Dayspring Fellowship Podcasts

REFOCUS

REFOCUSREBOOT: Creating a New NormalOctober 18, 2020
Have you ever looked at an ant through a magnifying glass? They’re terrifying! Crouch down low, get your face near the ground, peer through the glass, and take a look for yourself.What do you see? Huge pinchers and menacing eyes!  Did you know they can carry 20x their own bodyweight? And when they fight, they fight to the death! Ants are fearsome creatures!That is…until you stand back up again. Then you can see things from a new perspective.Depending on how you look at them, an ant is either a terrifying beast or a total non-issue.The way you look at the ant – your perspective – makes all the difference!As we continue in our series REBOOT this week, we’re taking on the oft-avoided and sometimes taboo topic of politics. In a culture that is increasingly divided and where hostility toward those of differing views continues to grow, how do we as followers of Jesus engage in a way that honors Christ? What lens do we use to examine the issues, and how does it shape what we see and the way we respond?I hope you’ll join us this Sunday as we worship together and look to the Word of God for wisdom as we navigate the divisiveness in our nation and seek to live out the hope we have in Jesus.

RECONNECT

RECONNECTREBOOT: Creating a New NormalOctober 11, 2020
In a quick poll on Facebook this week, people responded to the question, “What has been the most difficult thing for you to cope with during the seven months of pandemic?” A variety of responses came in, but there was one clear theme. Let’s see if you can catch it…                “Teaching school virtually.”                “No in-person church.”                “No gathering.”                “…loneliness…”                “…isolation…”                “Missing family and friends.”                “No hugs.”Not one person mentioned finances. Nobody complained about masks. Activities like sporting events, concerts, or movies didn’t make the list. What most people miss more than anything is community. We are wired for connection. God designed us for relationship. But the framework that afforded us the opportunities to connect has been radically altered, if not eliminated, for many of us.So what does community look like in a Covid culture? How do we connect and even BUILD relationships in this time where social distance is required?Throughout our Fall sermon series, entitled REBOOT, we’re taking a look at what it looks like for us to thrive and flourish in every area of our lives, even in challenging circumstances. This week we’ll be talking about how to foster connection and community in this season.

RENEW

RENEWREBOOT: Creating a New NormalOctober 4, 2020
A wise person once said, “Sometimes you need to talk to a two-year-old just so you can understand life again.” I’ve certainly found this to be true as I interact with our 2-1/2-year-old granddaughter, Avery. The wonder of experiencing life from a two-year-old’s perspective can be so refreshing.Until it isn’t.Just because you can talk to a two-year old, or see through their eyes, doesn’t mean it makes sense. Sometimes it just boggles your mind.Take these tweets (seen in video above) from parents who used the hashtag, #whymykidiscrying as collected by boredpanda.com.This young girl is upset because her dad told her it was her birthday. You think you’re crying now…wait til you turn 50!This sweet little toddler is unhappy with her mom because she won’t let her play with knives. C’mon mom, it’s never too early to start training for the circus!OK, maybe I get not playing with knives, but this mom is really off base. Her daughter just wants to see if the stapler can go through her finger.Even Avery, my own practically perfect, incredible granddaughter who never does anything wrong, has her moments. She was recently unhappy with her mommy because she wanted Cheez-Its for her snack, and Lexi had the sheer audacity to give her Cheez-Its for her snack, and it made her mad.Yeah, the mind of a two-year-old is incredible…until it makes no sense.Sometimes those big emotions are just too much for little ones to handle. And while we hide our smiles and choke back the laughter, we also need to help them learn how to navigate the world of feelings appropriately. Because it’s not nearly so funny when the fit is being pitched by a THIRTY-TWO-year-old! Learning to process emotions in a healthy way is work. Hard work. And this year is pushing everyone’s emotional healthy to the edge of sanity. It’s time to get to work getting emotionally healthy.We’re in the midst of our Fall sermon series entitled REBOOT. We’re taking a look at how we, as followers of Jesus, can thrive in every area of our lives, regardless of the circumstances around us. We’re forward focused, and looking for the opportunities that God has embedded in this season, for our growth, health, and maturity in Christ. This week we’re taking a look at what God’s Word has to teach us about being emotionally healthy. Because you can’t be spiritually healthy without being emotionally healthy!

