WE’RE NOW INCLUDING THE WEEKLY TALKBACK WITH THE SERMON. THE FIRST AUDIO BAR HAS THE SERMON AND THE SECOND AUDIO BAR HAS THE WEEKLY TALKBACK. THE WEEKLY TALKBACK EXPLORES OR EXPOUNDS UPON SOME ELEMENT OF THE SERMON.
Speaker: Pastor Nick Ressler
Title: Experiencing God’s Love & Grace
Date: August 11, 2019
Synopsis: Who are the BIC? Pastor Nick shares the 4 streams of influence the river that is the BIC. And then, we jump into our first Core Value. It’s the story of the early life and ministry of Moses that gives shape to our message about a God who is active, who is relational, who saves and who transforms.
Weekly Talkback - Japanese Cookies & Crackers
Pastor Nick shares about discussing the ten core values with some Japanese BIC Church members and how Warren Hoffman gave helpful framework and story behind the distillation of the core values. An analogy about cookies and crackers becomes particularly helpful in the conversation.
Speaker: Pastor Nick Ressler
Title: Believing the Bible
Date: August 18, 2019
Synopsis: Pastor Nick reviews our BIC heritage in Anabaptistm, Pietism, Wesleyanism and Evangelicalism and then dives in to Core Value # 2: Believing the Bible. Rather than use words like infallibility or inerrancy the BIC choose to use the words that scripture uses to describe itself: revelation, authority and inspiration.
Weekly Talkback - Translations & Interpretation
Pastor Nick shares about different types of translations and where they fall on the translation spectrum. Pastor makes a few suggestions to add to your library and explains what translation Conoy uses on a Sunday morning. Lastly, we discuss how to interpret scripture and the importance of using the community that God has gifted you with.
Speaker: Pastor Nick Ressler
Title: Worshiping God
Date: August 25, 2019
Synopsis: Pastor Nick approaches our third core value: Worshiping God, by engaging our identity in Christ. More often than not, we pay attention to what the world tells us that we are not. Instead we should be paying attention to who God tells us we are: beloved children of God.
Weekly Talkback - The Rocks Cry Out
Have you considered that the whole world is at worship? Sometimes for people, the worship is misplaced. But, as Jesus said, even the rocks cry out to the glory of God. Perhaps we simply need our eyes to be opened. Pastor Nick challenges us to daily pray for opened eyes and see what happens.
Speaker: Rev. John Henry
Title: Following Jesus
Date: September 1, 2019
Synopsis: Retired Minister and Conoy Church congregant Rev. John Henry brings us the word on what it means to follow Jesus. Pastor John tells us that we’ve been given an invitation to follow Jesus and its an invitation that affects our whole lives.
Speaker: Pastor Don Lamb & Pastor Nick Ressler
Title: Belonging to a Community of Faith
Date: September 8, 2019
Synopsis: LifeGate Church and Conoy Church combine for a special service and both Pastor Don and Pastor Nick engage and approach the importance of community and how easy it is for us to walk away from it. But, we are created and called for community.
Weekly Talkback - The Body of Christ
How good it was to share our morning with LifeGate Church! Some may ask, “How can we partner with other churches when we disagree with some of their beliefs?” Pastor Nick engages that very question with a little bit of history and the idea of dogma, doctrine and differences.
Speaker: Scott Boyer, Conoy Church Board Chair
Title: Witnessing to the World
Date: September 15, 2019
Synopsis: Scott leads by example in this core value, not just with his message but with his life. Scott shares from personal examples of both success and failure. He challenges our congregation to truly live out their faith, take ownership of their belief and intentionally witness with their lives.
Weekly Talkback - Bear the Right Witness
Scott Boyer did a fantastic job of walking us through this week’s Core Value. Pastor Nick takes a moment to emphasize that we are bearing witness to something and it isn’t always to Jesus. What are you bearing witness too? And are you willing to give it us so that you bear witness to the work of Jesus in your life?
Speaker: Pastor Nick Ressler
Title: Pursuing Peace
Date: September 29, 2019
Synopsis: God has given us his shalom (peace) and we need to be bearers of it to the rest of the world. We do this through listening, understanding, forgiving and having a high value of life. Pastor Nick takes us through these areas but doesn’t pretend like we have all the answer or like finding the answer is easy. We keep coming back to God. We keep giving Him our burdens.
Weekly Talkback - Shalom Restorer
God created this world to be a world of shalom. Its in our base code. God also makes a way for us to be restored when shalom has been broken. The restoring of shalom requires a willingness to come to the proverbial table - are you willing to come to the table?
Speaker: Scott Boyer, Conoy Church Board Chair
Title: Serving Compassionately
Date: October 6, 2019
Synopsis: Scott Boyer shares his heart with the congregation about God’s call on us to serve the world around us. He helps our community understand that there are places to serve within the church and people to serve outside of it. God calls us to serve in both places.
Weekly Talkback - Serving Together
Pastor Nick talks about being a people who are intent on meeting the needs they see in front of them. Not just of the people they love and want to care for - but for those who inconvenience us, are less fortunate than us and even for those who do not like us. God places people in our path for a reason and we cannot control that but we can control how we react to them.
Speaker: Pastor Nick
Title: Living Simply
Date: October 13, 2019
Synopsis: Pastor Nick leads a time of teaching regarding the complicated life and the simple life. He shares a top ten list of the traps that we fall into that complicate our everyday life and then shares four areas that we need to maintain simplicity in: schedules, possessions, speech and our church.
Weekly Talkback - The Most Convicting Thing
Pastor Nick shares the story of the Rich Young Ruler from Matthew 19. He point’s out that our possessions aren’t the problem - our hearts are. We need to be people who are unwilling to allow living in the wealthiest nation at the wealthiest time in history to stand between us and doing what God is calling us to. How many of us have enough courage to ask, “What still do I lack?” like the Young Ruler did?
Speaker: Pastor Nick
Title: Relying on God
Date: October 20, 2019
Synopsis: The final core value in our series is a little bit different than the previous ones. Instead of stating “We value…” this one begins with “We confess…” As a culture we don’t have a great relationship with confessing especially when it promotes confessing our weakness. But what if that’s actually the starting for the beautiful work that Jesus is trying to do in your life?
Weekly Talkback - Good Help Is Hard To Find
None of us, no matter how self reliant we are, have gotten to where we are without relying on someone. Nick shares several stories about children, parenting and pastoring that helps us see that we are all reliant on someone. If we can push through the word and admit that we rely on God then we can move to a new level in our relationship with Him. Let us not waste a moment!
Speaker: Bishop Bryan Hoke
Title: So, who are we - the BIC?
Date: October 27, 2019
Synopsis: Bishop Bryan Hoke joins us on this morning to close out our Core Value Series by summing up who we are as a denomination. He provides an encouraging and humble word from Hebrews as he helps us see the centrality of Jesus to our identity.
Weekly Talkback - Interview with a Bishop
Pastor Nick interviews Bishop Bryan about his historical connection with the BIC, the uniqueness of the denomination and the importance of remaining a part of the denomination/family of churches into the future. We're very thankful for Bishop Bryan's involvement in our Conference and in our local church.