Imago Dei Community

Pastor Alex Choi shares a deeply insightful message from Mark 2 showing that we are often quicker to assign guilt in places where Jesus instead offers compassion. He challenges us to become people who offer comfort instead of judgment.

Pastor Rick McKinley explains that Jesus is willing to make a scene to confront our broken and malformed definitions of power. Jesus flipped the tables to show us that the true power of God is marked by a concern for the oppressed, it moves us from outrage to advocacy.

Pastor Michelle Jones began our annual prayer series declaring us "Move us, Lord!" This week we looked at the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, asking the Spirit to move us from shallow to deeper.

Michelle Jones shares a deeply moving account of the resilience and celebration within the black church in the United States. This joy can only be described as supernatural in light of their suffering. Faith gives us the power to rejoice in all our trials.

Pastor Seth King explains his own process of coming to understand the significance of justice to the heart of God and the story of the Bible. He challenges us to go beyond merely adopting mainstream social justice with a Christian twist to really being shaped by the God who constantly moves toward the outcast and oppressed. Finally, we are pressed to honestly ask ourselves: "Where am I being invited to live more justly?"

To conclude the Saving Justice series pastor Seth King explains that justice in action looks like a life of radical generosity. He interviews three people in our community who have lived lives that stand out as examples.

Michelle Lang-Raymond shares a striking message on how we often like the idea of change until we see that it will require sacrifice. Sometimes we must give up if we are going grow and move forward into mature love.

The wilderness is not a comfortable place to be, but Christians for millennia have taught that it has the ability to transform us. In-between spaces have the ability to change us for the good and show us the things that control us and sabotage our peace. Finally, we see that in the midst of the pain of liminal spaces we can look to Jesus who entered the ultimate wilderness for us.

Pastor Rick McKinley looks at the life of King Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 29-31 giving us a type case of how renewal happens. We examine the results it can produce in our lives and are confronted with the question, "what do we need personally and collectively for renewal to take place?"

Over the course of the pandemic we laid down some valuable faith habits, sometimes through no fault of our own because of lockdown and limitations. We also may have picked up some unhealthy and unhelpful habits that we don't want to carry forward in our lives. Pastor Rick McKinley shares how in the book of 2 Kings renewal came when God's word was restored to its ultimate place.