South Fellowship Church

Brave in the New World | Lament in the New World | Psalm 13 | Week 6

Brave in the New World | Tolerance in a Culture of Contempt | John 8:1-11 | Week 4

Helping people live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.
 
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Brave in the New World | Tolerance in a Culture of Contempt | John 8:1-11 | Week 4
Speaker: Pastor Ryan Paulson
South Fellowship Church
Based in Littleton, CO 

Brave in the New World | Evil and Suffering | John 9:1-3 | Week 3

Fear stopped me in my steps this week.   I know we shouldn't fear, but what do we do when we do?  I wrote my message on Monday.  Tuesday, I was in a meeting with Aaron and we were planning a future worship service, and our phones started to blow up, like yours probably did too.  Got the news that there was an active shooter situation at STEM.  Gathered our staff together to start to pray.  Tried our best to contact people we knew that had kids involved to tell them we're praying, we love them, is there anything we can do?  It just didn't seem fitting to give the message I had already written.   I think that in moments like these, especially in a series called "Brave in a New World," to not talk about the actual world we live in would probably be a misstep.  
As weird and awkward as it is to try to tackle the problem of suffering and evil on Mother's Day, forgive me if that offends you, but I'm going to do my best to try to step into this moment, please hear me, not as somebody who has all the answers.  I stand up here with more questions than I do answers right now, to be quite honest with you.  I stand up here with questions like you probably have----God, why?  God, are you involved?  God, is so, how?  I stand up here, along with many of you, who had to try to answer questions for your kids about.....is it safe?  All those questions, right?  We had to cancel school a few weeks ago because of a scare.  On THAT day, I was up early studying, and one kid came down, right after the other, dressed for school, and I had to explain to them why they weren't going to school that day.  One of them asked me, "Dad, why would somebody want to do something like that?"  Another said to me, "Dad, they must be a really, really bad person."  Another one asked me, "Dad, can we have a pajama day?"  It hits all of us differently.  I think that's just a microcosm of the way that we probably all feel in this room, to some degree.  That tragedy hit us all differently, but my guess is, we're all, at least on some level, asking this question, "Where. Was. God?"  Where was God?  Does he care?  Is he involved at all?...  
 
Helping people live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.
 
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Brave in the New World | Evil and Suffering | John 9:1-3 | Week 3
Speaker: Pastor Ryan Paulson
South Fellowship Church
Based in Littleton, CO 

Brave in the New World | Donkeys and Elephants, Oh My! | Mark 12:13-17 | Week 2

I'm really glad that you're here today. We are on week two of a series that we're calling "Brave in the New World." A number of months ago we did a church survey, and one of the questions we asked on that survey was "What are some of the things you'd like to see more teaching on?" Turns out, you guys like hard subjects and we made a series out of a lot of those answers, so over the next few weeks, we're wrestling with a number of difficult subjects. We're calling the series "Brave in the New World," because in case you haven't noticed, the world is changing. How many of you would agree? The world is changing at a pretty rapid pace, and if you're a follower of Jesus.... First of all, if you're not, we're really glad that you're here today, because you get sort of the window-shopping view of how the church wrestles with difficult issues, so I'm glad you're here. But if you are a follower of Christ, my guess is you're wondering how in the world do I live out my faith, in the public sphere, in a world that's changing so quickly? That's the question we're going to be wrestling with over the next few weeks. Essentially, if it's off limits at Thanksgiving dinner, we're going to talk about it over the next few weeks. If you say to your friends and family, "We don't talk about that here, because we all want to remain friends," it's coming up. I sort of jokingly said that maybe after this series we'll do a teaching series on church unity, because we're going to need it.
Last week we said that the church of the future will be a creative minority that has influence without power. Essentially, the way forward is the way back. The early church had almost NO power politically or socially, but over a few hundred years, developed great experience. We opened up Acts 4 and we saw the way that the church had influence, in the way that it proclaimed Jesus and that its message was very, very clear. In the way that it embraced the fact that there was going to be opposition and they didn't expect a red carpet to be rolled out. In the way that they prioritized being people who had been with Jesus; we said, last week, that the world needs more people present in it who have been present with Jesus... 
 
Helping people live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.
 
