99 CHURCH: Recent Episodes
99 CHURCH
Ephesians 6:10-24Have you ever found yourself unprepared? Paul closes his letter to the church in Ephesus with an exhortation to be prepared, standing firm against the schemes of the enemy by putting on the armor of God. This week, we explore the significance of these pieces of armor and what they represent in our lives of faith.
Ephesians 5:21-33; 6:1-9This week, we explore the passage in Ephesians about submission, slavery, and patriarchy. If there was any passage in the New Testament that looks like a walking red flag, this is it. But what might we find if we look past the surface? Is there a way of understanding this text within its context that helps breathe life into our lives today?
Ephesians 4:25, 29-31; 5:6In 2016, Christian alternative band King's Kaleidoscope released a song that stirred up controversy among Christians, leaving fans divided. On the song "A Prayer," the F-word was used two times. Christians were outraged and it sparked an interesting conversation in the church about language. Is cussing a sin? What does Scripture say about profanity? Or on a deeper level, what kind of language should followers of Jesus use or not use? This week, we explore the power of our words and how God calls us to use them.
Ephesians 4:26-27Anger is a something we all experience, yet rarely talk about. Especially in the church. We think that Christians aren't supposed to get angry, so we end up suppressing our anger in the name of Jesus. But anger untreated, almost always causes us to make a mess in our lives, leaving a trail of destruction and casualties along the way. How do we deal with anger in a healthy, mature, and Christlike way? This week, we explore what Scripture has to say about anger.
Ephesians 4:17-32, 5:1-20As we walk through life, how often do we find ourselves reverting back to our old selves, living as who we were before we were made new in Christ? In today's passage, Paul exhorts us no longer walk in our former identity, caught up in the ways of the world. But how do we put on the new self? How do we allow resurrection life to flow through us?
Ephesians 4:11-16When we think of the word “ministry,” we tend to think of it as something reserved only for those work in the church. We see the calling of pastors, missionaries, and worship leaders, as more sacred and holy than the calling of baristas, coders, and artists. But all of it is sacred and holy to God. Ministry is the birthright of the entire body of Christ, which includes all of God’s people. And we’re all called to participate in it. This week, we explore the fivefold gifts, as we learn about the different ways we can express the ministry of Jesus in our lives.
Ephesians 4:1-16How do we grow up in faith? How do we mature into Christlikeness? In today’s passage, Paul drives home the point that you can’t be spiritually mature alone. God’s answer for our immaturity is the body of Christ. But how do we cultivate spiritual friendships that help us grow? This week, we talk about the types of friendships we need in order to mature.
Ephesians 3:14-21One of the core questions we must ask ourselves on our journey of faith is: How do we get what we know about God in our heads down into our hearts? In today's passage, Paul models for us a way to pray that helps us not just get the Gospel known, but get it lived.
Ephesians 2:11-3:13The world today is just as divided as ever before. We create ism's and phobia's that categorize people as the "others" to be avoided. But the Gospel calls us to something different, something more. Paul makes the case to the church in Ephesus that Jesus' finished work on the cross has destroyed every wall of hostility that divided us, from Jew to Gentile and beyond. This week, we explore God's heart for unity among diversity in the body of Christ.
Continuing the theme of spiritual maturity, Dan Fang reflects this week on some of the biggest barriers we might face in our spiritual growth. Especially if we’ve been Christian for many years and notice that we still seem to be “stuck” in the same place, or still drinking the spiritual milk referenced in Hebrews 5, it may be worth evaluating whether any of the following barriers to spiritual maturity need to be addressed. They include church hurt, our environment, busyness, distraction, and isolation.
Ephesians 2:10Have you ever found yourself asking: "God, what is your will for my life?" Some of us hear that God has a plan for our lives and it doesn't feel like a blessing, it feels like a burden. We live anxiously because we're afraid that we'll make a wrong turn and veer off of the will of God. But God doesn't call us to live that way. This week, we explore God's will for our lives and what it means that you and I are God's poem.
Ephesians 2:1-10When we talk about living, what we’re often talking about is existence. But when God talks about living, He's talking about something so much more, an abundant life. But there are three enemies of the soul that keep us from the life God promised us: the devil, the flesh, and the world. How do we overcome these enemies to truly live? And perhaps more importantly, what has Jesus done so that we can have life to the full?
Ephesians 1:15-23Paul continues His letter to the church in Ephesus with a prayer. He prays that as follower of Jesus, we would know these four things: to know Him, to know the hope to which we were called, to know the riches of His glorious inheritance, and to know the immeasurable greatness of His power. What would our lives look like if we truly knew these things? How different would we walked in the same power that raised Jesus from the dead?
Ephesians 1:3-14Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus opens with an epic prayer. It’s a prayer that celebrates the bigger story within which every one of our stories is a part of. We come to find that this story is not so much about what we have to do to get into God's good graces, and more about what God has done to welcome us into His blessing.
Ephesians 1:1-2We begin a new collection of teachings on the book of Ephesians. Ephesians opens our imaginations to what growing up and maturing in Christ could look like. While the church in Ephesus got off to a powerful start, we later read in Revelation that they had lost their first love along the way. We seem to know far too much about how love starts, and very little about how it might continue. How do we recapture first love? And how do we sustain and grow in love on the journey of life?
Can you think of a time in your life, when someone showed up to give you the strength you needed to carry on? When the early Church gathered, their time together was marked by a supernatural encouragement. People walked away strengthened and filled with the courage to live into their destinies. What would it look like to be a community that embodies encouragement? Recorded live from Belong Retreat.
At the core of every human being is the longing to be fully known and fully loved. In the garden of Eden, humanity was naked and unashamed before God and before one another. But because of sin, we often find ourselves hiding and afraid from community. This week, we explore how the Johari Window could be a powerful tool in helping us reclaim our humanity in community, allowing ourselves to be fully known and fully loved.
We live in time where we're simultaneously vigilant about accountability, yet so turned off by it. We’re proactive in holding people accountable in the court of public opinion, yet absolutely turned off by the idea of anyone holding us accountable. Scripture calls us to sharpen one another, to help each other become all that God has created us to be. This week, we explore the final practice of belonging: accountability.
Throughout Scripture, we see many maternal and motherly metaphors used to describe God's nature, specifically toward us as His children. Unfortunately, the church in recent history has steered away from using feminine imagery for God. But it wasn't always this way. Church fathers and mothers throughout history used language about God that was quite fluid in regards to gender. What does it look like to know the maternal side of God? How can see God more clearly through the lens of motherhood?
Sociologists have observed a steep decline of empathy in our world today. And this has big implications on our journey of belonging. Thankfully, empathy is a skill that can be developed. As we look to Jesus, we see a God who embodies empathy in the way He sees and knows us. This week, we explore the fourth practice of belonging: empathy.
Like Adam and Eve, you could be tailor-made for the place of ultimate communion, and yet forgo connection due to fear. We experience profound loneliness with the very people we belong to because we hide, afraid of being seen as we are. Vulnerability is coming out of hiding and exposing our wounds so that we can be accepted as we are—not as we want to be. It's confessing our brokenness, our weakness, and our sins, not only so that God can heal us, but also to experience true belonging with His people.
Our world is full of division and hostility. There always seems to be walls of separation between groups, whether it’s because of race, gender, sexuality, class, politics, or faith. But the Gospel calls us to have an open posture of love towards everyone, even those who aren't easy for us to get along with. This week, we talk about the second practice of belonging: Chemistry. Is it okay to prioritize those relationships that come easy and naturally to us? And how we can build chemistry with those who are vastly different from us?
We live in a world where we’re constantly distracted, busy, and pulled in a million different directions every single day. It makes it hard to discern what to prioritize. Belonging is impossible to cultivate if we aren't willing to make it a priority. We only have so much time, which beckons us to ask ourselves: How should we spend our time? And more importantly, who should we spend our time with? This week, we explore the first of five practices that cultivate belonging in a community: Priority.