REINVENT

REINVENTREBOOT: Creating a New NormalSeptember 27, 2020
First instituted in 1901, speed limits are assigned to increase road safety and reduce the risk of traffic accidents. For a long time, individual states were responsible for determining their own speed limit laws. After oil shortages in the ‘70s, Congress established a national maximum speed limit of 55 mph which was signed into law by President Nixon in 1974. Congress returned speed limit authority to the states in 1995. Since then, 34 states have raised speed limits on some parts of their roadway systems.Regardless of what the posted speed limit is, it seems we always want to go faster! I try to obey the speed limit, but it’s so easy to just “go with the flow” of the traffic around you, then glance at the speedometer to discover you’re flying down I-5 at 10, 15, or even 20 miles per hour over the speed limit! I mean, not me, of course! You know who I’m talkin’ to!Speeding is a major threat to road safety. It accounts for more than 13,000 deaths a year, and it's estimated that speeding-related crashes cost over $40 billion a year. Though it’s clearly a dangerous activity, almost all drivers speed.This “need for speed” isn’t necessarily limited to our pace on the roadways. If the last six months have revealed anything to us, it’s the unsustainable pace at which most of us have been living life. What if blowing through our days, weeks, and months with barely a moment to breathe is just as dangerous to our souls as flying down the freeway at breakneck speeds is to our bodies?As much as we all think we want things in our world to go back to “normal” after Covid goes away or a vaccine is found, I’m not sure “normal” is all that good for us. So how do we leverage the lessons of a less frantic season of life? What lessons can we learn from the limitations of this season that might be beneficial as we look toward creating a more sustainable, healthier pace of life in the future?We’re in week three of our fall sermon series called REBOOT. We’re taking a look at what it means to thrive in every area of our lives, even in an unsettling and uncertain season. God has good plans for you. Let’s explore what His Word says about that together!

RE-ENGAGE

RE-ENGAGEREBOOT: Creating a New NormalSeptember 20, 2020
Being a great cook is more than just following recipes or measuring accurately. It also means being able to take a look in the fridge or pantry and using whatever you have on hand to make a meal, replace a missing ingredient, or add something unexpected to an existing recipe. Great cooks know how to improvise.Being willing to improvise means being willing to take a risk. And not every risk will turn out to be a culinary success. (That’s when frozen pizza or Uber Eats saves the day!) But there’s an abundance of freedom in learning to be adaptable, rather than being locked in to the specifics of a recipe – especially when you’re out of a particular ingredient!We launched our fall sermon series entitled REBOOT last weekend. Over the next several weeks, we’re taking a look at what it means to quit waiting for life to return to “normal” and, instead, move forward toward our goal of becoming more like Jesus in every area of our lives. Over the past six months, it’s felt a lot like we’re missing some key ingredients in our standard recipe for growth and health. So what might it look like to improvise and try something new?

REIMAGINE

REIMAGINEREBOOT: Creating a New NormalSeptember 13, 2020
Well, it’s back to school season! But…wait…The calendar says September, but did we ever really finish the last school year? Where did the last six months go? There was no spring soccer or summer baseball, no vacations to Disneyland or 4th of July fireworks, no Summer Olympics or Oregon State Fair. How can it possibly be September??I’ve grown to hate the words “social distancing.” I’m tired of the global pandemic. If I never hear the words “new normal” again, it will be too soon. If we’re all in this together, why are we so far apart? I’m done with the constant bickering about masks. And how many times can I rethink the way I’ve always done things and try to figure out a new way? I liked the old way! I want the old normal back! The only good news in this whole unprecedented, global pandemic is that we really are in this all together, because none of us can escape!I would bet you’re a lot like me. You can feel our culture sinking. Six months ago, we all pushed “pause” thinking we’d just have to get through this for a month. Then two months. And now, we’re six months in, with no end in sight. Friends, we’re never going to get back to “normal” as we knew it. We’ve entered an alternate reality. It’s kind of like someone downloaded an upgrade, like the ones tech companies force on your computer or phone. Once those files are installed, you always have to reboot and then, figure out how to do the old things in a new way.We’re launching a new sermon series this next week called “Reboot.” Over the next eight weeks, we’ll be taking an honest look at what it means for all of us to move forward in this new reality, whether we like it or not. God’s Word tells us that, “…as we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need"…did you catch that?..."EVERYTHING we need, for living a godly life.” Even in a coronavirus culture. 

