Tag: Longmont

Most Listened-To Sermons of 2019

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silver iphone x with airpods

Our church’s website was recently updated, including a major overhaul of the sermon archive, which now allows you to browse by series and books we have taught through. Check it out here: White Fields Community Church Sermons

If you haven’t done so yet, you can subscribe to our podcast here, or just search White Fields Community Church in whatever podcast app you use. If you like what you hear, please rate and review us, as that helps boost us in their algorithm, and helps other people discover us.

I recently switched to the Overcast app for listening to podcasts. I like that it cuts out pauses and regulates audio to a consistent level, and allows me to make playlists. Overcast is only available for iOS, but the best app for Android, which has many of the same features is Podcast Addict. My wife’s biggest hesitation with switching to an iPhone recently was that she would lose Podcast Addict.

These sermons I preached in 2019 were listened to and downloaded the most:

10. Amos: Faith that Works

9. Daniel: How to Live a God-Honoring Life in a Hostile Environment

8. How to Be Right When You are Wronged – 1 Peter 3:8-22

7. What is Your Life? – James 4:13-5:6

6. Encouragement for the Fainthearted – 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

5. Count It All Joy – 1 Peter 1:1-9

4. I Could Never Believe in a God Who: Condoned Genocide in the Old Testament

3. I Could Never Believe in a God Who: Hasn’t Proven His Existence

2. I Could Never Believe in a God Who: Does Not Affirm Some People’s Sexuality

1. I Could Never Believe in a God Who: Sends People to Hell

Analysis

A few things pop out at me from this list. First of all, the fact that some of our more recent sermons are in the top ten means that listenership to our podcast is increasing.

Secondly our biographical look at the prophets, called “Remember the Prophets” was a lot of fun. Those books and their authors are often overlooked for various reasons, but their messages are very important.

Finally, our apologetics series “I Could Never Believe in a God Who…” was our second consecutive year doing a series like this, and clearly it struck a chord with a lot of people. These kinds of series are helpful both for engaging with those who might be skeptical about Christianity, and for teaching Christians how to respond well to those who ask questions. Oftentimes many of us who are Christians struggle with questions even though we choose to trust God and believe. As the church we engage with those issues and equip others to do so as well.

What Didn’t Make the List?

Leave me a comment below and let me know which sermon from this year made the biggest impact on you!

If need to refresh your memory, a list of our past sermons from this year can be found here: White Fields Sermons

Longmont Ranked the Number 1 ‘Boomtown’ in the United States

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According to the Boulder Daily Camera, the financial advising and credit monitoring company SmartAsset recently named Longmont its No. 1 “boomtown” after conducting a study of 500 largest communities across the country.

CBS Denver explains that the designation is based on a variety of factors including unemployment, population growth, the number of businesses created, and the local housing market.

Also included in the top 10 boomtowns were Greeley (#5) and Denver (#7).

Here’s the report from SmartAsset: Top Boomtowns in America – 2019

For those of us who are Christians in Longmont, we know that God has called us here for such a time as this! Please pray for our city and God’s work here, especially through White Fields Community Church.

Christmas Eve Church Services in Longmont

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Join us at White Fields Community Church on December 24, 2019 at 5:00 or 6:30 PM for a special Christmas Eve service which will include Christmas music from our band and choir, as well as a reading of the Christmas story and a message titled, “In Thy Dark Streets Shineth”

Location: St. Vrain Memorial Building, 700 Longs Peak Ave. Longmont, CO 80501

Invite someone to join you as well! Studies have shown that most people are willing to attend church on Christmas Eve if they are invited by a friend or family member. Consider yourself invited, and invite someone to join you and get Christmas started by focusing on Jesus!

New Website and New Series

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Website Update

We recently updated our website at White Fields Community Church. The bulk of the work was done by our Administrative Assistant: Ocean – and our friends over at CryBaby Design: a great company based here in Boulder County; check them out if you have any design needs.

Browse the site and let me know if you find any broken links or things that are out of order: whitefieldschurch.com

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Advent Series

Also, this Sunday we are starting a new series for Advent called God With Us.

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In our first message, we will be looking at one of the most over-looked episodes in Christmas story: the killing of the innocent children by King Herod, and why this story illuminates important aspects of who Jesus was and why He came as the promised Savior to defeat evil and reconcile us to God.

If you’re in Longmont, or nearby on Colorado’s Front Range, we’d love to have you join us on a Sunday this Advent. More information here.

Giving Tuesday

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adult birthday birthday gift box

For Giving Tuesday, if you would like to help support some great causes today, please consider these:

Thanks and God bless you!

Project Greatest Gift 2019

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Project Greatest Gift is White Fields’ annual outreach to children in foster and kinship care in Northern Colorado.

Last year we were able to provide for 241 kids and their caretakers, and this year the Health and Human Services departments from the counties we partner with asked if we could do more, and of course we said ‘yes’! So this year we are aiming to cover 314; the most we’ve ever done.

Clearly Project Greatest Gift is meeting a real need which is not going away.