In recent years, America declared loneliness a public health epidemic. We all know what it's like to feel unseen, unknown, and unloved. But this isn't the way God created us to live. We were made to belong. We all want to find belonging, but most of us don't know. This week, we begin a journey of exploring key practices that can help us cultivate belonging in a lonely world.
Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people come alive. Jesus didn't die on the cross for us to merely exist. He died on the cross so that we can have life to the full. Easter reminds us that Jesus is alive and He is making all things new.
Anywhere you go in the world, you will almost always find some dude on a horse. There's always some conqueror on top of a warhorse memorialized as a statue. Yet, the image of Jesus we remember on Palm Sunday is Him riding on a donkey. In doing so, Jesus was making a statement about the kind of King He was: a humble and meek King, turning the ways of the world upside-down.
There’s a kind of fatigue that attacks the body, but there’s another kind of fatigue that attacks the soul. Many of us are tired. But it’s not just our bodies that are tired, our souls are weary. Yet, we follow a Savior who meets us in the middle of tiredness. We believe in a God who’s powerful enough to give us strength, yet human enough to be tired with us. What does it look like for Jesus to meet us in our weariness and give our souls the rest it needs?
We live in a world where millions of people go hungry every day, while millions more have so much food that they don't know what to do with it. Throughout history, we find that fasting is one of the main practices followers of Jesus have adopted to move in love toward the hungry and the poor. This week, we explore fasting, not just as a practice for personal transformation, but as a means for generosity, service, and justice.
All throughout Scripture, we see fasting and prayer go together. You can pray without fasting, and fast without praying, but there's something special that happens when the two are combined. Fasting is a practice that both amplifies God's voice to us and our voice to God. This week, we explore the power of fasting to help us hear God more clearly, and release His power and breakthrough in our lives.
We want to live comfortable life’s. The idea of self-denial or delayed gratification seems so foreign to our culture. Yet, Jesus once said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves.” Fasting is one of the best ways to cultivate a heart of self-denial. We find that as we fast, we’re able to tap into the Spirit’s power that purifies us and transforms our whole selves. This week, we continue our collection on fasting by exploring fasting as a way to feed the Spirit and starve the Flesh.
Fasting is one of the most misunderstood and least practiced spiritual disciplines in the Church today. Simply put, we just don't fast anymore. But that wasn't always the case. For over a thousand years, fasting was a core practice in the life of the average follower of Jesus. What might we recapture if we began fasting again? What beauty and breakthrough awaits us in this ancient practice? This week, we begin a new collection of teachings centered around fasting.
We all carry longings and unmet desires in this life -- and for the singles longing for marriage, that's one demographic the church often shies away from. Is singleness just a "waiting room" we are forced to pass the time in? Or is there an inner transformation in our hearts and minds that God invites us to experience? This week, join us as we study the power of perseverance at work in our deepest longings.
Culture has a lot to say about love and marriage. The movies we watch, the music we listen to, the stories we learn, all shape our understanding of what marriage is. But is everything we've learned about marriage good and true? This week we explore common myths associated relationships, and ask what God has to say about the matter.
When we are truly present with people, we begin to see them as God sees them. We come to discover that people are not problems to be solved. They are mysteries to be explored. This week, we explore the story of Barnabas and how God calls us to draw out the best in one another.
If we were to be completely honest with ourselves, most of us struggle being fully present with others, especially those who are most important to us. We struggle being present with our friends, our family members, our partners, our kids, our co-workers, our neighbors. But a life attentive to God always leads to a life attentive to others. What if we could learn how to be like Jesus, and be fully present with the people in our lives? This week, we explore the power of showing up, and how God shows up when we show up for one another.
How many times in our lives have we missed out on something truly beautiful because we weren't present enough to notice it? How many life-changing interactions, miracles, and God moments do we pass by on a daily basis? The practice of mindfulness is one way we could discipline ourselves to be more present. Mindfulness is the art of holy noticing, a sacred way of noticing God and what He's doing in our everyday lives. How might mindfulness help us be more present to enjoy the abundant life God has for us? What is waiting for us in the here and now?
Every single day, there are countless forces fighting to take us out of the present moment; as a parent, as a spouse, as a friend, as a follower of Jesus. How many times in our lives did we need to be fully present, when we were mostly absent? The devil would love to keep our minds in the past or in the future, but God calls us to live fully in the present, here and now. What does it look like to make our homes in the moment? How different would our lives look if we were to be more present this year?
Christmas morning, the world woke up, went about their business, and had no idea that they were visited by God Himself. How often do we miss God because we expect Him to move in spectacular fashion? The song of the angels, and the story surrounding it, reminds us that God's glory is often hidden in the ordinary.
Many of us struggle with waiting. In a culture of instant gratification, what can Zechariah's story and song teach us about waiting? About silence? This week we explore the story behind Zechariah's song and how God often uses our waiting and silence for something greater than we could ever imagine.
When most of us think of Mary, a certain image comes to mind. We imagine this mild, meek, and passive motherly figure, who doesn't have much to say. In many ways, our culture has silenced Mary, seeing her merely as a vehicle for Jesus to come through. But if we read the Scriptures, we come to find that Mary wasn't really silent at all. She has a bold, distinct voice. She has a message and a story to tell. This week, we explore Mary's song found in Luke 1, otherwise known as the "Magnificat." What could Mary's song teach us this Advent season? And how could we join in her song today?
An important part of our vision as a church is to pursue shalom in San Francisco. Shalom is the Hebrew word for peace. But it's not the kind of peace that's simply the absence of conflict. Shalom is so much more. This week, we explore the meaning of this word shalom and how God calls us to participate in His work of justice here in our city.
In the church, we place such a strong emphasis on belonging. And while it's important to focus on where we belong, it's also important to consider who we are to become. When rebels and runaways come home, they don’t stay rebels and runaways. They become something more. This week, we explore who God is forming us to be and how we can be intentional in the process of becoming.
For our anniversary gathering, guest speaker Dave Gibbons shares about how beautiful life can be once we make space to hear and see God's voice in our lives. What would it look like to live every day in anticipation of God's wonder? What if we looked for God in the unexpected and unfamiliar people He's placed in our lives?
When considering Christian faith and practice, we regularly ask, "Is it true?" or "Is it good?" But the question we don't ask enough is, "Is it beautiful?" What if we did more than just try to convince people of the truth or boast moral superiority? What if the church could be a place where people can discover the beauty of God? This week, we continue unpacking our vision as we explore the necessity of beauty in our faith.
Why do people run away from God? Why do people rebel against Him and try to go their own way? At the heart of every rebel and runaway is a misconception or misunderstanding about who God is and what He's really like. And more often than not, it's the church who's misrepresented Him to the world. Jesus came for the outcasts, the misfits, and overlooked, and the marginalized. The people that the religious leaders excluded, were actually the ones welcomed in by God. What would it look like to be a home for the rebels and the runaways, where people can begin to see God as He truly is?
Why does 99 exist? What do we mean when we say that we're a church in San Francisco for the rebels and the runaways? We're beginning a new collection of teachings exploring our vision as a church community. This week, Pastor Mickey shares the story of 99: how we came to be and where God is leading us.
In somewhat of a bonus teaching from our Seasons collection, we spend time this week talking about the importance of staying rooted in togetherness as we navigate through the different seasons of life. What does it look like for a community to move toward one another in love? And how can deepening our relationships with one another actually deepen our relationship with God?
Autumn is a season of change and transition, reminding us that our lives are in constant flux. We are brought into a deeper awareness that we live in a continual state of dying and rising, of ending and beginning. How does God call us to posture ourselves in the bittersweetness of this season? This week we conclude our Seasons collection with a look at the season of Autumn.
Summer is a season marked by joy and abundance. It's a sweet season where our senses come alive to the goodness of God all around us. How does God call us to posture ourselves during this delightful season of the soul? This week, we explore the season of summer and how we can expect God to move during these times.
Spring always springs forth from winter. In the spring season of the soul, we experience new life, hope, growth, and renewal. And while springtime is meant to be enjoyed, we must be careful not to squander it. Spring is a time to sow seeds, dream again, and pursue God wholeheartedly. This week, we explore the spiritual season of spring, and how God calls us to posture ourselves in the midst of it.
