Jesus Is Alive

In one paragraph

Brian opened the first Sunday back after Easter by picking up the thread that ran through Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, planting it in Acts 1:1-11 and asking one question: what does it actually mean that Jesus is alive? The congregation read Acts 1:1-11 together, and Brian invited observations from the room before saying a word of his own. Two things surfaced that shaped everything that...

Read together

1. Acts 1:1-11 read aloud by the congregation as the main text for the sermon
2. John 20:19-27 read to address when the disciples received the Holy Spirit
3. Romans 10:9 cited to show that belief and confession are what salvation requires, not a dramatic experience
4. 1 John 1:9 quoted to show that confessing sin brings forgiveness before taking communion

Talk about it

1. Brian said he had a negative feeling about Good Friday services before Lanisha pushed for one, and that doing them has changed how he receives Easter. Is there a church tradition you resisted that ended up meaning more to you than you expected? What shifted for you?
2. Lissa noticed that Jesus appeared to the apostles from time to time during those forty days rather than staying with them continuously, and asked what he was doing in between. Where do you sit with questions about Scripture that don't have clear answers? Do you find them frustrating or do they invite you into wonder?
3. Brian described the Holy Spirit being present in a person but then also being released through surrender, using the image of the alabaster jar where the fragrance was always there but sealed until the jar was broken. How does that picture land with you, and does it match anything you have experienced in your own faith?
4. Brian said that encountering the actually alive Jesus makes it impossible for anyone to convince you otherwise, and he connected that to reading Scripture as a teenager at camp. Has there been a moment, in the word or elsewhere, where Jesus felt genuinely alive and present to you rather than just believed in? What was that like?
5. At the end of the sermon Brian mentioned that the space Tribe had been hoping for fell through. He said the hunt for a new home continues and to keep praying. How do you personally hold onto hope when something you were counting on disappears, and how do you pray for something uncertain without attaching to a particular outcome?