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Are you a thermometer or a thermostat? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that for early Christians “the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.” We’re struggling today with race. Are we struggling in ways that just reflect society or that reflect Jesus and the unique promise of his good news to transform society through followers like you?

In 1 Peter 2:2–3, Peter admonishes the church to “long for the pure, spiritual milk, like newborn infants, so that by it you may grow into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Peter’s ultimate desire if for the church to have an insatiable appetite for the word of God. Just as a baby craves milk, so should Christians crave the living Word as well as the written Word. In other words, spiritual growth and maturity is not an option in the Christian life, it should be our heart’s desire to “grow into salvation”.

Wisdom is the art of living—the art of living well. In ancient Israel, it was an art well-studied, practiced, and taught. Scholars speak of the “wisdom tradition” in the Bible. But what Israel learned is that true wisdom isn’t a human invention at all. It’s a gift from God. To those who seek the ancient paths, it’s a gift God gives freely, not for their religious or spiritual lives but for the whole of life. For the flourishing of their lives. “Come,” wisdom calls, “ask for the ancient paths where the good way lies and walk in it.”

Kindred 2023

Standing Firm Striving Together For the Faith

May 28 – June 18

Kindred is an ongoing partnership of Seattle-area churches dedicated to building relationships among Christians of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The goal is to tangibly embody the multi-ethnic family of God in the city of Seattle. The vision is to be an ongoing, messy, but beautiful journey to bring Christ’s healing to our city’s divided and broken places. The Kindred Community consists of Damascus International Fellowship, Evangelical Chinese Church, and University Presbyterian Church. We will worship, praise, and study as one church for the next four weeks.

Life in the Spirit | Romans 8

April 23 – May 21

There are two ways to live. Not: good versus bad or easy versus hard. But: on your own or with the Holy Spirit. If you believe in Jesus, you’ve got the Holy Spirit within you. Which presents you with options: either you can go back to your old life or you can discover the fresh possibilities of a totally new life with the Holy Spirit. “I believe in the Holy Ghost.” Maybe you’ve said it before. Now it’s time to learn how to live it.

It’s not what you see that drives your life; it’s what you don’t see. The turn in the road. The root across the trail. Even more, the things inside you. The parts of yourself that even you don’t see, hidden in shadow. Longings, secrets, fears… When you meet Jesus, what you notice is not just what you see in him but what you see in yourself. And his light shining beauty into your life. It all comes out in St. John’s passion. And it comes out in our lives as we approach the light of Jesus’s greatest hour.

February 22, April 2–9, 2023

As followers of Jesus, we believe that Lent is a time of spiritual renewal and growth. It’s a time to reflect on the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross and to deepen our relationship with Him.

As we journey through Lent, we are reminded of our own brokenness and need for God’s grace. But we are also reminded of the hope that we have in Jesus, who conquered sin and death on our behalf. Through Him, we can find forgiveness, healing, and new life.

So let us embrace this season of Lent with open hearts and minds, and allow Jesus to transform us from the inside out. May we draw closer to Him and experience the fullness of His love and grace in our lives.

February 12–19, 2023

Jesus could have said, “Blessed are the conflict makers.” Because a superficial peace that just avoids conflict or papers over differences is no peace at all. Everywhere Jesus goes, he’s a disrupter. He brings peace but a peace that confronts the status quo of broken lives and dehumanizing systems. His peace is a dangerous peace but a deep, transformational, heavenly peace. How can we follow him into that peace and become ourselves true peacemakers?

Fried | Pursuing Mental and Emotional Wholeness

January 8, 2023 – February 5, 2023

Even superheroes of the faith get fried. Jesus said there was no greater than Elijah, but Elijah pushed it too far and almost burned out. It can happen to anyone. Today, with the pressures of life, we can’t take mental health and emotional resilience for granted…but we’re struggling.

God understands and cares. In this series, we’ll see how God came alongside Elijah to renew and rebuild him mentally and emotionally. Join us as we invite Him to do the same for us.

Be Born In Us Today | Praying a Christmas Prayer

November 27 – December 25

How does Christmas move from history into your life? That’s what God wants for you and each of us. That’s why it happened. Philips Brooks offers us a prayer in the classic hymn he wrote during a crisis in his own life: “O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.” This Advent we pray that prayer together and discover what the Bible tells us about how we let God answer it.

The work of our great king is finished.

November 20, 2022

October 16 – November 13

God has a purpose for your life. An assignment. And it begins right where you are, right next door. The Bible tells us that God “became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14 MSG). Nothing will challenge and encourage you more than discovering that God can move in and through your life. That he’s already at work in your neighborhood and that he’s eager for you and a circle of others to join him. There’s a biblical pattern for ministry that we at UPC call ‘formissional community.’ In this Next Door series, we’ll see what that looks like in the lives of two men, Peter and Cornelius.

He has given us his precious and very great promises (2 Peter 1:4)

September 4 – October 9

The Bible insists that there is a God and that God has given us “his precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:4). Throughout the ages, followers of Jesus have found that to be true… and transformational. Religion is dead, buried deep beneath our broken promises. But Jesus lives, and because he lives, we also find life, not in our promises to God but in God’s promises to us. So what are they? Exactly what does God promise you? Check your Bible, and commit them to memory. God never breaks his word. Count on it.

July 24 — August 28

What do we think of when we hear the word Joy? How can Joy become characteristic of our life? What is the difference between happiness and joy? What is the source of the Christian’s joy? Who is the source of the Christian’s joy? The Bible says God gives us joy and peace. It tells us that real joy comes from God and is ours forever. The joy that is found in God’s presence isn’t static; it transforms and regenerates us. At the heart of joy is an unshakable awareness that we possess good from God. Joy is a part of God’s kingdom.

The Gift of Living Under Authority

June 12 – July 17

We’re rightly suspicious of authority. “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Lord Acton quips. But one day Jesus met a Roman soldier who understood the power of being under power. “I am a man under authority,” he says, and because I am, “I say to one ‘Go,’ and he goes.” Maybe today we feel so impotent because we’re so intent on throwing off authority and becoming our own. The Bible offers an alternative: to find the authority of our lives under the authority of a great King.

Discovering Life In The Cross of Christ

March 6 – April 17

What does it tell you that one of the most brilliant minds in history made this his no. 1 goal: “I want to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2)? Though it strikes our ears as narrow and anti-intellectual, for Paul it was just the opposite. Because for him this crucified Jesus was opening a breadth of life and a fresh way of thinking that inverts all of the old ways. And he does the same for Paul’s sensitive readers today.

Finding God In Desolation

January 9 – February 27

The question in the wilderness is not ‘will you get through’ but ‘what will you be like when you do’? Will the wilderness of your life harden your heart or will it open you to something new and better? At the end of his journey, Moses slammed a rock in bitterness. And he learned there are only two outcomes to the challenges of life: you can age in bitterness, or you can grow in grace. The wilderness is where we make the choices that determine the outcome. Together we’ll travel with Moses and the people of God through the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan towards the life-giving grace of God in Jesus Christ. Because we’re all in the wilderness now.

Kindred 2022

A Peculiar People | Living in Hope, Standing in Grace

April 24- June 5

We continue our messy but beautiful journey to embody the multi-ethnic family of God in Seattle. Pastor Aaron will lead us as we study the message of encouragement to a marginalized minority in 1 Peter. Learn more about Kindred at thekindredcommunity.org