On the journey of life, we go through many different seasons. It's important to know what season God has put you in, so that you can work with Him, instead of against Him, in all He's doing in you. One way to better understand the different types of seasons we find ourselves in, is by observing the seasons of nature.This week, we explore the spiritual season of winter, and how God calls us to posture ourselves and respond in its midst.
Can we really "hear God's voice"? In this week's session, we discuss the very real doubts and insecurities we may have around our ability to hear God speaking to us, and then dive into a practical workshop around understanding the various ways God may already be speaking to us. We also demystify the "prophetic" and discuss how we can start having the faith to give what we are hearing from God to others in love.
Our "Key Questions" series for the summer has been addressing the raw and real questions that we need to ask ourselves that end up defining our lives and our faith. In this week's sermon, our very own community member Joseph Ilustrisimo shares about 5 "powerful questions" - ones that are the right questions to ask and that change the trajectory of your life - that he has asked and how God has specifically moved in his life to answer them. It's a powerful and personal set of testimonies that he shares!
This week, we continue our summer series "Key Questions" and dive into the hot button topic of deconstruction. It's something that many of us are either in process of, or have gone through, yet so rarely discussed in the church. This week, the sermon mostly consisted of an activity and discussion prompted by various statements about deconstruction in the style of Jubilee's Spectrum series, which has been omitted from this recording.
We kick off our new sermon series for the summer, Key Questions, that's focused on the deep questions that cut us to our core that end up defining our lives and our faith. Many of us don't think about these deeper questions simply because we don't have the space or time to. This week, Dan taught on how we can cultivate that through the eremos, the places of wilderness that Jesus often withdrew to be alone with God, and also shared some of his personal testimony about what the eremos has looked like in his life.
Have you ever felt stuck in life? Many of us know that Jesus came to offer us life in all of its fullness. We want to live, but we don’t know how. Instead, we find ourselves stuck in our numbness and apathy. How do we get unstuck and move toward the life that Jesus promises us?
Have you ever tried to help God? We often have a hard time trusting in God and His timing. We end up striving in our own efforts to do what only He can do, often making a mess of things. This week, we explore what it looks like to live out of trust instead of striving.
With the rise of Artificial Intelligence, we find ourselves asking, “What is uniquely human?” AI can write sermons, it can write songs, it can generate images and videos. And yet, as incredible as AI is, there is one thing AI will never be able to do. AI will never be able to replicate the face-to-face experience of human connection. The feeling of being present with another human being. The sense of connecting deeply to another soul. This week, we take a look at Scripture’s exhortation to the Church to never stop meeting together and why our gathering is so important.
One of the most pressing issues in the church today is the topic of women in church leadership. Can women be pastors? Can women hold leadership over men? This week, we dive into the story of Scripture to discover what God has to say about this topic.
James Baldwin once wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” When talking about justice, there are two things that the Church in America cannot afford to ignore: our history of racism in America and the Church’s complicity that helped racism thrive. This week, we take a sobering look at these two things as we explore how the Gospel calls the Church to respond.
We live in a violent world. From wars to mass shootings to domestic violence, it’s easy to see that our world is bent towards violence. But Jesus shows us a better way, an alternative way to respond to the evil and injustice we see in our world. This week, explore Jesus’ radical call to nonviolence in a violent world.
The late great politician and civil rights activist John Lewis once said, "Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble." Lewis knew from experience that whenever injustice is confronted, there will always be resistance from those who benefit from that system of injustice. Jesus stirred up good trouble, it's what ultimately got Him killed. What would it look like to be a people who get into good, necessary trouble, as we confront injustice in our world? What is Biblical justice and how can we participate in doing justice with God? This week, we explore God's heart for justice and the Church's call to respond to injustice in our world today.
When we think of childlike faith, we tend to think of this mindless, leap-but-don’t-look, blind kind of faith in God. But those who say childlike faith means not asking questions must not have been around too many children. What if questions aren’t a sign of unbelief? What if questions are actually an invitation into deeper intimacy with God? This week, we explore three ways children teach us about the Kingdom of God.
What does it mean to be a child of God? What are the implications of being His sons and daughters? This week, we explore our inheritance as children of God and how understanding what we have access in the Father could completely change the way we experience life.
One of the first things babies do to express their humanity is play. Play is a vital part of the human experience. Yet, as we grow older, we become less and less playful. What if when God calls us to reclaim our childlikeness, He's calling us to reclaim our ability to play? What if there is something sacred and divine about play that God is longing for us to tap into? This week, we explore what it means to develop a theology of play.
We’ll often look to find examples of how we might more childlike within scripture or from leaders in our faith who exemplify it. But how many of us feel an overwhelming sense of pressure to reach childlikeness, feeling not quite there or always missing the mark by just a little? What we think we should be doing overshadows the truth of who we are. God calls us His children. What if we stop trying to be like His child and start being His children?
One of the greatest challenges we face in life is learning how to remain childlike while growing up. Scripture tells us to put our childish ways behind us, while inviting us to embrace our childlikeness. How do we recapture childlike faith and childlike wonder? It begins by answering the most important question we could ever ask ourselves: what is my purpose? We kick off a new collection titled “Like A Child,” by answering this question and exploring our identity as children of God.
We all have needs. We all have wants. But what about our longing? Is it really God-shaped? Jesus welcomes us to admit our needs. God finds us to wrestle with our wants. If we’re willing to engage and contend, we will hear the liberating invitation to face and embrace our longing.
Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people come alive. Easter is the story of Gardener God cultivating life in all that is dead in our world. From the dirt in our lives, God brings forth a garden.
Jehovah Nissi: “The Lord Is My Banner.” All of us face battles every single day of our lives. Whatever battle you find yourself in, the name Jehovah Nissi reminds us that God is a banner of victory over our lives. What does it look like to allow God to fight our battles? How differently would we live if we knew we didn’t have to fight alone. This week, we explore the name Jehovah Nissi, as we discover what it means to know God as the One who fights on our behalf.
El Roi: “The God Who Sees.” Have you ever felt forgotten, rejected, misunderstood? Whenever we feel unseen by the world, we can trust that there is a God who sees us. This week, we take aa look at the story of Hagar, and how everything changes when we see the one who sees us.
Jehovah Rapha: “The Lord Who Heals.” When we think of God as Healer, we typically think of miraculous feats of physical healing. But we see throughout Scripture that God’s healing is so much more. It’s a holistic healing that extends to every part of our lives, including our bodies, our souls, and our relationships. This week, we explore the name of the Lord who heals, and how Yahweh turns the bitterness in our lives into something sweet.
God is El Shaddai. He is the God Almighty. He is the God of more than enough. This name, though mentioned only 7 times in Scripture, permeates throughout the course of the Biblical arch. This name reveals to us that God is not one that settles for enough. He is an abundant God. A lavish God. A prodigal God. How different would our lives look if we approached God not as the one who can meet your every need, but the one who gives you what you didn't know you needed? This week, guest speaker Noah Mata continues our collection by exploring the name, El Shaddai.
Jehovah Jireh: The Lord Will Provide. What does it mean to know God as Provider? We see this name introduced in an unlikely story in Genesis 22, as Abraham goes up the mountain to sacrifice his son Isaac. In this story and in this name, we discover a God who sees our needs, provides for our needs, and goes above and beyond our needs.
Jehovah Raah: the Lord is my Shepherd. What does it mean to know God as our Shepherd? How might it affect the way that we see and relate to Him? This week, we explore the name, Jehovah Raah, through the lens of one of the most famous chapters of scripture, Psalm 23.
God has a name, and it isn’t God. His name is Yahweh. In the ancient world, names were significant. They were your identity, your destiny, your nature. What does God’s name tell us about who He is and what He is like. We kick off a new collection called Names, exploring the many names of God revealed in Scripture. We begin this week by taking a look at the name Yahweh, I Am Who I Am.
