Community Stories
These short stories either follow what Spring Church is focusing on in a particular season, like Christmas or Easter, or they take culturally relevant topics and frame them through a Biblical lens. You can look through our entire category of over 7 years of stories using the dropdown.
When Our Individual Faith Moves Into The Neighborhood
4 minute read
While we don’t know (because the narrator doesn’t tell us) what sort of habits and practices helped Ruth become the sort of woman who was walking in the direction God was walking in, we see the fruit of those practices when she’s making ordinary, everyday decisions like trying to find a place to get food.
Ordinary, Everyday Habits and Decisions
3 minute read
While we don’t know (because the narrator doesn’t tell us) what sort of habits and practices helped Ruth become the sort of woman who was walking in the direction God was walking in, we see the fruit of those practices when she’s making ordinary, everyday decisions like trying to find a place to get food.
Walking with God in a Big Decision
5 minute read
One of the benefits of our common discipleship is the ability to make great decisions, as we walk in the direction God is walking in.
Invisible People Have A Name
8 minute read
These stories of how God uses invisible people appear throughout the Bible and throughout history, and a few years ago I started looking for people working in ‘invisible’ occupations. Now, whenever I pass a person stocking the shelves at the grocery store, a person cleaning a building I’m in, or a person working in landscaping, I try to look them in the eyes and say “thank you” as I go by.
The Big Idea
10 minute read
For every liturgical season in the church calendar, we focus on one particular “Big Idea” that helps us embody the Story of what God is already doing in our neighborhood. If we think of the Big Idea as a river, then here’s how Spring Church is entering into the incredible reality that: “God is at work and at play in the everyday joys and frustrations of ordinary life.”
Who Will Disciple You?
8 minute read
Let me ask you a personal question: Is your mother-in-law a bitter person? (Feel free to substitute “mother-in-law” with mother, father, spouse, child, sister, brother, or anyone else who is a part of your family.)
I Miss Eating With You
Our pursuit of food has shaped the evolution of our sensory apparatus—the very tools through which we, as a species, perceive the world. The choices we make every day about food selection, preparation, and consumption lie at the foundation of our identities and relationships and affinities. As the Italian historian Massimo Montanari succinctly put it, food is culture.
You Are Not Alone
I wrote these prayers for my diverse group of friends, scattered around the globe, to help us all remember that we are not alone, and to help us walk through this season together and with Jesus who loves us and keeps us. Also, candidly, writing these prayers also helps me reflect on the joys and the struggles of the last two weeks, to help me remain connected to the incredible emotional rollercoaster of this pandemic.
Would anyone come to a 6:15am Bible Study?
“Would anyone come to a 6:15 am Bible study?” was the question we asked ourselves in September. 7 months later….
Two Timely Questions
Before we go any further down this road of change, of uncertainty, of worry and turmoil, let’s pause and reflect on our very recent past.
Learning how to lament together in the Hospital
Americans, on the whole, don’t know how to lament together very well.
In fact, odds are good that, as you read that last sentence, you thought, “Lament. That’s a weird word. I wonder what Matt means by ‘lament’.” Well, thank you for asking. I mean the actual basic definition: To mourn aloud. Americans don’t often mourn aloud together, particularly in ways that are helpful to the aloud mourners and their friends.
Christmas at the Mission
As we approached the end of Advent, we continued to put ourselves in the Christmas Story by playing Follow the Leader.
Advent In A Barn
For younger children, this Advent I’ve been talking about playing Follow The Leader.
I’ve enjoyed framing what we do through the game Follow The Leader, as it’s helped younger kids latch onto the reason why we do the things we do around Advent.