Blog (Page 18)
Book Review: The Invisible War
Chip Ingram’s book on a Christian’s spiritual battle between Satan and his evil forces is a balanced take between the extremism of seeing a demon under every rock or ruling out the existence of demons altogether. This book is broken down into 4 sections, with each section receiving an executive summary of the main ideas with all the pertinent Bible verses at the beginning. This makes the book an incredible resource on the topic of spiritual warfare. Much of the…
Why God Deserves a Second Chance
Introduction A lot is written across the internet telling people that God gives us all a second chance, but what about the person who has given up on God? There is a scarcity of information trying to persuade a person to Give God a Second Chance. Now think about that, trillions of articles and pages on the internet, and I couldn’t find more than a page or two arguing for why God is worth a second shot. It baffles me because…
Why Did I Give Up On God?
Everywhere you look today it seems we are met with more and more reports of churches in decline, people walking away from faith, and people giving up on God. Why this is happening? Unless we are willing to ask what I think can be some very real, but very difficult questions, we will never understand. Does God even deserve a second chance?
Community Impact – Kid Cafe
Check out Kid Cafe, one of our events from summer 2016. Feeding kids at a local park was just one of the may way we invested in our community. Hear more about the incredible success of our Kid Cafe at Jaycee Park in West Des Moines.
All In: A Waste of Talent
Introduction Happy Birthday, Ashworth Road! It was in this month 45 years ago, November 1971, that 43 people came together for the very first worship services of a brand new church with a desire to reach this growing community of West Des Moines. As we approach this Thanksgiving season and celebrate our 45th birthday as a church, we have a lot to be thankful for: the baptisms this morning, another year of service and missions to our community and around…
All In: Firstfruits
Sermon Podcast Audio Your browser does not support the audio element. Introduction Today I’m excited to continue our message series “All In” — where we are looking at how we can live our lives Taking Risks and Trusting God to make a Kingdom Impact. Priorities: We began this series with Amy teaching on the book of Haggai and specifically on how the Israelites had prioritized their own lives over God and restoring the temple. And we compared that to…
All In: Sacrifice
Introduction We are in a series called “All In — Taking Risks, Trusting God, Kingdom Impact.” Every week we are looking at a different aspect of faith and asking the question, “Am I all in?” The first week, Pastor Amy challenged us to look at our priorities: how we live, how we spend our time and our money. Does what we give prominence to reveal the priority of God in our lives? Last week, Pastor Stephen did an incredible and…
Remix: Unexpected Power
Introduction I have a family of four sons. As a foster family, our conversations around the dinner table can be a bit different than the typical family. A lot of learning takes place around our dinner table, and sometimes we find ourselves in some really funny moments. For instance, this week, one of my sons asked me about water baptism. So I was explaining that water baptism is an outward sign to others of the inward change that happens when a person…
Mary Flynn: Faith and Grace Garden Volunteer of the Year
Mary Flynn, 84, volunteers in the Faith & Grace Garden on Wednesday evenings in July. She is part of group 6 – 10 from Ashworth Road Baptist Church who have been volunteering in the garden for the past five years. When Mary is not volunteering in the Faith & Grace Garden she is working in her own garden.. Mary has brought over one hundred pounds of vegetables from her home garden with her when she volunteers so we can transport…
More Thoughts on Doubt
A few weeks ago, we looked at how doubt can sneak up on us as Christians. Often, because we are unprepared, it can throw us for a loop, making us feel like something is wrong with us or that we aren’t good Christians. But as we discussed, often doubt isn’t what derails our faith but is actually what strengthens it. Recently, I ran across a podcast that death with this issue. As I listened, I was encouraged by the speaker…
Resources to Get MentalFit
This week, the Sunday message tackled the very difficult subject of mental health. All too often, the church struggles with knowing the proper response to those who struggle with mental illness. During my research and study for the message, I ran across this book that I thought was well written and gives a great understanding of those who live every day in the darkness of mental illness. A clear defining of the issue and the personal stories certainly give one…
936 Weeks
All parents feel like their kids are growing up too fast, but how fast is too fast? It’s 936 weeks to be exact. That’s how long you have between birth and high school graduation. The question each parent must answer is, how are you using your weeks? I know you sometimes feel pressure to fill your summers with more than seems to actually fit: multiple camps, baseball games, vacations, strawberry picking (my family favorite), and all sorts of other adventures.…