In Part I, we talked about marriage as a fireplace, a mirror, and a storybook. This week, we continue our collection by exploring marriage as an altar, a workbench, and a table.
A recent study found that we have more single people in America than ever before. Less and less people are getting married. Less and less people are staying married. It seems as if we are drifting further from God's heart and vision for marriage. This week, we begin a conversation about how God defines marriage and how we can align ourselves to His vision for covenant love.
Sabbath is to be a day that is unique, different, uncommon, unlike the other six days of the week. Sabbath is to be a holy day, set apart for God. What might happen if we really believe each Sabbath is special? How might God meet us in life-changing ways? This week, we explore the final rhythm of Sabbath: Worship.
All too often, the beauty that’s in the world is overshadowed by the ugly. How do we find joy in the midst of so much sorrow? We look to Sabbath, a discipline of celebration. Sabbath is so much better than a day off; it’s a day devoted to joy and celebration and beauty. This week, we explore Sabbath as an invitation into delight.
Despite working more and owning more than ever before, we are still unhappy and restless. Rest always seems to be out of reach. How to we break free from the restlessness of our age and the never-ending desire for more? This week, we explore rest as rebellion against the spirit of restlessness, and how Sabbath liberates us to rest.
We are tired. Our bodies are tired. Our souls are tired. How do we tap into the life Jesus promises us? We find the answer in the ancient spiritual rhythm of Sabbath. What is Sabbath and how can we practice it in the modern life?
How often do we miss out on what God is doing because it doesn’t look the way we expected it to? How do we let go of what we pictured to step into what God purposed? Christmas reminds us that God’s greatest gift to the world came wrapped in the most unexpected packaging.
Familiarity kills wonder. Could it be that we have become too familiar with the Christmas story that it no longer stirs wonder within us? Have we sanitized the humanity out of the story of Jesus' birth? We experience God-With-Us in a new way when we realize that Jesus came into the world the same way we did, through a womb.
Guest Speaker Naseem Khalili takes us on an exploration into one of the core themes of Advent: Joy. What is joy and how do we access this joy in the midst of so much sorrow and darkness in our lives? We find that as we seek the face of joy, surround ourselves with the church body, and surrender to the Holy Spirit's work in us, we begin experiencing the joy of the Lord.
Human beings are incredible. We flew to the moon, created highways, mastered flight; yet, with all our achievements and advances, with all the incredible things we've accomplished and created, the one thing we can't seem to figure out is how to find peace. How do find peace in our souls? This week, we remember the peace that came long ago and the peace we continue to anticipate today.
Jesus' arrival sparked more than just a holiday; it sparked a rebellion. He challenged the ways of the world that left us without life and ushered in a new way of living that brought hope, peace, joy, and love to humanity. We begin our Advent collection this year by exploring the theme of hope.
When we intentionally look at our lives through the lens of gratitude and thanksgiving, we’ll be able to see the goodness of God in His provision for us, His presence with us, and what He is producing in us.
What do we do when we come up against disappointment in our lives? What do we do when what we think God is doing is different from what God's actually doing? This week, we look to the story found in the beginning of Mark 2 as we explore how God moves in the midst of our disappointments, and how God often uses people in our lives to carry us through them.
Dr. Soong-Chan Rah shares a special word for our community in honor of our 4-year anniversary.
Jesus invites us to come as we are, but we often come as we think we should be. We cover and conceal our true selves in fear that our lives would be too messy for God. But God delights in messy worship. More than a perfect offering, He longs for an honest offering. What would it look like to offer up worship that is real, honest, and true?
When we think of worship, we tend to think of it only as an outward act; something that is coming out of us and up to God. But worship has a way of transforming the worshipper. One of the ways God forms us is through worship. This week, we dive into the understanding of worship as spiritual formation.
You may have heard it said that Heaven is like a never-ending church service. And if we were to be completely honest with ourselves, many of us shudder at that thought. Why has worship grown so stale, boring, and unengaging for many believers? What is worship actually supposed to be like? This week, we explore a weird snapshot of God's throne room found in the book of Revelation, and what the four living creatures could teach us about beholding God's beauty.
For many of us, the older we grow, the less expressive we get in our worship to God. And in doing so, we miss out on a valuable part of worship. Praise is the physical expression of our worship to God. What would it look like to actually love God with all of ourselves, including our bodies? This week, we explore the seven Hebrew words for praise found throughout Scripture, and what they have to teach us about expressing our worship to God.
Many of us would agree that worship is an essential part of faith. Yet, while worship may be one of the most practiced spiritual disciplines in the church, it’s also one of the least understood. What is worship? Why do we worship? How do we worship? This week, we set the foundations for exploring worship and its significance in the life of the follower of Jesus.
We often fear those who are different from us. Otherness makes us uncomfortable. Yet, the kind of togetherness God calls us to cultivate is one that makes space for those who are different from us. This week, we explore God’s heart for the stranger and how we as the Church are called to embrace and welcome them in.
The difference between a good story and bad story are editors. Every one of us is living a story. We need editors in our lives to help us make sure we're living a story worth telling. How do we invite others into the editing process?
Have you ever been hit with a reality check? Have you ever been disappointed when something didn't live up to your expectations? This week, we explore the tension between our dream of community and the reality of community, and how God calls us to hold our ideals and expectations in a healthy way.
Every healthy and authentic community has conflict. While conflict is inevitable, how we resolve conflict is up to us. How do we approach conflict in a healthy, mature, and Christlike way? This week, we explore key principles that will help us navigate our conflicts well.
A healthy community is often marked by a culture of encouragement. Encouragement is what the Gospel feels like as it moves from one believer to another. This week, we explore the power of encouragement and what the Korean word "Nunchi" teaches us about togetherness.
Why is it so hard to cultivate and maintain deep, meaningful relationships in our lives? Why do we continue to walk through life isolated and alone, trying to figure it out on our own? One of the greatest dangers the American Church faces in our day is extreme individualism. We are socialized to believe that our needs are more important than the needs of the community. How do we recover the togetherness of the early Church when the Church was a family?
In seasons of transition, how do we move onto what’s next well? As we explore the story of Joshua and the Israelites crossing over the Jordan, we discover God’s heart for our community in this moment.
Life has a way of hardening us. And if we're not careful, the struggles, disappointments, and burdens of life end up hardening our hearts. Calloused hearts keep us from experiencing God moving in and through us in our everyday lives. The question is, how do we remain tender? How do we keep an open heart to God in the face of disappointment and hardship?
Spontaneity is a polarizing term, especially in today's day and age. Everyone wants to forecast and fulfill their goals without factoring in the idea of unpredictability. Have you ever thought about how God had blessed you in the most unconventional, random moments? Do you ever think in hindsight that God simply puts you where He needs you to be when He needs you to be there? Perhaps there is some value in creating space for spontaneity, so the Spirit can help you bear fruit from your faith.
As we experience many different seasons throughout the year, so does our faith. Understanding what season you're in spiritually, informs what expectations you should have and what posture you should take. This week, we explore the six stages of faith, as we seek to understand where we are in our journey of formation and how God calls us to live in our particular season.
We are addicted to our plans. We are often obsessed with needing to know every facet, every detail of where God is leading us. But are we able to trust God, even when we don’t know what His plan is? Are we able to trust God, even when we don’t like His plan? When it looks so different than what we thought it would be. Scripture never tells us to place our trust in God’s plan, but to place our trust in God Himself. We are to be a people who choose to seek God’s presence over His plans.
The ultimate goal of emotionally healthy spirituality is to grow in love for people. Love is the mark of maturity. Love is the mark of wholeness. Without love, we've missed the point. What does it look like to embody love like Jesus? How do we love people well?
God reveals that His Kingdom vision of the multiethnic Church has intention, power and potential for us—as His followers individually, but more importantly for us collectively as His body of believers. Not just in our current context—but around the world.
