats and terrible losses in his life before becoming our most beloved President. He understood repeated failure and suffering up close. In light of that he said: “How we handle success is a greater challenge to our character than how we handle defeat or failure.” Indeed. God dedicates a whole chapter to the deadliness of success to a life in Deuteronomy 8—the dilemma of our pride and apathy toward God when He blesses us. Few handle it well. This weekend we are going to take a first look at Moses in Hebrews 11, a man raised in affluence, luxury, opportunity and early successes—who still maintained as his primary life mission his submission to the living God against all odds. Even when it meant turning his back on all of it. How did he do it?

As you walk through the Gallery of Tapestries in the Vatican, on the left wall you see these glorious tapestries depicting the life of Christ woven five hundred years ago by some of the finest weavers in the world. They still fill you with awe. In Hebrews 11, we get to walk through just such an awe-inspiring Gallery of Tapestries and each week we pause to look at one spectacular sketch after another. This weekend, we will look at the largest “tapestry” (passage) in this chapter devoted to the patriarch Abraham. He is commended for his faith (which is a key word occurring over 20 times in this chapter). What was Abraham’s faith rooted in? Can you and I experience the same sense of rootedness?

The first person God commends by name in Hebrews 11 is a guy named Abel. God says that thousands of years later Abel “still speaks, even though he is dead.” Clearly, God means that Abel left a legacy which continues to impact every generation since his short life in a powerfully positive way. Now here’s the applicable truth in this for all of us: in some sphere of influence we all leave a legacy, we all create an impact for good or ill. How does Hebrews 11:4-7 use the stories of Abel, Enoch and Noah to teach you and me the art of building a lasting legacy of high impact for God for generations? Ponder those four verses.

“Can I trust God?” Perhaps that seems like a simple question to answer when life is smooth and we generally believe God is loving and good. But for every one of us, truly living a consistent “yes” to that question it is the challenge of a lifetime. God exposes layer after layer of our self-controlling, fearful clinging, my-way-is-better-than-God’s-way choices. But our real choice is whether or not we will seek and obey His will above our own, even when it seems so costly. This weekend our one text tells us to be sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see! Both are odd phrases. So our goal is to answer two key questions: 1) what exactly is it we are to hope for? and 2) on what basis can I be so certain of something happening that I stake my life on it; even though I haven’t ever yet experienced it? See you then.

The story of John, the youngest disciple of the original gang of 12 who followed Jesus, is a transformation story. Not sudden change like Saul who became the apostle Paul after his dramatic encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, but a lifetime of gradual change. Through association with Jesus, the disciple John went from being a “son of thunder” to a wise old gentleman who constantly reminded his congregations to “love one another.” Over time, he was transformed by grace. The same experience is available to all who will do like John and persistently press close to Jesus.

This is a profound message about our founding fathers.

The key to any Biblical book often lies at the door to the book. John declares Jesus Christ to be the One who has revealed--and is revealed--in Revelation. Thus the book is both about Him and from Him; and also climaxes in His visible return. (Rev 1:7; 14:14; 19:11-15).