If you’ve ever been stuck in a place where you’d rather not be, then today’s message might be for you.  God’s people were stuck in Babylonian exile for some seventy years or more.  Certainly, they prayed for deliverance, but God answered those prayers in a completely different way than what they had ever expected or hoped.  

We all have things in our lives that can distract us in our relationships with God. In the Old Testament, these were known as high places. In the New Testament, Paul called them idols. Whenever we place these human constructs above our worship of the living God, we can believe, say, and do things that we never thought we’d do. That’s what is in our scripture story today from 2 Kings, we are told to let go of our&

We ask this question as we come to the end of our sermon series on Cascades’ Core Values. Our final core value states, “We answer God’s call to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.”  This is based on the words of the Prophet Micah from the 8th century B.C. Micah reminds us that God’s expectations are actually quite simple. When we live by these expectations, we walk in the way of Jesus him

Music has incredible power over us.  In fact, that’s why we sing songs in worship.  Our songs are theology put to music and provide a way to plant scripture in our hearts.  While we may love the good old hymns and songs of our faith, scripture repeatedly calls us to sing new songs unto the Lord.  Why is that?  That is what we explore today as we talk about the next of Cascades Core Values...We seek to follow God’s Word

Every one of us has been given gifts of many kinds. But those gifts are not for us to keep but rather to be good stewards of. This week, we live into the Parable to the Ten Talents as we talk about our core value of good stewardship. May we all long to hear Jesus' acclamation, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and share in my reward!”  

One of our core values at Cascades is that we ‘Welcome, care for, and build relationships with all people.”  No one is outside the bounds of God’s love and grace.  No one!  And so, we live out this calling to develop relationships of love with people who are very different from us.  As we do so, we find that we have more in common than we do in difference.  

This week, we return to Cascades' Core Values and learn about the importance of prayer.  We ask for God's guidance through prayer - and then act on it.  This was topic on the hearts of Jesus' disciples who asked him to teach them to pray.  In this moment, Jesus taught them the Lord's Prayer.  We discuss the many aspects of what, why, to whom, how, and for whom.  

On that first day of Pentecost, some thought Jesus’ disciples were drunk because they heard them speaking in strange languages they had never heard before. When the promised Holy Spirit came, it filled the disciples with the ability to do all sorts of wonderful and crazy things.  This leads me to wonder, what would it take for us to dream big dreams and take bigger risks for God’s kingdom in the Church today?  Are we crazy enough

At Cascades we are committed to ministering to the whole person, mind, body, and soul.  But what exactly does that mean?  Today, we looked at the story where Jesus healed a woman who suffered from bleeding for twelve years and how he ministered to her whole person, mind, body, and soul.

The story of the early church in Acts 2:42-47 tells us that those first disciples of Jesus devoted themselves to four practices…the Apostles’ teachings, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer.  And as they did those things, people flocked to be part of their unique community.  As we continue learning about Cascades' core values, today we learn more about how this scripture informs the kind of community that makes Cascades such a special place. &nbs