Maybe you’ve heard it said: “You can do anything you set your mind to.” Or, “If you believe it, you can achieve it.” But are those things really true? Can we really do or become anything we’d like? Limits are a part of the human experience. A core part of becoming an emotionally healthy disciple of Jesus is learning to embrace and live within our God-given limits. We come to discover that our limits are actually God’s gifts to us in disguise. This week, we explore the limits we’re called to embrace, the limits we’re called to break through, and the boundaries we need to set to live faithfully within our limits.
If you are human, you have experienced brokenness. Brokenness is the sin that happens to us, the sin that happens around us, and the sin that happens through us. If brokenness is an inevitable part of life, what do we do with it? How do we heal? This week, we explore the power of vulnerability and how God uses our brokenness to bring about healing for others.
In response to the recent wave of mass shootings across our nation, we took time this weekend to lament and pray together as a community. Pastor Mickey shares a brief exhortation about how God calls us to respond as the Church in this hour.
On our journey through life and discipleship, we eventually hit what's known to many believers as "the wall." The wall is the place where there is no more certainty, the place where we begin to deconstruct all we once held so firmly. How do we navigate our season at the wall well? And what do we do until Jesus leads us to the other side?
We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are. In other words, we often see the world through the lens of our past. Part of the journey toward emotionally healthy spirituality is recognizing, acknowledging, and breaking free from the power of the past that holds us back, going back in order to move forward. This week, we explore how our family of origin plays a huge part in shaping who we are and how we can align to God's heart in shaping our future.
Have you ever felt the pressure to be who others expected you to be? Or became someone different in order to feel loved and accepted? In our quest to find love, value, and worth, many of us have become people God never intended us to be. How do we shed off this false self and become who we were created to be? This week in our journey toward Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, we explore the Self.
We often value the "spiritual" over every other aspect of our God-given humanity—the physical, the intellectual, the social, and especially the emotional. Yet, we discover that it's impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. Emotional health is a vital piece of our spiritual formation. This week, we catch God's heart and vision for wholeness in our lives, as we begin our new collection, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.
Have you ever found yourself at a place in life where you ask yourself, "How did I end up here?" We often drift through stretches of life aimlessly and end up surprised that we're not where or who we want to be. How do we keep ourselves from drifting? This week, we pause and ask Holy Spirit to help us assess where we are, as we realign our hearts to what God has for us this year.
Jesus didn't come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people come alive. We spend so much time talking about life after death, but what about life before death? Life in Jesus is life in fullness. Easter isn't just an event we attend, it's a people we are called to become.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Is there any other verse in the Bible that contradicts the ethos of our age more than this verse? In our world, blessed are the opportunists, the aggressive, the violent, the loud and proud go-getters. Yet Jesus said the world is promised to those who are meek. Despite what many believe, meekness is not weakness. What does it look like to walk in meekness? And what is the inheritance promised to the meek?
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Being poor in spirit, means being aware of our brokenness and inviting God into these empty spaces. It’s realizing and living into the inconvenient truth that we were not designed to do this alone or by our own strength.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
In a world devoid of mercy, Jesus offers us a better way. What does mercy look like and how can we become a people of mercy? This week, we share three ways God is calling us to express mercy during this Lenten season.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
How quick are we to move on after a national tragedy? How often do we keep scrolling after reading devastating news? We are a society addicted to comfort and repelled by grief. Yet, Jesus invites us into a blessing that can only be accessed by those who are mourning. What does it look like when we invite God and others into our sadness? And how might our tears shape the world around us?
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst and righteousness, for they will be filled.
People translate the Kingdom through the fruit we bear. Our mandate as followers of Jesus is to bear fruit. This week, Reward Sibanda shares a timely word about what God is up to at 99 and how hunger is the key to unlocking the fruit God longs to release in our house this season.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
God is always with us, always at work in us and around us. But not everyone perceives Him. How do we see God? How do we live in such a way where we aren't constantly missing Him in our lives?
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
With all the violence and war we see in our world, how do we as believers live as peacemakers? How do we join in on God's restoration project in our world? This week, guest speaker Noah Mata guides us into a deeper understanding of what it means to be peacemakers as we continue our exploration of the Beatitudes.
What does it mean to be blessed? When you think about the people in our world who are most blessed, who comes to mind? Jesus begins His most famous sermon with the Beatitudes, a list of blessings that reveal the value system of the Kingdom. The Gospel radically redefines what it means to blessed; it turns the standards of the world upside down. We kick off our new collection Upside Down with an introduction to the Beatitudes.
How do we interact with people who think, act, and feel differently than we do? Perspective is vital in cultivating emotionally healthy relationships. What we need is a higher perspective, God's perspective, to help us see others rightly and engage with them in healthy ways.
Many of us in the western church have experienced a great divorce between sexuality and spirituality. Sex is a topic we avoid at all costs in the church. But God wants something more for us. What do our bodies, our sexuality, our desires and longings have to do with formation? This week, we explore what it means to join sexuality and spirituality in ways that lead to greater wholeness with God, with ourselves, and with others.
The end goal of apprenticeship is to do what Jesus did. Every believer is called to continue His mission and participate in His work. But what is this mission? What is this work? And how do we keep ourselves from wearing ourselves out as we engage in it?
In our everyday lives, we inhabit a variety of spaces. Whether that space is our place of work, school, family, or friendships -- that space holds the potential for transformation in the context of community. This week we explore the truth that Jesus-centered community plays a significant role in our spiritual formation. Looking at the lives of two of Paul's closest friends, we see an excellent model for us in our pursuit of discipleship.
How do we actually become like Jesus? Is true transformation actually possible? This week we explore four ways we are formed and how we can intentionally orient our lives to be shaped into the image of Jesus.
What can we learn from monks and nuns who have devoted their entire lives to prayer and being with Jesus? While we may not be called to move into monasteries, the invitation is the same. This week, we explore Jesus' invitation to withdraw from the busyness of our lives to be with the One we love.
One of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is, "Who am I becoming?" But in order to move toward who we're becoming, we must first figure out where we are right now. We kick off the year by inviting Holy Spirit to search and examine our hearts, to show us where we are in our discipleship to Jesus, so that we can move toward who we're becoming.
The one the world had no room for makes room for the entire world. If the Christmas story teaches us anything, it’s that love makes room. What does it look like to make room in your heart for whom there is no room in our world?
The circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth were anything but ideal, yet Scripture records the angel of the Lord describing it as good news of great joy. What is true joy and how do we access it in the midst of our waiting?
What is God doing at 99 in 2022? Find out more about our heart and vision for the new year.
We begin our Advent season by reading the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. What if Zechariah's muteness wasn't a punishment from God, but a gift? What if silence is an invitation from God to experience Him in greater measure? In entering into silence, we enter more deeply into the mystery of God and experience true peace.
God calls us to practice gratitude not for His sake but for our own. Gratitude has a powerful effect on our lives. Practicing gratitude has been scientifically linked to significant benefits psychologically, emotionally, relationally, and even physically. It's no wonder the enemy wants to rob us of our thanksgiving. This week, we explore three enemies of thankfulness: complaining, comparing, and coveting.
What would our lives look like if we could see the world through God's lens of redemptive beauty? Where even the ugliness of injustice, pain, and brokenness can be made beautiful? The hope of the Gospel is that God is making all things beautiful. We conclude our collection on beauty with a short exhortation about how we can begin seeing our world through this lens of beauty.
We had the honor of having Dave Gibbons in the house for our 3-year anniversary. Dave posed a simple question: What does it actually look like to love the one? Tune in this week as we explore the power of seeing, knowing, affirming, and giving.
Stories have the power to shape our world. Stories shape our culture, our values, our dreams and ideals. They teach us about love and friendship and courage and hope. It's significant that the way God chooses to reveal Himself to us is through the story of Scripture. What if the stories we carry aren't just for ourselves? What would happen if we could create a culture where our stories of God moving were shared and shared often? This week, we explore beauty through the lens of story and how God uses our stories to increase His activity in our lives.
Flowers are commonly associated with beauty. We enjoy them because they're beautiful to look at and touch and smell. But what can flowers teach us about the Gospel? As a floral designer, guest speaker Sammy Go shares his unique perspective about what flowers teach us about God, about ourselves, and about the order of creation itself.