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Brave in the New World | Donkeys and Elephants, Oh My! | Mark 12:13-17 | Week 2
Speaker: Pastor Ryan Paulson
South Fellowship Church
Based in Littleton, CO 

Brave in the New World | Acts 4:1-22 | Week 1

We are starting a new series today that I am so excited for.  It's called "Brave in the New World," and we, over the next few weeks, are going to be tackling some of the most difficult issues and topics that we face, sort of culturally and societally, in our world today.  Our goal this morning is to set a little bit of ground work and to give us a path forward that we're going to ask Jesus to lead us in over the next few weeks.
Like you, I watched in horror on April 15th, not as my tax return came back, but as Notre Dame burned.  I had had the chance to go once to Notre Dame.  Aaron and I were on a layover in Paris; it lasted a day.  We were on our way home from a missions trip in Africa, so we spent a romantic in Paris together.  We had the chance to stand in that beautiful cathedral.  It's a little bit different than being in South Fellowship Church building.  The grandeur and the awe that you feel when you stand in that space is unparalleled.  Yet, we saw on April 15th that it began to burn...
 
Helping people live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus.
 
Connect with us ⬇️
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Brave in the New World | Acts 4:1-22 | Week 1
Speaker: Pastor Ryan Paulson
South Fellowship Church
Based in Littleton, CO 

Easter Sunday | Green-Thumbed God | John 19 & 20

Welcome to our celebration of the resurrection.  My name's Ryan.  We get to celebrate the reason for hope today.  That's why we gather.  A few weeks ago, my friend, who's also a pastor in the area, Nirup, sent me a text message.  It said: What's your morning look like MC? {Because people call me MC.  Just kidding, they don't.  I don't know why he said that?}  Have you ever read a text message, got the words right, but the intent wrong?  I wrote back to my buddy Nirup and said this:  I get up at 5:45 and go on a run (treadmill in the basement).  Then read scripture and pray.  Then wake the kids up and get them ready to go on the bus.  On late start days, which is Wednesday, I have time for additional reading. You?  He responded to me:  That was very descriptive.  I more meant yo dawg my meeting canceled.  You bored and wanna grab coffee later.   He's right, I was descriptive.  I broke it down on days.  I gave timestamps.  Wow!   I had the words right, but I had the meaning wrong.
I think when we hear resurrection, we have the words right, but we might get the meaning wrong.  I think a lot of us, we hear the word resurrection, and we think, this is the good news, we get to go to heaven when we die.  That's a part of the story, but it's a really small part of the story of resurrection.  That's getting the text message just a little bit wrong.  What I'd like to do this morning is look at John's gospel; if you have your Bible, you can open it to John 19.  We're going to let John, one of Jesus's good friends, sort of reframe that word resurrection for us.  Maybe build it out a little bit.  Maybe we can get the text message right...

Jonah | Swallowing The Story | Jonah 4:6-11 | Week 6

We're jumping into Jonah 4, if you have your Bible, you can flip there, swipe there, click there, however you want to get there this morning. It's the final message in the series of Jonah as we continue to journey towards the cross and the resurrection. We've been utilizing this book of Jonah to lead us to Easter. We've been saying, throughout this series, that part of our goal has been to rescue Jonah from Veggie Tales and the flannel board. We often view this as a kids' story. If you've been coming over the last few weeks, I hope you realize, by this point, this is certainly applicable to kids, but it's no kids' story, is it? There's a lot of depth, and a lot of beauty, and a lot of subtlety and nuance, and sort of hints and winks and nods in the book of Jonah. It's intended for adults.
The story of Jonah is the story of a resentful prophet who encounters a relentless God. In week one, we said Jonah could be split in half. The first half of Jonah gives us one message and the second half of Jonah builds on that and gives us another message. In the first half of Jonah, Jonah shows us what it's like to run from God through outright, willful disobedience, doesn't he? Jonah is a prophet of God and gets a call from God. He's told to go and preach against Nineveh, that their wickedness has risen up before God. God's calling him to go to Nineveh, which is about 500 plus miles east of where he was. Jonah hops on a ship and heads to Tarshish. Jonah is outright disobedient and saying to God, "God, I know what you've asked me to do, but thanks but no thanks." You'll remember that we were wondering throughout the entire first few chapters of Jonah, why is Jonah running, and the narrator strings us along and doesn't give us the answer until we get to chapter 4. Jonah said to God, "I knew it! I knew you were slow to anger. I knew you're merciful and abounding in steadfast love. I knew it! My worst nightmare's come true. That's what you're like." In his disobedience, we see that God pursued Jonah through a storm, through a fish that vomited him out onto dry ground... 