You & the Stranger: The God Who Turns Up the Heat

You & the StrangerThe God Who Turns Up the HeatSeptember 6, 2020
 
All that glitters is not gold;You can’t judge a book by its cover;Clothes don’t make the man; andIt’s what’s inside that counts.These familiar figures of speech are clever ways of saying that things are not always as they seem.We’re wrapping up our summer series, Stranger Things, this weekend. Over the past couple of months, we’ve been taking a look at the different ways God shows up as a stranger in stories throughout the Bible. In the process, we’ve been reminded, again and again, that our assumptions, preconceptions, or observations may not always lead us to what is true. We’ve been challenged to examine our own responses to the stranger, the marginalized, the different; and to that which is uncomfortable, unexpected, or outside our comfort zone. The goal has been to deepen our understanding of the heart of God toward people…all people…and to be willing to challenge ourselves to live out His heart more faithfully and authentically. Our vision as a church is to love God and love people. We love God best when we love people with an authentic, radical, risk-taking kind of love; the kind of love that changes hearts and transforms lives.  

Cleopas & the Stranger: The God Who Turns Up in the End

Cleopas & the StrangerThe God Was There All AlongAugust 30, 2020
Blindness affects millions of people all over the world. There are a number of things that can cause permanent blindness, including repeated eye infections, conditions like glaucoma, cataracts, and some health conditions that affect the eyes, such as diabetes. In 1882, Helen Keller was struck deaf and blind at the age of 19 months by an illness that included a high fever. Historical accounts of Keller’s life have speculated that the illness was rubella, scarlet fever, encephalitis or meningitis; but the exact cause remains a mystery. According to a modern-day medical analysis, bacterial meningitis was the likeliest culprit. But just like there are many causes of physical blindness, there are also many different types of blindness. A popular air freshener ad refers to being “noseblind.” There are conditions such as night blindness, color blindness, being blinded by the sun, blind rage, or blinded by love. Or you might be flyin’ blind, with blind faith on a blind date! Blindness is more than a physical condition. As we continue in our Stranger Things sermon series this week, we’re looking at the story of a less familiar Bible character by the name of Cleopas. He’s only mentioned a couple of times in scripture. But the encounter recorded for us in the book of Luke about Cleopas’ journey on the road to Emmaus following the crucifixion of Jesus reveals to us another type of blindness…the blindness of disillusionment. I’d guess that most, if not all of us, have wrestled with some level of disappointment or disillusionment in the past few months. We’re all processing a variety of losses and working through grief. If we’re not careful, those things can blind us, much like they did Cleopas, to what God wants us to see, do, and be.

Ezekiel & the Stranger: The God Who Turns Up the Volume

Ezekiel & the StrangerThe God Who Turns Up the VolumeAugust 23, 2020
In 1969, one of the longest running television shows in the United States debuted. Sesame Street has been on the air continuously ever since. If you were a kid who grew up watching or you had kids who watched, you most likely remember the song, One of These Things Is Not Like the Others. Kids were encouraged to identify which one out of four similar items, was different and didn’t belong with the rest. While our culture celebrates uniqueness, difference, and individuality, as humans, we also want desperately to connect, to identify, to belong.As we continue in our Stranger Things series this week, we’re taking a look at the prophet Ezekiel. His story is definitely unique and, to be honest…kinda weird! Ezekiel was both a priest and a prophet; an exile, living in Babylon during one of the darkest times in the history of Judah. He’s a man without a country, living as a stranger, even among his own people who had forsaken their covenant relationship with the Living God. And if that wasn’t difficult enough, God called Ezekiel to be a messenger to the people of Judah in some very strange and uncomfortable ways.Feeling like the one thing that “doesn’t belong” is hard. Ezekiel’s story reminds us that as followers of Jesus, we are called to be different, to be strangers in a world that is not our home. We too have a message from God to share with the people around us; people He desperately loves and longs to have a relationship with. Ezekiel’s story will challenge us to step out of our comfort zones and into God’s calling for our lives, even when it might be uncomfortable.

Isaiah & the Stranger: The God Who Turns Life Upside Down

Isaiah & the StrangerThe God Who Turns Life Upside DownAugust 16, 2020
Have you ever had the experience of bumping up against someone else’s assumptions about you? Or maybe you’ve been the one making assumptions about someone else? You don’t have to look far to realize that most of us are pretty good at making assumptions…about all sorts of things. At least we think we are. It’s so much easier than doing the hard work of pursuing truth. This week, as we continue in our Stranger Things sermon series, we’re taking a look at the life of the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah. We don’t know a lot about Isaiah, but we do know from his writing that God called him to the task of challenging the nation of Israel on their assumptions about God. That’s right…they (and maybe even we?) had some deep-seated assumptions about God that were literally destroying their relationship with Him. Have you ever even considered what assumptions you might have about God that may not be true?