Storms are an interesting deal, aren't they? We're going to read about one in the life and story of Jonah this morning. The book of Jonah is literary genius. Please don't hear me saying it's fairy tale, or parable, but it's written geniusly. It's intended to be funny. It's prophetic, which means before it's parable, before it's literal, before it's either of those things, Jonah has a message for us. It's prophetic. That's the type of book it is in the library of the Scriptures. Jonah's going to ...
Mar 18, 2019•48 min•Ep. 142
Over the next six weeks, we're going to have the chance to journey with Jonah, to allow Jonah to be our guide through the Lenten season. Our guide to the cross. Our guide to the resurrection. Metaphorically speaking, we're going to take Jonah's hand and we're going to go for a little bit of a walk. My guess is, even if you're not a follower of Jesus and you're here today, even if you don't know much about the Bible, you've heard about Jonah. Turns out the story about a person getting eaten by a ...
Mar 11, 2019•47 min•Ep. 141
{Ryan Paulson:} Our teaching text is Matthew 4:12-23 today. If you have your Bible, you can open up there. I'm going to read it, then Larry Boatright is going to come teach it. When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali---to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: "Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee...
Mar 04, 2019•45 min•Ep. 140
If you really packed the guys in, you could probably get 15 people in one of those boats. These guys were pros and they'd been on this sea hundreds of times in their lives. They'd been there in the middle of the night because some of the best fishing happened in the middle of the night. As they started to go across that 13 mile journey from one end of the shore to the other in the Sea of Galilee, a huge storm just came out of nowhere and started buffeting against their boat. You can imagine wind...
Feb 26, 2019•44 min•Ep. 139
February 13th, just this last week, flight 5763 took off from the Orange County Airport on its way to Seattle. It didn't quite make it there, because over the High Sierras, it hit what you might refer to as a little bit of turbulence. One of the passengers reported that, along with the flight attendant, the drink cart hit the ceiling of the aircraft. Another passenger said that the plane did not one but two nosedives, sort of ninety degrees down. Just imagine being at 34,000 feet, cruising altit...
Feb 19, 2019•43 min•Ep. 138
I can remember when I was freshman in college and went and purchased the album that song (Obsession) is off of. It was written by Martin Smith, but recorded by David Crowder. I remember lying in my bed in my dorm room at Colorado State, having my Discman next to me. I was listening to the song and thinking to myself, "My heart does burn. Jesus, I want you. Closer than my skin, yeah." All that stuff Crowder's singing, I want it. I was going onto high school campuses and telling people about Jesus...
Feb 11, 2019•45 min•Ep. 137
Last weekend as the elders were headed up to Estes Park for our retreat, our middle school group was also heading up to a retreat at Buena Vista. They had left at 5:00 p.m. and were heading up 285 and there was a sign over the road that said, "Road Closure in Fairplay," which isn't a good thing if you're headed to Buena Vista. Through a few radio calls back and forth to the various vans, they decided to take a little bit of a detour. They eventually found themselves at Wadsworth and Chatfield, r...
Feb 04, 2019•48 min•Ep. 136
Dr. Scott Wenig - Guest Speaker
Jan 28, 2019•46 min•Ep. 135
It's a bit of irony that some of the greatest movements in the history of the church have been birthed out of some of the sharpest disagreements. Some of the things we celebrate most started off as.....well, a fight. They started off as people on two sides of the aisle unable to come to a conclusion and having very different opinions about the way that things should progress. In Acts 15:1-2, we see one of those situations. But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, {The br...
Jan 22, 2019•46 min•Ep. 134
Last week we started a series we're calling "Life is A Maze....ing." We're talking about discovering God's will. It's these questions we all have ---- What job should I take? What city should I live in? What relationship should I pursue? We all have these questions, don't we? God, what do you want me to do with my life? If you're God, and I believe that you are, and you have a plan, and I believe that you do, how do I align myself with it? We spend a lot of time, and we might lose a lot of sleep...
Jan 14, 2019•43 min•Ep. 133
How many of you thought that was a Christmas song [We Three Kings] that we just sang during our offertory? Here's a little pastoral rebuke for you: It's actually not. It's not a Christmas song at all. It's a song about a season that actually begins today. Christmas technically ended yesterday, and today we begin a season in the church calendar called Epiphany. Epiphany comes from a Greek word that means "to manifest" or "to show" or "to reveal." It's the day where the church comes together and c...
