Forest Hills Mennonite Church

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

What do we do while we wait? The Apostle Paul describes Christians as people with a "citizenship in heaven" and a people who are eagerly waiting for a savior from there. What does faithful waiting look like? 

Leave Tonight or Live and Die This Way

Paul's list of the fruit of the Spirit offers a beautiful, inspiring picture of flourishing Christian community, yet it ends on a sobering note: to fully experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness, each us needs to practice self-control. 

Shared Gentleness

Gentleness (also translated as "meekness") is sometimes misunderstood as weakness. Christian preachers often go to great pains to remind people that meekness isn't weakness. While that may be true, it's also beside the point: gentleness, as a fruit of the Spirit, is about demonstrating softness, tenderness, care, and compassion in all our interactions with others. 

Shared Faithfulness

How do followers of Jesus respond when we feel our most important values are under attack? And what does the fruit of the Spirit have to do with it?

Shared Goodness

What if some of the goodness we lack exists in those with whom we have the deepest disagreements? 

Shared Kindness

Is kindness a form of weakness, the last refuge of people who can't get what they want any other way? Or does kindness contain a surprising and subversive power, a fortitude that allows us to move toward each other even in the most impossible of situations? 

Shared Patience

Is patience a harmful response to injustice?

Shared Peace

One way to think about peace is that it's the experience of nothing being missing and nothing being broken. When relationships seem deeply broken, how might God move us toward peace? Is it possible to escape seemingly endless cycles of retribution, revenge, and violence?