Renewal | Mother's Day

What Now? (Acts) | An Exodus Story

Every one of us is living inside some story we've told ourselves, whether we've named it or not. The self-made story. The scoreboard story. The someday story. But what if the true story is bigger, harder, and better than any of those? In Acts 12, James is executed with a single sentence and no explanation. Peter is chained between two guards, hours from the same fate. And yet an angel walks him out of a locked prison while the church prays with a kind of desperate, stretched out intensity. Why does one apostle get a sword and the other get a miracle? This week we sit with that question honestly, without rushing past it. We'll talk about what it means to live in the already and the not yet, the chains that don't come off through our own effort, and why the person with the least standing in the room (a servant girl named Rhoda) is the only one who believes what she's seeing. This is a message for anyone who has prayed hard for something that still hasn't opened, and anyone waiting on a door that hasn't swung wide yet. Because the empire hasn't fully fallen. But the King has already won the decisive victory. This is part of our ongoing series through the book of Acts, "What Now?"

What Now? (Acts) | Signs of Life

What if the most important spiritual growth in your life isn't something you're forcing, but something you're being invited to notice? In Acts 11, the gospel breaks out in Antioch not through apostles or official sending, but through unnamed refugees who simply started talking about Jesus. When Barnabas arrives to check things out, he doesn't bring correction. He brings encouragement, and stays for a year to help something fragile grow into something strong. This week we look at what it means to cultivate the kingdom of heaven wherever we already are: at work, in our families, in the ordinary Tuesdays of our lives. We'll talk about the difference between exploiting growth and nurturing it, why the kingdom tends to break through at the edges rather than the center, and three simple practices for anyone who wants to become a greenhouse for what God is already doing around them. This is part of our ongoing series through the book of Acts, "What Now?"

What Now? (Acts) | Vocation Restored

Tabitha didn’t work miracles. She worked material. Thread and needle, robes and clothing, made for the most vulnerable women in her community. And when she died, the widows didn’t describe her faith. They put on what she made. That is her eulogy. Not words. Evidence. This week we look at what the resurrection actually restores, and why the feeling that your ordinary life doesn’t add up to much is not a personality flaw. It’s a wound. One that Jesus came to heal. Because we are not waiting for the new creation. We are working toward it.

What Now? (Acts) | Blind Devotion

Saul wasn’t persecuting the church because he hated God. He was persecuting the church because he loved God. His certainty didn’t come from rebellion. It came from devotion. And that’s what makes his story so unsettling, and so close to home. Jesus didn’t stop him with a better argument. He stopped him with light. And the question that landed on Saul lands on us too: in your zeal, in your conviction that you know how God works, is it possible that Jesus is somewhere ahead of you asking, “Why are you persecuting me?”

What Now? (Acts) | Scattered

In Acts 8, the early church faces real persecution. People are dragged from their homes, imprisoned, and scattered. But something unexpected happens: the scattering doesn't silence them. It spreads them. The enemy's strategy to destroy the church ends up planting it in places it had never reached. In this message, Pastor Derek looks at what it actually means to live as resurrection people not just in theory, but in the moment when someone says something cutting, a decision gets made without you, or a relationship goes sideways. If Jesus was raised from the dead, that changes what's available to you in the next sixty seconds. You don't have to defend. You don't have to win. You don't have to protect anything. The sign of people who actually believe that? Not anger. Not bitterness. Joy. Part of the ongoing series What Now? — walking through the book of Acts together at Summer Street Church on Nantucket.