In this video, Christine Appel shares some information about the great needs that these families face and how we can help:

Project Greatest Gift runs throughout the month of November, which means that we are already two weeks in, and over half of the kids and caretakers still need sponsorship.

It’s not too late to sign up to sponsor a family this year to help make Christmas more joyful, and ultimately to introduce them to the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

Did you know that children in the foster system are an at-risk people group within our communities?

In almost every case, the reason children end up in foster care is because of an unsuitable home environment, which often involves violence, neglect, drugs and crime. These environments not only result in trauma, but they are also associated with poverty. Many foster care situations are kinship care, which means the child is cared for by a relative, which can create a financial burden, especially in the case of grandparents living on pension.

Poverty has a profound impact on a child’s mental and physical well-being. In other words, the suffering that a child who is raised in this environment endures is not only limited to their childhood, but can adversely impact the rest of their life.

Our church, White Fields Community Church, has a history of ministering to children in the foster system. Through some of our leaders, we have developed a great relationship with the Health and Human Services departments in Weld and Adams Counties, and we are able to make an impact in the lives of needy families in our area. In recent years, we have had the special opportunity to get to meet and serve these families at a Christmas event we help put on for them in Greeley at which the gifts are distributed.

If you would like to be involved, visit us on a Sunday morning this November, leave a comment below, or contact the church here.

If you can’t participate but would like to support this endeavor financially, you can make a donation by clicking here, and choosing Project Greatest Gift from the drop-down menu. 100% of your donation will go straight to the kids and their families.

Thoughts on Prayer: “God is Most Glorified in Our Dependence On Him”

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Recently I sat down with Matthew Spencer of #LongmontPrays, a local initiative to encourage prayer in Longmont.

In this interview, I share some thoughts on prayer, such as that intimacy is created through shared experience, and we get to share experience with God through prayer, thus building intimacy.

We go on to talk about Jesus and how he was the embodiment of God’s glory, and that he showed us by example what it means to be dependent on the Father.

Check out the interview; I hope it encourages and blesses you!

Encouragement for the Fainthearted

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back view photo of person walking out of a cave

It’s been said that if you speak to hurting people, you will never lack an audience.

In Paul’s 2nd Letter to the Thessalonians, he wrote to a group of people who were discouraged and fainthearted, worn down and tired from the struggles of life. Maybe you can relate to those feelings as well.

In 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul gives the Thessalonians three things in order to encourage these fainthearted people: an outside perspective, an explanation of God’s justice, and a surprising prayer.

An Outside Perspective

We know that the Thessalonians were dealing with very difficult things: persecution, false teachers, problematic people in their congregation. And yet, Paul, in seeking to encourage them, gives them an outside perspective on how they are doing. He tells them that he can see growth in their life, in the areas of faith and love.

We all need those people in our lives who will put their hand on your shoulder, look you in the eye, and tell you what they see in you. I’ve had a few people like that in my life, and it is incredibly powerful.

This isn’t only true in regard to encouragement; sometimes we need someone to do that for us in order to help us see where we’re off-track or need to improve. An important, but often overlooked passage in the book of Genesis is Genesis 49, where Jacob gathers his sons to him in his old age and gives each of them a “blessing suitable for them” (Genesis 49:28). He takes each of his sons, and speaks into their lives, telling them what he sees in them that he is proud of, and what he sees in them which is cause for concern.

For parents, I think this is absolutely essential: that we give our children and outside perspective on what we see in them. It can be incredibly life-giving.

This is also important in friendships. This past week, in the wake of Pastor Jarrid Wilson’s death by suicide, there has been an outpouring of love and kind messages posted online from people who knew Jarrid. Many people who struggle with depression are overwhelmed by negative thoughts, and lies from the enemy, Satan, “the Father of Lies”, that they are alone, that people would be happier if they were gone, that no one would miss them, that no one cares about them, that their life is not worth living, etc. For a believer, our minds are the primary battle ground of spiritual warfare. To make it worse, our hearts are deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), which means that telling someone to “listen to your heart” is some of the worst advice you could possibly give. It is important, therefore, that we give those who are discouraged or fainthearted an outside perspective on how we really see them, think about them, and feel about them, so they know how much they are valued and appreciated, so they are encouraged by the growth that we see, and challenged by the things which cause us concern – lest they be abandoned and left alone to the spiritual battlefield which is their own hearts and minds.

An Explanation of God’s Justice

Many people feel that human hardship and suffering calls God’s justice into question (see: “I Could Never Believe in a God Who Lets Bad Things Happen to Good People”). However, in 2 Thessalonians 1, Paul evokes God’s justice in order to encourage fainthearted people.

He explains on the one hand, that God is not unfair in allowing these things to happen to them, because God is allowing these things and using them in their lives to shape them and grow them. Additionally, God is just and will deal with those who abuse and do wrong. Finally, God is beyond just, in that he will bring about a day of relief from suffering for those who are in Christ, will all sin, death and evil will end forever and we will be glorified with Christ.

