Until about five years ago, I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t plagued with anxiety. For years I worked tirelessly to control everything about myself and my environment in order to bring security to my life. I talk with lots of people who grew up in really rough homes and dealt with horrible situations, but I was not that person. I had no reason to feel anxious about life. I just did.
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The old adage “actions speak louder than words” rings true, but it doesn’t tell the whole truth. Words matter. In fact, words carry the profound power to build up or destroy. As kids we espoused that sticks and stones were the only things that could hurt us and words could never penetrate the force field of our heart. But all of life tells a different story.
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The King is coming. Jesus Christ has come and will come again. This is the hope of the Church whom He purchased with His blood. It is the eager expectation and desire of His people. His coming is our joy, for He is our treasure, our greatest good. Advent, formed from a Latin word meaning “coming” or “arrival,” is about the coming of Christ. It’s the traditional celebration of the first ...
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I grew up in a traditional Southern Baptist church (one where all the pastors sat on stage during the entire worship service) and was baptized at age 8 following my conversion and public profession of faith. At our church, the Lord’s Supper was taken on Sunday nights, so after I was baptized, my dad brought me to my first Sunday night service to take communion.
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2011 marked the birth of a new tradition at The Village. Each year, we will now be celebrating the seasons of Advent, Prayer and Lent. The hope of these seasons is to awaken our local church to the grand narrative of God’s gospel in the global Church. The Church did not begin in the 21st century or in North Texas. The body of Christ is a historically and geographically diverse people composed ...
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In Matthew 6:2-4 Jesus describes a type of giving that is known only to the Father, a giving so unselfconscious that our left hand does not know what our right hand is doing. The idea of giving unconsciously, without keeping a record and expecting the praise of others, is lofty and appealing, but it can be hard to actually live out. All gift-giving requires creativity and even more so does the ...
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Our mission is to bring glory to God by making disciples through gospel-centered worship, gospel-centered community, gospel-centered service and gospel-centered service. We believe that one of the ways God wants us to carry out this mission is through the launching of new campuses.
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A few months ago I was in a planning meeting for an upcoming conference when a friend of mine began to speak about shame. She described our hearts as closets with boxes stacked up inside. I pictured my boxes labeled “anger,” “apathy” and “lust” stacked up one on top of the other, some right on the edge of falling over and spilling out. Some boxes looked like they had been opened ...
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