One of the greatest challenges we face in our spiritual lives is learning how to remain childlike while growing up. You never have to convince children that they're creative. Yet somewhere along the way, so many of us get disconnected from our creative nature. How do we tap into the childlike wonder and creativity we once had? And what would it mean for our lives, for our world?
Most of us don't have a problem seeing God as beautiful, but we really struggle seeing beauty within ourselves. How different would our lives look if "beautiful" wasn't a status to be earned, but simply something we already are? We are God's living masterpieces. Our lives are a work of art. When we live with that awareness, it changes everything.
When considering Christian faith and practice, we often ask, "Is it true?" or "Is it good?" But what about, "Is it beautiful?" Along with apologetics and ethics, there is also an aesthetic to the Gospel. Christianity needs not only to be defended as true or good, it also needs to be presented as beautiful. Beauty is integral to the Gospel message. But what is it that makes our faith so beautiful? This week we explore the beauty that saves the world.
We conclude our Vocation collection by hearing stories and insights from people within our community. Vanessa Liu, Dan Fang, and Jonathan Yun open up about how they discovered their callings and what they learned along the way.
[Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, the first 10 minutes of the discussion is not available. Sorry for the inconvenience.]
If we were to be brutally honest, work has become the most important thing in many of our lives. Instead of offering up our work to God as worship, we've made work the object of our worship. Work has become our American idol. This week, we explore what happens when we make work our idol and how we can reorient it to be an expression of worship unto God.
Why do we work? Is it just to earn a paycheck? Is it just to fund the lifestyles we want to live? Perhaps there’s something more. What if God gave work to us not as a curse, but as a gift? What if God gave work to us not for His benefit, but for ours? This week, we explore the relationship between faith and work, as we uncover the sacred in our vocations.
Do you live with a vision for your life? People with purpose are powerful people who change the world. What if we could be a people who live with deep and meaningful purpose? Dr. Deborah Loyd joins us to answer some of these questions as we continue in our Vocation collection.
What is my purpose? Why do I exist? Why did God create me? Finding the right answers to these questions changes everything. Yet, so many of us have such a distorted understanding of our purpose. There is a big difference between those who live their lives trying to earn God's favor and those who live knowing they already have it.
When was the last time you looked in the mirror and left understanding God more? Or worshipped Him for creating something beautiful? Or praised Him for His artistic brilliance and genius? This week, Ying attempts to unravel God's greater plan and purpose for our physical bodies as His image bearers.
Ready...set...(dramatic pause). This week, Jon Yun speaks on the mindset we need to run and finish our spiritual race.
We see in the Gospels that Jesus has an affinity for the broken. This week, we allow Jesus to move us into the intersection of brokenness and beauty. As we do so, we find that Jesus's paradigm of brokenness and beauty is vastly different from the world's.
"If you grasp the love of Christ, you won't grasp at the other things to fill you". This week, Vanessa gives a unique perspective on lust and speaks on how grasping onto the love of Christ helps us escape the need to feel desirable to people.
In the New Testament, there is a sentiment that those who belonged to God are estranged from the world. Here at 99, we call ourselves "a church for the rebels and the runaways". We believe that this epithet speaks of our identities as people who belong to God-that in Him, we are rebels and runaways who are alienated from the world.
The cycle of forgetting keeps us in a stuck place. The practice of remembering moves us forward. This week, Morene Chow speaks on the importance of remembering the many ways God has moved in our lives and shares strategies on how we can set up modern day "altars" of remembrance.
San Francisco doesn't need another Sunday Service. It needs a covenant community. This week we dream for what it could be like if we were a church known for nothing else but our love.
What could revival in San Francisco look like? This week, we look back to 1967 during the Summer of Love, where God stirred an unlikely revival in the small neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. We believe that the God who did it before can certainly do it again.
We cannot be an effective church in the city if we are unwilling to confront the harsh reality of gentrification. How do we care for our neighbors who are being driven out of the city? How do we support the most vulnerable in our communities? This week, we explore gentrification and ask what the Gospel has to say about it. The Gospel isn't the Gospel unless it's good news for everyone.
Every work of redemption begins with a word. What is God speaking to you at this very moment? The sad reality is that for most of us, the noisiness and busyness of our lives drown out the voice of God. But what would happen if we listened? This week, we interrupt our regularly scheduled plan to listen for the voice of God.
Loving God and loving our neighbor are two commands that were always meant to be held together in prophetic poetry. Who is our neighbor and what does it mean to love them? This week, we explore the importance of our homes in living out this command. What if our homes stopped being the places we hid from the world but havens to which the world comes for healing?
Why do you live where you live? There is a divine reason why God has brought you to where you are, that goes beyond career, or studies, or life experience. We see that where we live matters to God. More specifically for us, the city is important to Him. This week, we kick off a new collection exploring God's heart for the city and what role we play in reaching it.
Whenever God gets ready to do a new thing, there is always the temptation to resist it. We are in a transitional season in the life of our Church, with so many changes all around us. How do we make sure we don't miss the new thing God is doing among us? This week, we dive into the dangers of nostalgia and amnesia during seasons of great change. The devil would love for us to dwell in the past or in the future, but the present is where we find the Spirit of God at work in our lives.
When was the last time you looked in the mirror and walked away knowing God more? The culture of our day tells us that beauty is a standard to strive for, rather than an identity to live from. This week, Ying shares about how God redeems our broken relationships with our bodies, and how in Christ we are finally enough.
In our fast-paced culture of exhaustion and burnout, how do we live in rest? This week, we explore our distorted relationship with time and how God longs to redeem it through Sabbath. We see that God's love has a speed, and we experience life at its fullest when we learn to walk in rhythm with Him.
What is the Kingdom of God? How do we create Kingdom culture wherever we are planted? This week, Dan Fang leads us into a deeper exploration of the Kingdom of God and what it means to architects of Kingdom culture.
What does life look like post-pandemic? As the world around us reopens, what is God calling us to reopen our hearts to? We believe that in this season, God is calling us to dream again, and to radically recommit ourselves to the Church.
Have you ever felt a disconnect between your head and your heart? Between what you know is true and what you feel? This week, Morene Chow shares about how we can find God in the in-between and what it means to trust God with everything.
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself: What are the things I'm pledging my allegiance to? And does it clash with my allegiance to Jesus? This week, we enter into the story of Daniel 3 and explore the dangers of bowing to the civic religion of America.
The Church is not a "them," it's an "us." It's easy to occupy a mind-space where we dissociate ourselves from the Church, especially at a time when we're seeing Christians on the news doing things we consider embarrassing or far from the heart of Jesus. How do we reckon with it all? This week, Lisa Muloma shares about her personal experience discovering what it means to do Church as a family, despite the many things that would otherwise divide us.
It's official. We're living in a post-Christian world. Followers of Jesus have shifted from being the majority inn society to being the minority. How do we be the Church during a time like this? How do we engage with culture? This week, we kick off our new collection as we explore the book of Daniel and learn what it means to be a Creative Minority.
Easter feels different this year. How do we celebrate resurrection when there's death all around us? How do we celebrate Easter in the midst of increasing violence against Asians, yet another mass shooting, a global pandemic? It's in this tension where God meets us. More than hearing a nice Easter sermon or singing nice Easter songs or having a nice Easter service, God is longing for us to become an Easter people.
Many of us are quick to pass over Good Friday to get to Easter Sunday. But what about Silent Saturday? What can we learn about a God who remained in the grave before resurrecting back to life? This week, Pastor Christa continues our collection on the symbols of Christ, as we explore the grave and why silence is so important to us as believers.
The Cross is perhaps the most prominent, well-known symbol of the Christian faith, yet so many of us fundamentally misunderstand what exactly happened there. Is the cross where a violent father made his innocent son his whipping boy to satisfy his bloodlust and thirst for justice? Or is the cross where a loving God stepped into human suffering in self-sacrifice and forgiveness? We see the cross is not a picture of payment, but a picture of forgiveness and love. This week, we explore the cross.