Jan 07, 2019•45 min•Ep. 132
Billy Berglund - Middle School Director
Dec 31, 2018•43 min•Ep. 131
I've been reminded, during this Advent season leading up to Christmas, that there are two kinds of people in the world: There are those that agree with me and are right; there are those that agree with my wife and are wrong. I grew up watching the movie "A Christmas Story," and I happen to think it's a brilliant film. Not everybody agrees with me. There's one scene in this movie that makes me laugh every time I see it. {Ryan plays scene where Ralphie's overly dressed little brother falls in the ...
Dec 26, 2018•42 min•Ep. 130
Last week I opened up by saying one of my favorite things about Christmas is Christmas movies. That is true. One of my second favorite things about Christmas is the songs. I love singing Christmas songs. {Ryan asks congregation to share favorite songs with person next to them.} One of my favorite Christmas songs this year is "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." But there's a song that's not growing on me [like Hark the Herald]. Every time this song comes on the radio, I think to myself, "I don't know....
Dec 17, 2018•44 min•Ep. 129
I love the Christmas season! One of the things that I think I love most about this time of year is those Christmas movies. My favorite Christmas movie---judge me if you must---is "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." One of my favorite scenes in the entire movie is where Clark W. Griswold has worked for days putting up lights on his house, and he's finally got them working. [The camera] pans to the scene where Cousin Eddy is unexpectedly there. He's got his RV and he's staying for an indeterm...
Dec 10, 2018•47 min•Ep. 128
If you're anything like me, I get real excited about the Christmas season, I get excited about Advent, and we put a lot of energy into it and then we feel exhausted when it's done. Are you with me? December 25th hits and we're like, I don't want to see anybody, I don't want to talk to anybody. I know that Jesus has been born, but I've drunk so much eggnog and had so many parties and I've seen so many people, I just need a moment to myself. Is anybody with me? We get done with Christmas and we're...
Dec 06, 2018•44 min•Ep. 127
Josh Suddath - Student Pastor My prayer life often feels abysmal. I often feel like I’m just not going to God like I should or as much as I should. But 6 years ago married to a prayer warrior named Kristine and she’s fantastic. And my bible tells me that through marriage and the uniting of our spirits we are two people acting as one. So for the next half hour I’m going to act like her prayer life makes my prayer life better and pretend I know what I’m talking about. 6 years into our friendship, ...
Nov 26, 2018•34 min•Ep. 126
Next week, we will be done with this series on Elijah; we've given seven messages in all. This brings us to the conclusion of this life of the ancient prophet of Israel, Elijah. We saw Elijah burst onto the scene, sort of came out of nowhere. He stepped into the king's palace and made a declaration about drought and a confident call that Yahweh was the King above all kings, the Lord above all lords, the God above all gods. We've traced Elijah's journey over the last few weeks and now we're comin...
Nov 19, 2018•50 min•Ep. 125
If you've been with us over the last few weeks, you know that we're journeying through the life of one of Israel's ancient prophets, his name is Elijah. Elijah sort of jumped onto the scene in 1 Kings 17, where he burst into King Ahab's palace and declared, "It's not going to rain again until I say it's going to rain." Doesn't exactly make you a lot of friends. Elijah quickly found himself on the run, led by God into the wilderness, the place at Kerith, where he was both cut down and then built ...
Nov 12, 2018•40 min•Ep. 124
Guest Speaker: Author and Spiritual Director Liz Ditty If you could have the 100% complete and honest answer to any question this morning, what would you ask? When I was twelve, I only had one burning question, and that was.....Does Jonathan Green have a crush on me? Fortunately, I was a child of the 80's, so my cousin had the foolproof thing that could give me my answer. The magic 8 ball. I must have shaken this thing thirteen times, and it always came up doubtful. The truth is Jonathan Green n...
Nov 05, 2018•35 min•Ep. 123
What do you do after you've been miraculously fed by ravens; they've brought you little cakes in the desert? In a middle of a drought, you had a brook that gave you enough to drink. You saw oil and flour not run out; miraculously multiplied over and over and over again; God's provision that's unmistakable. You saw somebody raised from the dead, because you prayed and laid down on this young boy and he came back to life. Then you stand on Mount Carmel and you call down fire from heaven and it com...
