The Journey Blog

Note: This page serves as an archive for past blog posts which is occasionally updated for current events or needs. If you would like to follow Pastor Mark’s blog, you can find more up-to-date posts at A Curious Sojourn.

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Current Events

Hurricane Helene Disaster Relief

As we braced for the impact of Hurricane Helene on the coast of Florida and south easternmost United States, few were fearing the coming devastation to our neighbors to the north east in Western North Carolina. Several small towns have literally been washed off of the map while others whose entire economy depends on tourism have lost all entryways to…

October 4, 20242 min

Series

The Way Sermon Series

2000 years ago, as Jesus was preparing his apostles for life after the resurrection, he told them he was building his ekklesia or assembly through them and he used language like Kingdom and family. English translators would call this his Church. Today, when you hear the word church, you might think of a specific church with a building and ministry…

December 30, 20222 min

Discipleship Service

Ministry, Servitude, and Community

In church you always have a minister who talks about serving in the ministry, and being a community. Sometimes, often they don’t go into what that looks like. It’s left up to you to find out. It’s made important, without being thoroughly explained. So where does that leave you? In my experience, it often leads to self doubt of a…

August 25, 202211 min

Anxiety Faith Fear Love

Superficiality is the curse of our age.

We all crave deep, meaningful relationships with people around us. Sometimes it's with a significant other like a girlfriend or a husband; kids or a best friend. Those are the kind of relationships that we get up in the morning for, that we long for and that many no longer believe are really possible. We live in an age of…

March 18, 20224 min

Uncategorized

How to read Jesus on Lust & Divorce

Last weekend we finished up 2 of Jesus's more "culturally" difficult teachings in the Sermon on the Mount around the topics of sexuality. Namely that while sexual desire is a good thing when directed at your covenant partner (or spouse), it can wreak havoc on literally every other relationship in your life. He immediately goes to one of the biggest…

March 11, 20224 min

Discipleship

Ash Wednesday Service

Lent is the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday (not counting Sundays). It has been marked by restraint and fasting by believers since the Council of Nicea in 325 AD where Christians were encouraged to seriously consider the weight of our sin that required the brutal crucifixion of Christ and the enormity of His gift to us. The…

February 23, 20222 min

Discipleship

When others exclude you…

Last weekend we were wrapping up the Beatitudes as the introduction to Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. It ends with a statement of blessing over those that have experienced persecution as a result of following Jesus. While our study is taking us through Matthew, Luke captured this telling of the description of persecution: 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you…

February 4, 20223 min

Blessing God

What if blessings aren’t transactional?

We often read Jesus's intro to the Sermon on the Mount as a list of things that you must do in order to be blessed but what if that wasn't Jesus's intention at all? Our cultural mindsets are very geared for a transactional lens in which to view the scriptures. If we do ____________, God will give us ____________. It's…

January 28, 20223 min

Righteousness

You will get what you want…most of the time.

"You will get what you want...most of the time." Of course there are always qualifiers to that kind of blanket statement. I may want a Dodge Durango Hellcat but I can tell you right now, I won't be getting one. That's not really the point of this blog. In most things, if we want it bad enough, we will structure…

January 21, 20223 min

Uncategorized

Does truth matter?

There's a video floating around of Keanu Reeves talking about a conversation he had over dinner with a friend's kids about The Matrix. They hadn't seen the films and so his friend said, 'Why don't you tell them what it's about." He goes on to say, “Well there’s this guy who’s in a kind of virtual world, and he finds…

January 14, 20225 min