TNL Church Talks

Eastertide 2024 Part 3: Love God & Love Others

Eastertide 2024 Part 2: ...And We Hope You Don't Stay the Same.

Eastertide 2024 Part 1: You're Accepted Here Just As You Are. Why do we say this every week?

Lent 2024 Part 6: Giving Up Grudges. Holding grudges—allowing resentment to fester into bitterness—only hurts us and stunts our growth. God has given us the most powerful, counter-cultural, revolutionary tool to deal with resentment and bitterness in forgiveness. Forgiveness he first extends to us that we then need to extend to others so we can find healing and rest for our souls; so that we’re not consumed nor stunted; so we can grow into the people he created us to be; so we can show the world what he is like.

Lent 2024 Part 5: Giving Up Gluttony. Gluttony is about escaping our lives through consumption, indulgence, and seeking pleasure; it looks a lot more like being controlled than being in control.

Lent 2024 Part 4: Giving Up Busyness. Busyness is a way for us to appear full of life while completely avoiding real life.

Lent 2024 Part 3: Apathy - A Wake-Up Call. Apathy is an understandable defense mechanism to protect ourselves when life becomes too overwhelming or painful...but it's no way to live.

Lent 2024 Part 2: Giving Up Worry. Chronic/Obsessive Worry is an addiction to thought patterns that–in the moment–help us feel in control of that which is outside of our control. In the long term, these thought patterns only add more worry and anxiety, while robbing us of rest and connection to God.

Lent 2024 Part 1: Giving Up Perfectionism. Perfectionism is a way of manipulating others into giving us approval in the hopes it'll convince us we're valuable; but it never works and only leaves us isolated from others, including God.

Epiphany 2024 Part 5: Absence & Love. Jesus love for his friends leads him to remain absent from them in the story of Lazarus' resurrection. Why?

Epiphany 2024 Part 4: God Sees Us, God Comes to Us. Our transcendent and yet personal God wants to come to us, to be known, and to use the chaos of life to transform us.

Epiphany 2024 Part 3: Remembrance is the Key to Recognizing God. When we forget what God's done in the past, we fail to recognize him in the present.

Epiphany 2024 Part 2: Missing the Signs. Jesus has an ambivalent relationship with the signs he performs. We probably should too. Otherwise we risk missing the sign we need.

Epiphany 2024 Part 1: The Cana Wedding. Jesus reveals who God is in one of his first public acts that easy to overlook...

Advent 2023 Part 4: Hope For The Future. Historically, Advent focuses more on the second coming of Christ than the first... 

Advent 2023 Part 3: Hope In The Present.

Advent 2023 Part 2: Hope From the Past. Why do all the people surrounding Jesus' birth seem so prepared for totally unexpected, life-altering news?

Generosity 2023 Part 2: Sloth vs. Courageous Hope. Sloth is not often what we think, but is a nefarious, "death while still living."

Generosity 2023 Part 1: Greed vs. Living Rich Toward God. One of the primary enemies of generosity is greed, which sets us on an endless hollow pursuit of fulfillment. The antidote to greed is something Jesus talks about in Luke 12: Living Rich Toward God.

Jonah Part 5: Jonah & The Plant. The conclusion of our story is an episode including heat, a plant, a worm, and an abrupt ending.

Jonah Part 4: Jonah & Nineveh. The story of Jonah confronts our blatant and latent hatred for others.

Jonah Part 3: Jonah & Fishy Prayers. If we look just a bit deeper at Jonah chapter 2, we quickly see that Jonah's heart hasn't changed at all.

Jonah Part 2: Jonah & The Sailors. The first act of Jonah is often distilled down to a lesson of what happens when you disobey God. This misses the point.

Jonah Part 1: Jonah & Control. The Book of Jonah is unique and special among the prophets and the entire Bible. There is so much we can learn from this short, comedic, poignant story.

Jonah Part 1: Jonah & Control. The Book of Jonah is unique and special among the prophets and the entire Bible. There is so much we can learn from this short, comedic, poignant story.

Paul the Apostle Part 5: Stop Telling Lies. Paul was relentlessly committed to telling the truth, even when it put his life in danger. For Paul, telling the truth is foundational for living as a new creation in Christ. If you don't resonate with any of the "new creation" talk in the New Testament, start relentlessly telling the truth and see what happens.

Paul the Apostle Part 4: Depths of Despair. Paul is often portrayed as a superhero, but we catch glimpses of real suffering and despair and can find encouragement in how he responded to his suffering.

Paul the Apostle Part 3: The First Christian in Europe Was a Woman. Lydia's story was unprecedented on many levels...

Paul the Apostle Part 2: Why, Paul?! What motivated Paul to be so passionate and determined even after attempts were made on his life?

Paul the Apostle Part 1: Saul of Tarsus. If we want to even attempt to understand Paul, we need to investigate his origins. 

Sabbath Part 2: Delight by Brandi Galuzzi. How might our lives change for the better if we actually accept God’s good gift of Sabbath? 

Sabbath Part 1: Cease & Rest by Brian Gray. The ancient practice of Sabbath is still the most countercultural way to combat burnout and workaholism.

The Book of Acts, Part 5: God Is After Us All. The story of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8 is a challenging and hopeful story about the width and depth of God's love.

The Book of Acts, Part 4: The Tyranny of What Other People Think. The difficult story of Ananias & Sapphira in Acts 5 is ultimately a message about freedom.

The Book of Acts, Part 3: Miracles. Peter plays a part in the miraculous healing of a paralyzed man in Acts 3. What are we to make of the many stories of miracles in Acts?

The Book of Acts, Part 2: Pentecost Changed Everything. The arrival of the Holy Spirit profoundly shaped & changed our understanding of God and ourselves, forever.

The Book of Acts, Part 1: The Ascension. Luke writes about Jesus' exit twice, both in his Gospel and the Book of Acts. In each, the story is quite short and overshadowed by surrounding events. What does this odd, frustratingly brief story mean for us today?

Eastertide 2023, Part 5: Comparison Kills. A quick exchange between Jesus and Peter at the very end of the Gospel of John has an immensely freeing message for us today.

Eastertide 2023, Part 4: Faith Is Not Linear. The story of Peter's post-resurrection encounter with Jesus on the beach is a message of hope for us all.

Eastertide 2023, Part 3: Doubt is Part of Faith. The story of doubting Thomas shows God is not surprised or disappointed by our doubts.

Eastertide 2023, Part 2: Walking Away From God With God. What does the story of the two on the way to Emmaus have to say to us today?

Why does church and being part of a church matter in America in 2023? The local church is maybe the best positioned community to offer

Eastertide 2023, Part 1: A New Beginning. Jesus' resurrection invites us not to get back to the idealized past, but forward into a new beginning.

Sermon on the Mount, Part 4: Let Your Light Shine In Secret? Our motives matter.

Sermon on the Mount, Part 3: God is the point. The point of the Law and Jesus' reiteration of it in Matthew 5 is to reveal what God is like.

The Sermon on the Mount, Part 2: Salt & Light. Jesus calls us to ditch masks and live authentically.

Sermon on the Mount, Part 1: The Beatitudes. What's the deal with these 8 blessings from Jesus at the start of the Sermon on the Mount?

Light of the World, Part 5: Give Up +. Take Up. Lent is an opportunity to lean into two dimensional growth.