Oct 29, 2018•50 min•Ep. 122
I can remember this day because there was a lot of buildup. The day was January 28, 1997. It was the summer before my senior year of high school. A bunch of my friends and I had gone in together to buy a Pay-per-view boxing match. It was Evander Holyfield vs. 'Iron' Mike Tyson. Most boxing matches you don't remember; my guess is, you at least have a recollection of this one. In the third round, Mike Tyson came out of the gate, tried to spit out his mouth guard, and promptly bit off a portion of ...
Oct 22, 2018•47 min•Ep. 121
I was in second or third grade and I was in a particular math section. The teacher was trying to teach us some math concepts, and for some reason, my brain could not get it. She gave exercise after exercise and she circled the plane ten different ways. Now when my kids come home and they ask for help with math, there's like 117 different ways to it and they have to know them all, I'm like, "Can't help you, dude, sorry." I was not getting it. She gave us this very specific process to follow to ex...
Oct 15, 2018•45 min•Ep. 120
If you have a picture in your mind about what a prophet is like, might I suggest to you that the biblical image might ruin your idyllic view. Prophets, in the Scriptures, weren't people who had their own TV show, weren't people who made a lot of money, they weren't people who flew around and had large followings. They were sort of fringe folks. They were the people that were on the outside of the norm, as far as faith went. They were people that took off their clothes and preached naked. They we...
Oct 09, 2018•51 min•Ep. 119
We're at week four of a four-week series that we've entitled "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" It was inspired by Jesus who inspired Mr. Rogers who then inspired us. We've been talking about being neighborly. Not about defining who are neighbor is but about becoming neighborly. We said, a few weeks ago, that that's not always easy. As long as there's been hospitality, there's been complaining about offering it. The Scriptures are real honest and say: Offer hospitality without grumbling. Evidently that...
Oct 03, 2018•36 min•Ep. 118
Welcome. You're here on week three of a four-week series called "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" How many of you have seen the Mr. Roger's documentary that they did? Amazing documentary and tribute to an amazing man who really lived out the way of love, and did so in a compelling, breathtaking way. Kelly and I saw the movie and I thought I really need to do a series on this because my heart's plea to Jesus is that our church would look a little bit more like Mr. Roger's neighborhood. The first week w...
Sep 25, 2018•40 min•Ep. 116
This series is like one long message! You may have walked away last week thinking, "Yeah, I know, hospitality's really good, Ryan. That's a great idea. BUT...." We have a whole list of "buts," don't we? We have a whole list of reasons why it's really, really hard. To that, I want to say, "You're right! It is." I want to spend the next 35 minutes or so affirming you're right! BUT.... I was a sophomore at college at Colorado State University and was walking across the courtyard. I saw a man who ha...
Sep 17, 2018•47 min•Ep. 115
A few months ago, our elders started to ask this question: What would it look like to create a culture of hospitality? Where, as a church family, we didn't just attend, but we gathered together and linked arms and hearts. Not just show up on a Sunday morning, but open our homes and our lives to the people who we worship with. It was our conviction, not that we weren't that place, but there were some ways that Jesus was drawing us deeper and inviting us to more, that this would feel more like a f...
Sep 12, 2018•52 min•Ep. 114
My family has been here two years and we just love this body and being at South Fellowship and plugging in with the Young Adults. A few weeks ago, we were going to have a worship night and I had this vision months before. We were going to have lots of young adults come to the great outdoors of Colorado and enjoy seeing the creation God has created. We'd have the mountains in the background and enjoy worshipping our Creator outside. We've ended previous summers with a worship night in the park (C...
Sep 04, 2018•40 min•Ep. 113
My name's AJ. I'm from Grand Rapids, Michigan. It's really good to be here. Here's a question I want to begin with: Can we go deep this morning? Is that okay? Richard Foster had this amazing sentence in his work, Celebration of Discipline, when he says, "The world's greatest need today isn't for intelligent people or cool people or innovative people. All that's well and good. The world's greatest need right now is for deep people. People who are thinking deeply about good questions about life an...
Aug 28, 2018•33 min•Ep. 112
