The Unvarnished Jesus | A God of Self-Giving Love

Our 2024 Lenten series is a book journey through The Unvarnished Jesus by Brian Zahnd. The Unvarnished Jesus is a forty-six day Lenten journey taking the reader from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday on a quest to encounter Jesus in a new and startling way.

These forty-six daily meditations on the life and ministry of Jesus drawn from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are a spiritual solvent to help remove the layers of lacquer comprised of political and cultural assumptions that prevent us from seeing just how challenging and compelling Jesus of Nazareth really is. The Unvarnished Jesus is a forty-six day project to restore the incomparable image of Christ.

Bible Stories For Grown-Ups | Zacchaeus

For our Fall 2023 All-Church study, we’re reading Josh Scott’s “Bible Stories for Grown-Ups: Reading Scripture with New Eyes”. We’ll be looking at how reading familiar stories from the Bible through a wiser, more mature lens can expand our idea of God.

So often we’re introduced to these Bible stories in Sunday school, and we get the most simplified, surface level reading of them. But it’s important to go back once we’re grown ups and read these stories with fresh eyes, to see what new truths we can discover in them about God and the world around us.

Faith After Doubt: Doubt As Love

Lent is a six-week season of preparation for Easter, and our Lenten series this year is based on a new book by Brian McLaren entitled Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It.

Sixty-five million adults in the U.S. have dropped out of active church attendance, and about 2.7 million more are leaving every year. Using his own story and the stories of a diverse group of struggling believers, Brian D. McLaren, a former pastor and now an author, speaker, and activist shows how old assumptions are being challenged in nearly every area of human life, not just theology and spirituality.

He proposes a four-stage model of faith development in which questions and doubt are not the enemy of faith, but rather a portal to a more mature and fruitful kind of faith. The four stages – simplicity, complexity, perplexity and harmony – offer a path forward that can help sincere and thoughtful people leave behind unnecessary baggage and increase their commitment to what matters most.

Beginning Sunday March 6, your weekly reading, weekly sermons, and a new Online Connect Group will coincide as we journey together through Faith After Doubt.

A More Christlike Way: Deconstruction or Restoration?

The Well fall all-church study this year is a book entitled A More Christlike Way: A More Beautiful Faith.

Author Brad Jersak deconstructs four counterfeit ways and then explores seven facets of the Jesus Way. From the book description: “Christ’s radical revelation of true humanity beckons us, ‘Would you be human? Take up your cross and follow me.'”

For six weeks, the sermons and a brand new Online Connect Group will coincide, as we discuss A More Christlike Way.

To participate:

Purchase your copy of A More Christlike Way, by Brad Jersak, wherever books are sold.
Join the new Online Connect Group here.
Beginning September 12, hear weekly sermons based on the book, and discuss your reading in the Online Connect Group.

Reading Schedule

Sermons begin September 12, and the Online Connect Group begins Wednesday September 15.

Ex. On September 12, you will hear a sermon on Week One- “Read this First!” and Chapters 1-3, then you read those portions for yourself, then you will discuss your reading at the Online Connect Group on September 15.

Week One (week of Sept. 12)- “Read this First!” and Chapters 1-3
Week Two (week of Sept. 19)- Counterfeits 1-4
Week Three (week of Sept. 26)- Facets 1 and 2
Week Four (week of Oct. 3)- Facets 3 and 4
Week Five (week of Oct. 10)- Facets 5 and 6
Week Six (week of Oct. 17)- Facet 7 and “Finale”

Postcards from Babylon: Chapters Three and Four

This series is based on a book of the same title by Brian Zahnd.

Every week, the sermon will be based on the book, and the following Wednesday at 6:00pm Arizona time, you will have the opportunity to discuss the reading for that week in a new Online Connect Group.

Series Schedule

February 21- Chapters 1 and 2
February 28- Chapters 3 and 4 with special guest Travis Lovrien
March 7- Chapters 5 and 6
March 14- Chapters 7 and 8 with special guest Aaron Strietzel
March 21- Chapters 9 and 10 with special guest Jezekiel Vitalsey
March 28- Special Guest Brian Zahnd

From the publisher: The original gospel proclamation that the Lord of the nations was a crucified Galilean raised from the dead and that salvation was found in vowing allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth unleashed a shock wave that turned the Roman Empire upside down. Early Christianity was subversive and dangerous—dangerous for Christians and a threat to the keepers of the old order. Most of all Christianity was countercultural.

But what about contemporary American Christianity?

Is it the countercultural way of Jesus or merely a religious endorsement of Americanism?

In his provocative book, Postcards From Babylon, Brian Zahnd challenges the reader to see and embrace a daring Jesus-centered Christianity that can again turn the world upside down.

Purchase your book anywhere books are sold, and join us beginning Sunday February 21 for the Lent 2021 series, Postcards from Babylon: The Church in American Exile.

Categories