A Surprising Prayer

My tendency, and perhaps yours as well, when I face difficulty that causes me discouragement, is to pray that God would take away the problem or fix the situation. Surprisingly, that’s not what Paul prays for when he prays for the Thessalonians. Instead, he prays that God would strengthen them, and that God would be glorified through them, no matter what happens – whether their situation improves or not.

As human beings we seem to be obsessed with our circumstances. In our culture, we tend to pray disproportionately for God to protect us from bad things happening to us (think: “traveling mercies”), compared to how much we pray for God to be glorified in our lives, whatever that might entail. I am challenged by Paul’s prayer here to be asking this key question all the more: How can I glorify God the most in the midst of this situation?

For more on this topic, check out the sermon from White Fields Church: Encouragement for the Fainthearted

Original Music by Michael Payne: My Times

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Michael Payne, who serves as worship pastor at White Fields Community Church in Longmont, just released an original song called “My Times”. Check it out on YouTube here:

Here’s what Mike wrote about the song:

The story of this song starts back in 1996 when I arrived in Debrecen, Hungary with my backpack and guitar. It comes from Psalms 73 and 31 and encapsulated the start of my journey as a missionary. This song would become a mainstay for our Monday night English language Bible study with the medical students. But then I left the song behind in Debrecen as we moved to Budapest where I felt God call me to invest in Hungarian songwriters and song-writing. Since our move to the States 21 years later, this song has taken on new meaning as my family declares this same endless truth to God again – “My times are in Your hands”, stepping out into a new chapter in life.
Music is not only about the song itself, but who you play it with and it was a great joy to record this with great friends.
I hope the story and the words of this song resonate with you wherever you are in your walk with God.

Mike is going to be featured in the Longmont Times-Call’s 100 People of the St. Vrain Valley feature, in which they highlight notable people from the area.

You can also listen to Mike’s music on Spotify: Michael Payne on Spotify

Why is Rape Wrong?

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rainforest during foggy day

Primates & Sexual Assault

Did you know that female primates are regularly sexually assaulted by male primates? Harassment, intimidation and forced copulation are regular practices of male primates towards female primates. [1]  Having studied the behavior of primates, scientists have concluded that “the sexual harassment of females is hard-wired into primates.” [2]

From a purely evolutionary perspective (if one holds that view), these practices can be seen to have evolutionary advantages, namely the propagation of the genes of the strongest and most aggressive males, rather than the weaker, more passive males.

The Limits of a Purely Scientific Worldview

In her book, Confronting Christianity, Rebecca McLaughlin points out that whereas science can describe the way things are, and the reasons why people do things, it does not speak to the way things ought to be, e.g. ethics and morality.

Science can tell us how things are. It can explain why, for instance, a man might have the drive to commit a sexual assault as an effective means of propagating his genes. But it cannot tell us why he would be wrong to succumb to that drive.

We can conduct sociological calculations to see what behaviors turn out better for the group and decide that sexual assault yields a net negative in the overall happiness of the tribe. But to call rape wrong, we need a narrative about human identity that goes beyond what science or sociology can tell us.

She points out that if we as human beings are nothing more than what can be described by science, and our story is nothing more than the evolutionary story, then we have no grounds for insisting on human equality, protection of the weak, equal treatment of women, or any of the other ethical beliefs we hold dear. [3]

In other words, we need something more than science and sociology to answer the questions of who we are and why we are here. If these questions arise merely because of feelings which are ultimately just figments of our imagination, and there is in fact no greater meaning to our lives or purpose for our existence, then we cannot justifiably claim that anything, including rape, is really wrong – nor that our feelings, such as love, have any real meaning at all.

But as McLaughlin points out,

Christians ground human uniqueness on the biblical claim that we are made in the image of God. Just as God calls creation into being, so he calls humans to serve as his representatives on earth, in special relationship with their Creator and with each other, and charged with moral responsibility. To maintain their beliefs about goodness, fairness, justice, and so forth, a secular humanist too must hold that humans are moral beings, distinct from other primates.

Created in the Image of God

Currently at White Fields, we are in the midst of a series called, I Could Never Believe in a God Who… (click here for a link to our podcast)

The first message in this series was one about the question of whether Christianity encourages the suppression of women and minorities, in which we looked at the issue of what it means to be created in the image of God, and what this means for a biblical understanding of human personhood, equality, and gender roles. (Click here to listen to that message)

This coming Sunday we will we looking at why the Bible matters, and why “crowd-sourcing” our ethics – i.e. the idea popular today that we don’t need an outside source such as an ancient book to tell us how to live our lives – is a flawed theory, doomed to failure – as can be seen by looking at modern history.

So…Again: Why is Rape Wrong?

To answer the question in the title of this post, rape is wrong because it is an assault against a human being who is endowed with dignity by nature of being created in the image of God, and is also an affront to the God who created us in His image and gave us His moral code by which to live. The way to be happy and successful, both as individuals and as a society, is by submitting to this fundamental design of our creation.