Prayer is a Learned Conversation
Prayer is a learned conversation. What is our goal in prayer, God's goal in prayer?
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Grace Mills River
Weekly sermons from Grace Mills River Church in Mills River, NC which is near Asheville, NC. Grace Mills River is a mission extending the Gospel of Jesus Christ to western North Carolina including Asheville, Hendersonville, Brevard and Tryon Foothills by using culturally relevant communications and the arts. Bringing Good News to the Mountains!
enGrace Mills River331 Episodes
Episodes (331)
True Repentance Depends on Prayer: A Sufferer’s Prayer
Lent is that season in the church calendar meant to underscore what has no season, what is necessary in every season–namely, repentance. It is a life. During these next weeks of Lent until Easter we’re going to look at several prayers that are...
Seeking God’s Face
Prayer is in right now. In fact, prayer and meditation are on the rise even as the American church is in decline. While most of us pray, we need a refresher course on what prayer is. In Psalm 27, God is out to redefine, reclaim, and rekindle our...
Practice Begins Here
We do not pray for the sake of praying. It is ordered to an even greater end. It is part of a good life. While Psalm 1 begins the prayerbook of Israel it is the only utterance that is not a prayer. But as it describes the fact, the character, and the...
Pray for your Lives
The first recorded address of God by humanity--the first “prayer”--comes in the context of humanity’s tragic choice–what we know as the fall from grace. And while that moment offers no explicit or intended teaching on the warrant, substance, or...
The Spirit and Speaking
What was it all for? Why devote close to a year learning from and about the Holy Spirit? So much of what we considered focused on his purposes for us personally and communally. We want to conclude our particular attention to the Spirit with a focus on...
The Spirit and the Sacraments–II: The Table
Humans have always been ritual-making creatures. We establish patterns, habits, and traditions which form our sense of identity and offer us meaning. The Lord’s Supper is one more example of our inclination to meaning-filled ritual. But its power lies...
The Spirit and the Sacraments – I: Baptism
The sacraments of baptism and Lord’s Supper are neither magic nor are they mere moments that invoke a memory meant to move us. If not like those, what are they? What are they for? And if they involve something inward–something spiritual–then how, if...
What’s the Spirit up to in a Sermon?
We round out our study of the Holy Spirit with a final stretch of sermons on the activity of the Holy Spirit in our private and public acts of worship. This week we consider what the Spirit is “up to” in the human act of preaching.
A Spiritual Renewal
Spiritual renewal and revival are buzzwords both inside and, in recent times, outside of evangelicalism. What is spiritual renewal and what is it for? We’ll turn to one of Paul’s final letters as we seek spiritual renewal for ourselves and for the...
Glory Changes
This time of year the impulse to make changes for the good is high. And like the morning frost that impulse disappears in the sunlight. We are not saved by change, but we are saved for it. What kind of change and what motive must be behind the change?...
There’s a Glory in Play
**Please note: There will be no regular Sunday morning worship service on Christmas Eve. We invite your family to join us for our Christmas Eve service at 4:30pm on Sunday, December 24. We look forward to celebrating the Incarnation with our GMR...
Grace Mills River
enDecember 24, 2023
Glory made and meant for comfort
This season solicits merriment–some might say almost mandates it if you wish to fit in. But often the mirth belies the burdens so many of us carry. We all naturally seek comfort in such times. The glory of God, far from being an abstract idea, is...
Glory in the Glory Restored
In light of the vocabulary of Scripture, one might be forgiven for reducing humanity’s plight to its corruption in sin. But only when one pauses to see the transgression that sin is against the larger backdrop of the “weight of glory”–what is of God...
Aayan's First Christmas
The younger you are, the more likely you think your greatest days of glory are within your grasp. The older you get, there’s a corresponding proneness to thinking your best days are behind you. Advent answers both those natural inclinations with a...
What’s It All About?
We have looked at the fruit of the Spirit and explored the impetus, variety, and the collective purpose of our gifts. We now summarize this mini series (within the Spirit series) as we look at our roles, aim and the Source to keep in step.
Body Wellness
What does a body of Christ, to whom and for whom the Spirit gives gifts, “look like” when it is functioning as it ought? We know what are the characteristics of a physical body. What are the characteristics of a gifted and well body of Christ?
Bespoke Gifts
This Christmas you might receive a gift that, its good intentions notwithstanding, could not miss more as to whether it fits you. There’s a whole movement of companies now that try to match products with the particularities of people known as...
True Spirituality
It’s been said that you are what you do when no one is looking. In other words the character of your life is revealed in the private moments of solitude. In Paul’s day the conventional mark of true spirituality was the public demonstrations of...
Grace Mills River
enNovember 05, 2023
The Fruit of the Spirit is Self-Control
We spent nine weeks considering each “slice” of the one, unified, varied but interdependent fruit of the Spirit. Why? To feel good about our virtue? No, but to attend to what kind of people we are meant to become so that we might face both death and...
Grace Mills River
enOctober 29, 2023