Food is one of God's top love languages. We see in the Gospels that Jesus was often going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal. What does the meal teach us about the Kingdom of God? Jesus invited to the table all the people the religious excluded. The table is a lot bigger than we think.
Ying Mo kicks off our new collection, the Symbols of Christ, as we explore prominent symbols attached to the Christian faith throughout history. This week, we explore the symbol of water through baptism. What is baptism and what does it mean for us today?
We conclude our Story of God collection with the final Act: the Church. Why did God establish the Church and what does that mean for our lives today? We see a God who invites us to be drawn into His story, actively participating in renewing the world together.
This week, we explore the significance of Jesus in the overall Story of God. We find a Messiah who entered into Israel's story and fulfilled their mission to redeem and renew the world.
We continue the story of God as we learn more about the history of Israel and what it means for us today. This week, we start at Genesis 12 and go all the way through to Malachi, as we see God continuing His plan to redeem humanity.
We continue the story of God with Act II: The Fall. What is sin and how does it affect our world today? This week, we explore the moment where it all went wrong and how God had a plan from the start to fix it.
We begin our new collection, "The Story of God," as we learn how to live meaningful stories by immersing ourselves into God's story. This week, we start at the beginning by exploring the creation narrative and God's original dream for our world.
What is revival? What does it look like? How do we experience it? We conclude our "With All My Heart" collection by talking about revival and why God longs for His people to pursue it.
What are the things that hinder us from prioritizing the presence of God? This week, our dear friend Sarah Wallick from C3LA, shares a powerful word about allowing the truth of God to set us free so that we can pursue God's presence with all our hearts.
Community isn't just about belonging, it's about becoming. Who are we becoming together and what are we after? This week, we explore why pursuing Christian community is so important as God calls us to renew our devotion to one another.
We kick off the new year by launching into a collection called "With All My Heart," as we set our hearts upon the things that really matter. Maybe the discontent we experience in our lives is a result of our loves being out of order. This week, we talk about what it means to prioritize God's presence above our plans.
We conclude the year with our annual Examen prayer, processing 2020 with God. As we look back on this year, we remember that God does some of His most important work in the darkest places of our lives.
How do we celebrate Christmas during a time that feels closer to “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” than “Joy to the world”? We conclude our Advent collection by finding hope in a prophetic passage about Christ’s coming in Isaiah 11 and the humble and glorious nature of Jesus’ arrival.
We continue in our Advent collection, God With Us, as Ying Mo shares about finding God in our seasons of waiting. It's in the wilderness where we lose all sense of control and learn to fully trust and rely on God.
Have we sanitized all the humanity out of the Christmas story? We kick off Advent by reflecting on how Jesus chose to arrive on earth: through a vulnerable womb in all of the messiness of childbirth. We see that how Jesus arrived 2,000 years ago shows us how He is still showing up in the messiness of our lives today.
Most of us have offered thanksgiving to God as a response, but how many of us have offered thanksgiving as a sacrifice? This week, we take a look at one of the Hebrew words for praise, "todah," as we explore what it means to offer up a sacrifice of thanksgiving even before God comes through.
We conclude our Holy Ghost collection by diving deeper into the fivefold gifts of the Spirit and how they are necessary in order to experience maturity and fullness in Christ. This week, we learn about how the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, and Teacher function within the Church and in the world, and help you discover what the expression of your ministry is.
How do you know you're growing in faith? How do you know you're becoming more spiritually mature? In Galatians 5, Paul gives us the metrics for measuring our growth as believers. They're known as the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This week, we dive deeper into what the fruits are and how we could access them.
In celebration of our 2-year anniversary, Pastor Bryan Kim from Ekko Church in Southern California, shares a special message for our community.
What is the gift of prophecy? What does it do? How do we move in the prophetic? This week, we explore the beautiful gift of prophecy, as we imagine what our church could look like if we wholeheartedly pursued it.
Special guest speaker Isaac Kim teaches on what it means to walk in fellowship with the Holy Spirit.
This week, we explore one of the strangest, yet most beautiful gifts of the Holy Spirit: the gift of tongues. What is this gift and why does Paul long for every believer to practice it?
What does it mean to move in the power of the Holy Spirit? We find that there is a strong relationship between how we live and the Holy Spirit's flow of power through our lives. This week, we explore the power of God that enables us to see miracles, signs, and wonders.
In the modern day Church, we place a heavy emphasis on God the Father and Jesus the Son. But Holy Spirit becomes the forgotten God. If we hope to become the people God has called us to be, we must reignite our curiosity for the Holy Ghost. We come to find that the Holy Spirit is not a power to wield, but a person we're. called into relationship with.
Has 2020 panned out the way you imagined it would at the start of the year? I think most of us would agree that 2020 has been incredibly challenging and many of us are wondering, "God, don't you care?" This week, our very own Ying Mo, shares about navigating the storms in our lives and how God is always faithful to bring us through to the other side.
While it's important to read the Bible on our own, we are also called to read the Bible in community with both the greater body and the local body of Christ. This week, we explore what it means to read the Bible with tradition and with other followers of the Way.
Let's be honest. The Old Testament is hard. How are we supposed to read it? How do we make sense of it all? This week, we take a deeper look at the Old Testament and how we as believers are called to engage with it as Holy Scripture.
Why does it always feel like we forget the things we need to remember, and remember the things we wish we could forget? Living life in remembrance of God is absolutely essential to our spiritual formation. The way we do this is through the discipline of memorizing Scripture. This week we explore why memorizing Scripture is so important and how we should do it.
What is wrestling with scripture and why should we do it? Today we explore the importance of wading into the sacred words of God and struggling with the text — the good, the hard to understand, and even the parts we wish weren’t there.
What does it mean to submit to the authority of Scripture? And why does that sound so horrible to us? Perhaps, we have misunderstood the beauty of Biblical authority and how the Bible can become an access point to life the way it was always meant to be lived. This week, we explore the authority of Scripture with a little help from Star Wars.
What is the Bible? Is it just a holy rulebook, a guide to life, or something more? When we come to understand what the Bible really is, we are able to enter into a story that transcends our time.
We all know that the Bible is an important part of following Jesus, by so many of us struggle reading it. Perhaps the problem isn't in our effort or our technique, but in our posture. This week, we explore what posture God calls us to have as we approach Scripture and how it could lead us into an encounter with the Word of God.
Worship has the power to change everything around us. All God needs is our "yes." Listen to this powerful message by special guest Chinwe Omani Venable, about the power of worship in our everyday lives.
When we seek rest, we look toward vacations, self-care, sabbaths, etc. But what if Biblical holistic rest is so much more? When Jesus got tired, He found rest inn doing the Father's will. Jesus shows us that there is a rest and fulfillment that come only when we're able to take our eyes off of ourselves and focus on helping others.
What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus in 2020? Special guest Joe Oh walks us through the different stages of faith and how we can trust in the Good Shepherd to lead us and transform us.
We can never find true rest in the world or in ourselves. Only in repenting and returning to God do we find rest for our souls.
Starts and ends. Why is it so important to start and end the day with God? When we feel stuck in our faith, we must make space for God to move our hearts once again.
When we started sheltering in place, we hoped it would only be for a short season. But with a recent spike in COVID cases in California, it's looking more and more like this will be our new normal for longer than we expected. As we head into the summer season, we feel Holy Spirit inviting us to change our posture. Listen in as we go through 99's Rule of Life for the summer as we rest in Jesus, rest in one another, and bring rest to the weary.
Do you find yourself overwhelmed by life? We remember that Jesus too was overwhelmed. He responded by running to the Father. When our hearts are overwhelmed, we are called to run to the rock that is higher.
For every struggle we face in life, there is a "... but God." In this season, many of us feel tired on the inside. Tired from processing what's going on in our world, tired from sorting through our emotions, and tired of being tired. But God comes to meet us in that place to give us rest and renew our strength.
Only a united Church can heal a divided nation. There is power when believers come together in agreement, lifting their collective voice to the world and to the Heavens.
Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. George Floyd. As we turn on the news, we're confronted once again with the sad reality that racial injustice continues to persist in our nation. When will enough be enough? While the Church has offered plenty of thoughts and prayers, we must see that it's not enough. Faith compels us to action. How does the Gospel compel us to respond to racism?
What if singing was more than just an expression of worship? What if singing could also be an expression of prayer? We see a beautiful connection between worship and prayer found all throughout Scripture. This week, we explore the practice of singing prayer.
We assume information will lead to transformation. Right now, disciples of Jesus have access to more information than ever before, yet so many of us feel no less closer to being transformed than when we first began. Information doesn't transform us, encounter does. One of the places God chooses to encounter us is in our imaginations. This week, we dive deeper into the practice of imaginative prayer.
Have you ever felt like your prayers to God were "left on read"? This week, Pastor Christa reminds us that God is moved when we are persistent in our prayers. There are realms of Kingdom authority that require us to do the time.
Intercession is the place where we join with Jesus in praying for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. We see that our prayers can move God's heart, and with it God's hand.
You ever feel like your prayer life is getting dull, boring, and repetitive? You ever run out of things to say? The Word of God is the food by which our prayers are nourished and made strong. Praying the Scriptures is one the best ways to strengthen our prayer lives. This week, we dive deeper into the practice of praying Scripture.
We begin a new collection of talks called Essentials: Prayer. Have you ever been asked, "How's your prayer life these days?" Have you ever felt good about your response? Maybe God wants us to radically redefine what prayer looks like and what measures a successful prayer life. This week, we begin scratching the surface of what prayer is.
Religion says we have to reach for God. Grace says God has reached for us. In a time in our world when there is so much darkness, pain, and worry, Scripture tells us of a Savior who walks with us in our hopelessness and brings us back. Our prayer during this time is simple: "Easter Us."
We conclude our collection, Seven Last Words, a deeper look into the final seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. This week, we explore: "Into your hands I commit my spirit." At a time filled with darkness and uncertainty, are we able to trust in God and give up our need for control?
We continue our collection, Seven Last Words, a deeper look into the final seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. This week, we explore: "It is finished." This was not a broken Jesus' final whimper of defeat, but a mighty Savior's final battle cry of victory! What does "it is finished" mean for us today?
We continue our collection, Seven Last Words, a deeper look into the final seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. This week, Pastor Christa helps us explore: "Why have you forsaken me?" Lament is such an important part of our faith, but something the church often fails to do. God weeps with us at our graves before he turns them into gardens.
We continue our collection, Seven Last Words, a deeper look into the final seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. This week, we explore: "Behold, Your Mother." Jesus came to revolutionize the way we relate to one another. And in a time when the usual way we do church has been interrupted, we have the opportunity to come back to God's original vision for His Church: family.
We continue our collection, Seven Last Words, a deeper look into the final seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. This week, we explore: "You will be with me in paradise." Most of us have grown up with vague or theologically incorrect understandings of Heaven and eternity. What does the Bible really say about the after life? And how does that affect the way we live today?
We continue our collection, Seven Last Words, a deeper look into the final seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. This week, we explore: "Father, forgive them." Forgiveness is such an important part of our process of healing, yet it's one of the most challenging things Jesus calls us to do. How do we forgive those who have deeply hurt us?
We begin our new collection, Seven Last Words, a deeper look into the final seven sayings of Jesus from the cross. This week, we explore: "I Thirst." How do we quench the thirst of our souls? What can truly satisfy? As we begin our season of Lent, we're praying for God to stir up our thirst and desperation for Jesus, our Living Water.
A beloved member of 99, Kevin Libertino, shares a story about what God's been doing in his life this new year.
We conclude our Fake Love collection with a panel discussion featuring Pastors Mark and Gail Smallcombe. Our community submitted questions and we asked them. Mark and Gail have been married for over 40 years and pour out their wisdom, their insights, and their experiences to us this week.
What should you be looking for in your future spouse? Pastors Christa and Mickey answer this question as they draw from the studies of relationship experts, the Word of God, and their own experiences being married.
So much of what we know about love has been shaped by the movies we watch, the tv shows we binge, and the music we listen to. But what does God have to say about love? If we hope to have healthy relationships, we have to have a healthy view of love. If we want to understand what true love is, we have to look to the source.
The key to a fruitful life is abiding in Christ. But how do we abide in Christ when our lives are so busy, so hurried, and so noisy? A rule of life is a schedule and a set of practices and rhythms that help us create space in our busy lives to abide in Christ. Learn how this tool could help us intentionally abide in Christ this year and live fruitful lives.
We are constantly surrounded by noise and distraction. We find that the noise of the world makes us deaf to the voice of God. How do we silence the noise around us and within us to hear His divine whisper?
We cannot live in the Kingdom of God with a hurried soul. Our world pushes us to move faster and produce more, but Jesus' invitation is different. He invites us to slow down and rest, to move in step with Him. Sabbath is a rhythm Jesus gives us to help us slow down, rest, and delight in all of God's goodness. What would it look like to live from this place?
God's greatest gifts often come in the most unexpected ways. What if even the most unexpected, difficult, and painful things we experience in life are actually God's gifts in disguise?
Jesus came to a world that had said "no vacancy." But there were those who were willing to make room for the coming Messiah. This Advent, in the midst of all the business that come during the holiday season, will you make room to receive Him?
ADVENT SERIES — What God does in us while we wait is as important as what it is we are waiting for. In Part 2 of our Advent Series, Pastor Mickey shares about how God calls us to posture ourselves in our seasons of waiting. It's in the in-between where God does some of His most important work in our lives. — Passage: Romans 8:18-25
ADVENT SERIES — What we anticipate about the future will shape what we experience here and now. In Part 1 of our Advent Series, Pastor Mickey shares about the hope we're able to carry because Jesus came as the light of the world. — Passage: Isaiah 9:2
The key to happier life is not better circumstances. It's a better attitude. Cultivating a heart of gratitude is necessary for us to enjoy all of the good gifts God has for us. This week, Pastor Mickey shares with us practical ways to create a rhythm of thanksgiving in our lives. Passage: 1 Thessalonians 5:18
In Part 7 of our Covenant Series, Pastor Mickey explores the significance of sharing meals with one another. In the midst of our fast paced lives, celebration is a spiritual discipline we need to reclaim. As Jesus invites us to His table, we are called to invite others to ours. Passage: John 2
Have you ever gone through a tough season and wished someone would care enough to be there for you? In part six of our Covenant series, Pastor Christa shares about how we are called to be a people who care for one another, especially in difficult seasons.
Speaker: Christa Cho
Passage: 2 Samuel 9
Accountability is calling each other back to our Covenant with God. What does it look like to be a community that practices submission to one another? In Part 5 of our Covenant Series, we talk about how to setup rhythms of accountability in our lives. Speaker: Mickey Cho Passage: Proverbs 27:17
Conflicts inevitably arise as we pursue relationship with one another. Covenant calls us to stick around and work through our conflicts instead of running away. In Part 4 of our Covenant Series, we learn how to approach conflicts in a Biblical way. Speaker: Mickey Cho Passage: Matthew 5:23-24
God dreams were never meant to be accomplished in isolation. They were meant to be completed in Covenant. Covenant calls us to invest in one another's needs and dreams. In Part 3 of our Covenant series, we learn what it means to be with someone "heart and soul." Speaker: Mickey Cho Passage: 1 Samuel 14:1-14
God is vigilant to fulfill every word He speaks. Every word that comes out of His mouth is like an act of cutting a covenant. We should have the same character about us. In Part 2 of our Covenant Series, we learn about why keeping our word is so vital in building a covenant community. Speaker: Mickey Cho Passage: Matthew 5:33-37
Mickey Cho | Genesis 15:1-21 | San Francisco doesn't need another Sunday Service. It needs a covenant community. Why is covenant God's chosen way of entering into relationship with us? And how does that affect the way we form community with one another? In Part 1 of our Covenant Series, we learn about why the Church as a covenant community was always God's dream from the beginning.