Renewal is the refreshment, release, and advancement that individuals, groups, churches, and cultures experience when they are aligned with God’s presence. It’s a resumption of our God-given purpose to partner with God fully, participating in His plan to flood the world with His presence.

Renewal | Apr 24, 2022

This morning Pastor Dale began our new series Renewal. Over the next series of weeks, we will be talking about Renewal. Separate from Revival, renewal is the refreshment, release, and advancement that individuals, groups, churches, and cultures experience when they are aligned with God’s presence. It’s a resumption of our God-given purpose to partner with God fully, participating in His plan to flood the world with His presence. Revival is when renewal occurs on a large scale. Personal renewal precedes corporate renewal, and that often begins with a broken heart, a change, and/or a transition. In our response time, Pastor Dale gave us the opportunity to engage with our Father and allow Him to minister to us. We invite you to do this right now. To begin, we encourage you to first pause and take a deep, slow breath. Allow yourself to concentrate on the filling and exhaling of your lungs. Ask our Father to meet you in this moment. A question you can ask: Heavenly Father, is there a hurt or brokenness I'm carrying around? Will you reveal that to me? If He reveals a wound, ask Him to meet you in the hurt right now. If there are walls you've created to protect yourself, invite Jesus to come inside and join you in that space. Ask Jesus what he sees. We invite you to pay attention to what he's speaking to you. Ask Jesus, What do you want me to do with this brokenness?

Renewal | May 1, 2022

We are so grateful to Pastor Dave Carlsen from Foster the City for sharing what God put on his heart for our church to hear this week. Pastor Dave walked us through Micah 6:8 and its implications to us as followers of Jesus. The Christian life is more than talk. It is anger at injustice that moves us to action. Caring for, stepping into, and providing for vulnerable children is a call God places on all his sons and daughters. For many years Calvary has stepped into that calling, and we have the opportunity to continue doing so today.

Renewal | May 8, 2022

Today our teaching was focused on truth-telling and the role it has in renewal. Renewal begins with brokenness in the heart of one person and it gains traction when it finds others who are open to aligning their hearts. Renewal is truth-telling. It starts by seeing things as they really are and then aligning those things with God’s purposes to move forward. In our response time, we sought our Father on what His true story is for each of us. We invite you to do this right now. To begin, we encourage you to first pause and take a deep, slow breath. Allow yourself to concentrate on the filling and exhaling of your lungs. Ask our Father to meet you in this moment. What is God saying to you? What is His true story for you? If He is quiet, what are some things you want to say to God? If you are in a situation and you are unsure of what to do or how to feel, say “Father, I do not know what to do. Can you handle this for me?” Ask Him to join you in that right now.

Renewal | May 15, 2022

This week, Pastor Dale spoke to us about the impact renewal has on our hearts and how we see others. Renewal changes us, changes how we think, how we live, how we look at the world and how we see other people. Renewal leads us to reconciliation. Reconciliation to those who may have caused us pain, who may have offended us, or who we may have hurt or offended. In our response time, we sought our Father on those places in our lives where he's calling us to reconciliation. We invite you to do this right now. To begin, we encourage you to first pause and take a deep, slow breath. Allow yourself to concentrate on the filling and exhaling of your lungs. Ask our Father to meet you in this moment. What is God saying to you? Ask him if there is someone He'd like you to reconcile with. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and give you courage to step into those spaces of reconciliation with people today.

Renewal | May 22, 2022

This week we talked about the accuser who will cause whatever harm he can, however, he can. One of the ways he does this is through his lies. In our journey to renewal, the accuser will do everything possible to give you an off-ramp, to take you off that journey. The accuser is on a mission to destroy what God has planned for you including settling for less than what God offers, for us to be okay living like spiritual paupers when He provides the unlimited, for us to ignore the things that matter and embrace the things that don’t. The accuser will assault you with lies about who you are, your past, your future, your relationships. Nothing is off-limits and sometimes the lies are so close to truth, they're incredibly destructive. 

In our response time, Dale invited us to engage with our church family and our Father, calling out the lies of the enemy, bringing the lies from darkness to light. This is so important. Identifying the lies the accuser has spoken to you, declaring them to be untrue, and speaking God's truth over who you are as a follower of Christ. We invite you to engage with our Father right now, to hear from God, to listen to God, and bring those lies out from the dark and into the light. We encourage you to take a moment, close your eyes, maybe open your hands. We often just listen to the breath that he gave me first. Ask our Father to meet you in this moment. A question to begin the conversation: Father, what are the lies that I've been believing, that I need to stop believing today? What truths do you want to tell me right now? What truth do you want me to start believing today?

Renewal | May 29, 2022

In this series, we've been talking about renewal. Renewal is when we experience Jesus. It goes beyond faith, beyond head knowledge. It's experiencing who Jesus is. When we experience Jesus, it breaks the active circles in our lives. An active circle can be thought of as a confirmation bias. It's a circle when we think or feel something and then look to have those thoughts or feelings confirmed through others, the media, data, etc.. Circles of thought lead us away from God. What pierces those circles, is Jesus. We see this in the life of Saul. As we looked at Acts 9:1-27, we see Jesus come to Saul on the road to Damascus. Saul encounters Jesus, experiences the presence of Jesus, and his heart, his mind, and his life are forever changed.

Two incredibly important people in this story are Ananias and Barnabus. Ananias shows us what it looks like to be the presence of Jesus in others' lives. He treated Saul as the brother he would become, he treated him as His brother in Christ Paul, before the transition has taken place. We see Barnabus who was an advocate of Paul. Paul went to Jerusalem and tried to join the disciples but they were all afraid of him. Barnabus took Paul to the disciples, advocating for him, ending Paul's isolation.

Each of us, every day, has the opportunity to be Ananias and Barnabus to the people God has placed in our lives. It may be someone we meet at the gas station, someone we encounter while out on a walk, or someone we already know. God will speak to us, placing a person on our hearts to reach out to. Or as you're at a coffee shop, he may prompt you to ask the person in front of you how they're doing. We encourage you to take God up on that prompt. As we step into these prompts, we are changed from those who observe church to participating in church. The renewal that has taken place in our hearts continues and grows as each of us takes the role of Ananias or Barnabus for another.

Renewal | June 5, 2022

This week took us back to the beginning with Genesis and the significance of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-21. In the beginning, Heaven & Earth were united in God’s presence. When sin entered the world, God’s presence became limited on Earth. During Pentecost, the Spirit of God came and indwelled His believers making them mobile temples of the Lord.   Now, we as believers can choose to remain stagnant and dormant, or we can choose Renewal.

“Renewal is the refreshment, release, and advancement that individuals, groups, churches and cultures experience when they are aligned with God’s presence. It’s a resumption of our God-given purpose to partner with God fully, participating in His plan to flood the world with His presence.”

As we experience renewal, we have the opportunity to bring that renewal to others, to be the active presence of Holy Spirit in others' lives. Renewal is something we want to tangibly bring to others at our church and in our community. There are two key opportunities we’d love for you to consider. We encourage you to take a look at the volunteer roles available at Calvary, see where God is calling your heart, and take a next step.  Renewal Grant applications are also being accepted from now until June 30th. For more information, click the links below.