Feast and Follow with Knollwood

Church History: The Nicene Creed

On this episode, we look at one of the most foundational creeds of the Church, The Nicene Creed. 

Accounting for God's Faithfulness

There are some funny rules about what you are allowed and not allowed to talk about in polite society. You can ask people how tall they are, reciting a basic fact about their body, but you can't ask what they weigh. We are ok talking about vertical dimensions but not horizontal dimensions. You can ask people what they do for a living, but you can't ask them how much of a living they are making. 

This seems to apply doubly in the church and what we might here on Sunday. The idea of the pastor preaching on money, particularly the giving of said money, just seems distasteful at best and self-interested at worse. This isn't helped by jet-setting prosperity preachers often talking about the same thing. So it is easy to simply decide that there are other things to preach on, and just skip the passages and opportunities to talk about money. Or if we do talk about money, we try to make it as little as possible. 

And this is a great shame, because that means the the Church either speaks wrongly or not at all about the real thing our culture is obsessed with, money. Our entire culture is built on acquiring stuff, and the prosperity preachers fit right in to that message. Theirs is, "Give to God so you can get the stuff you actually want: more stuff." That's what secular culture does, too, just with even less attention given to God. "Give to your company (your time, body, attention) so you can get the stuff you really want: more stuff."

Now, when the church does decide to speak on it, it can be framed in a couple different ways. It can say something to the effect of, "Well, you just gotta do it, and 10% is the number." Or it can say, "Well, God has been pretty gracious to you, and to show your gratitude you should give something, and maybe start at 10%." Both of these approaches miss the mark slightly. 

What I am hoping to show you here out of 2 Corinthians 9 is a larger vision for your giving that gets at your heart. I'm hoping that after today you are not guilted into giving but awed into giving. Our main point today is: Your faith filled giving shows God's grace.

Church History: The Need for a Creed

On this episode of Church History 101, we look at the lead up to the Council of Nicaea! 

Worship in Song

We resume our series on worship by looking at the wonderful things that God is doing in and through us in our singing! 

Wiping the Window

Thank you for your patience as we catch up on podcasts! This episode is from our Mission's Conference with Vapor's Micah McElveen! 

Age of Persecution: Church History 101

Here is part two of Church History 101! Tonight we look at the Gnostics, Polycarp, and everyone's favorite heretic, Marcion! 

Prayer as Worship

Thus far in our series, there has been a lot of talk about Who worship is for (God), and how that is directed (God's Word). We've seen the Word visualized in the sacraments, and declared in the sermon. In other words, we've covered in depth the things that are declared to you. We have to have these as our starting points. We have to know what has been said to us before we can respond. And that is what we are going to talk about today, how do we as a congregation, as worshipers, properly respond to God's Word and work. We will be looking at this in three parts by covering the last three elements of our worship: praying, singing, and giving. 

Now, as before, each of these elements themselves are ordered by the Word of God and find their content in the word of God. So how does that work for praying? Does that mean that we are only allowed to follow scripted, word for word prayers from the Bible? While that in itself would be a lot to pray through, that isn't what we are told to do, nor is what we see in the Bible itself. Scriptural figures didn't only pray Psalms, but they lifted up their requests to God. As we see in our text, we are to pray about everything. Yet the Scriptures can guide what those prayers can look like, and in those times where we just don't know what to pray, we have a deep well to draw from in the Bible. 

Church History 101: Introduction

Welcome back to our Sunday Night Lecture series! This semester we will be looking at Church History! In this episode we look at how God used three different cultures to build the world of the New Testament! 

Preaching As Worship

Is there ever a time on Sunday where it feels like the worship stops? Many would assume that occurs right about now. This was an assumption that was hammered out of us at seminary. Someone from a church would talk about how we would "have a time of worship AND THEN we will hear the sermon." Did you catch what is being assumed there? Worship is all about the singing, because that is when we are *feeling* it. People's hands don't go up during the sermon. If they did, I would think you are asking a question. It looks instead like maybe this is the *pastor's* turn to worship, and the people will join back in at the closing song, but that isn't what the sermon is meant to be. It isn't *just* me worshiping up here. You are worshiping here, in this moment, as well. 

Physical Worship: Water and Wine

In our worship services, you may notice that there isn't much to look at. There are no elaborate stain-glass pictures of Jesus. There isn't much choreography to my movements. There aren't a lot of mysterious symbols and rites. But should there be? After all, is that not what many people are looking for these days? A return to older, embodied, dare I say, *enchanted* ways of doing things? 

God knows this, for He knows our frame, which is why He has given us those things in two pictures of the Word that are right in front of you: The Lord's Supper and Baptism. Wonderfully, these aren't symbols that you just sit there and watch. You didn't not come here to watch *me* worship with my body while you spectate. These are acts of worship that you *equally* participate in with your senses. These acts of worship are loaded with meaning that fully informed by the gospel. Yet these  elements contain mystery to them, too. Not because they are unexplained. But because it takes a lifetime to fully comprehend what these elements do in your life. 

The mystery that is there is that these elements aren't just show pieces to point you back to the Bible. These also, through the Word preached and by faith believed, are a means of grace for your soul. Your soul is grown by baptism and the Lord's Supper when they are taken alongside the preached word faithfully believed.