Imago Dei Community

What does it mean to be the Body of Christ? In the New Testament, Paul employs this metaphor several times, but never in a way of striving—as if we have to “become” the Body. He, instead, simply tells us that this is what we are and we must care for the Body of Jesus the way we might care for our own body, so that we might be built up and strengthened—healthy and ready for action.

Lent is a time of repentance, of coming back to God through the acknowledgement of our humanity. Who are we before God and in his sight? For lent this year, we are repenting of the distorted images we carry of the church, the people of God, through an inspection of the biblical metaphors of us. Most of our visions of our community are distorted by our own history and lack any connection to the rich biblical images given to the people of God across Scripture. During Lent, we will lay down our distorted images of us and pick up God’s images for his church.

Is God’s community worth investing in? The church used to be a place where we received cultural and social benefits, a place where we “found our people” and grew in our relationship with our surrounding community. But as culture has rapidly secularized and been inundated with technology, we don’t need the church for a good social life or even for spiritual content. The early followers of Jesus seemed to give the church their top priority, how did they do it and why? Strangely enough, the answers for why we should come back to church and give the church a priority in our life is not just found in the New Testament, but in a minor prophetic book called Haggai.

Haggai is a minor prophet whose book is just two chapters. But it is packed full of a massive question: do we prioritize what God prioritizes? Hidden in this book is a call for the people of God: “Consider your ways,” Haggai says, and think about all the effort you put into all you prioritize: is it fulfilling? So much of modern life involves experiences of losses that we disguise as gains. What would happen if we reoriented our priorities with what God puts first?

For two weeks, we will be listening to Jesus pray. During his time on earth, the gospel writers record dozens of moments where Jesus cried out to God in public and in private. What did Jesus pray about and why is that important? While this series could last all year due to the number of prayers he prayed, we will spend three weeks looking at three different prayers of Jesus to ask this question: how can we join Jesus in his prayers for us?

For two weeks, we will be listening to Jesus pray. During his time on earth, the gospel writers record dozens of moments where Jesus cried out to God in public and in private. What did Jesus pray about and why is that important? While this series could last all year due to the number of prayers he prayed, we will spend three weeks looking at three different prayers of Jesus to ask this question: how can we join Jesus in his prayers for us?

With the cultural rewards of church attendance gone, what reasons are left to be a part of a church? We no longer rely on the church to build community, receive Christian teaching, or even to serve worthy causes. So what’s left? We are in need of fresh vision for God’s mission and church. This Sunday, we will look at our mission and our vision as a church and consider why on earth anyone in Portland would ever go to church.

Preacher: Bob Howard Text: 2 Corinthians 13:4

The wise men saw a star and went looking for God only to realize that the star was God looking for them. Meeting with Herod, they asked the whereabouts of the God incarnate, the king of the Jews, but none of their tactics worked. The strategy, might, and political power of Herod offered them nothing. Their own efforts to “seek God” only resulted in the great realization that God had sought after them. We do not find God through our own search for meaning. We find God when he reveals himself to us. Strangely, when we give up the search for God, we can finally see God has searched for us in Christ.

Joseph is the first story in Scripture to unpack (in a major way) God’s transformational presence in darkness. No one in all of the Old Testament gets as low and near death as Joseph: he is literally thrown in a grave, betrayed by his own family, and left for dead only to be sold as a slave. His narrative is one where we as readers are challenged to see the shocking presence of God in the depth of the grave. God arrives in the darkness of suffering in a way that foreshadows his ultimate arrival in Christ.