Jonah | God in Mind | Jonah 4:1-4 | Week 5

This is our fifth Sunday in a series that we're doing on the book of Jonah, that's guiding us through the Lenten season.  Jonah's a short little book in the minor prophets; he's minor, not because he's unimportant, but because he's short.  The book is short.  It's significant but it's only four chapters, and it packs a punch. 
Let me share with you a little nugget from the Paulson household.  Most weekends, my kids will ask to all spend the night in a room together and to do a sleepover.  Most of the time, Kelly and I say no because we want to remain sane, but there are moments of weakness and we'll let them sleep in the same room together.  A few times, we walk by the door and sort of listen.  They play this game, "I have an animal in my mind...."  The game is that one of them thinks of an animal and the other two ask yes or no questions and try to guess what the animal is.  I thought, in light of what we're going to be talking about this morning, that it would be fun to play that game together.  I have an animal in my mind and I would like you to ask yes or no questions to try to identify said animal.  Will it fit in a bread box?  I could fit it in a bread box.  Does it have a tail?  It does have a tail.  Does it say meow?  It does say meow, especially when you.....{Ryan makes kicking motion with his foot}.  Any guesses?  A cat.  Yes, it is a cat...  

Jonah | House Rules | Jonah 3:1-10 | Week 4

We're going to be camping out in Jonah 3 today.  Let me just give you a bird's-eye view of where we've been. The book of Jonah is a story of a portion of the life of Jonah, and you sort of need one step and one phase to build on the other.  Hop online to fill yourself in on the blanks I'll leave out today.  
Jonah is a prophet of God who prophesied in roughly the eighth century BC.  He was a contemporary of Amos and Hosea.  They were both prophesying at the same time.  Amos and Hosea had a hard word for Israel.  They said that Jeroboam II was using his militaristic might and power in order to expand the empire and they were not okay with that.  Jonah, however, was just fine with that.  He wanted to see Israel expand at any extent and in any degree and he was happy with however that happened.  This is the book we have of Jonah's "prophecy;" in many ways the book is more prophetic than Jonah.  We're going to see that today as it comes to light...  

Jonah | Belly of a Fish | Jonah 2:1-10 | Week 3

We've been in a series in the last few weeks going through the book of Jonah.  Jonah is the fifth of the minor prophets.  He prophesied in the latter half of the eighth century BC, so a long time.  Jonah is unique because it's mostly a narrative; he's not making big proclamations and all these sorts of things, it's telling us an interesting story.  Hosea and Amos were also prophets at the same time, and in all three of those books there's this running theme of God showing God's mercy to other nations.  God calls Jonah to go share this good news of this mercy with the Ninevites. The Ninevites were bad people.  They were often brutal, they disregarded human life and all these sorts of things.  The whole book is really about God's extravagant mercy.  
Jonah was disgusted at the idea that God would show mercy to people that Jonah felt didn't deserve it.  So, when God calls Jonah, he runs.  He pays the fare to get on this ship, and as he gets on the ship, he goes down into the belly of the ship and he falls asleep.  God sends a huge storm, and the sailors realize that it was because of Jonah that this storm was happening, so they were freaking out and woke him up.  Ironically, the sailors, who didn't know the God of Jonah, acted more in line with God than Jonah did.  They asked him to appeal to the Lord, his God.  He didn't.  He was in full-on rebellion, so he suffers the consequences of running.  He was tossed overboard and sinks to the bottom of the sea.  You know the story.  Here's the thing that's so ironic, God does for Jonah what God wanted to do for the Ninevites through Jonah.  Pretty wild, huh?  So, just as Ryan shared a few weeks ago, we see a resentful prophet meeting a relentless God.  That's the story of Jonah...