In this lesson, Rev. Terence Gray tackles the quiet poison of bitterness and shows why gospel-shaped forgiveness is the only path to lasting relationships. With Esau and Jacob’s reunion as a vivid picture and Ephesians 4:32 as our anchor, Pastor Terence invites us to drop the cup of resentment so our hands are free to receive and give love. Forgiveness isn’t denial or weakness—it names the wrong truthfully, sets wise boundaries when needed, and, as Dr. Tim Keller framed it, identifies with a fellow sinner, releases the debt, and aims (as far as it depends on us) for reconciliation. The cross reminds us forgiveness always costs something—and Jesus paid it all so we can live free. This week’s practice is simple but courageous: stop rehearsing the offense and start releasing it to God; choose compassion over payback; pursue safety and wisdom without hardening your heart. Whether you need to forgive up close or from a healthy distance, the Spirit can loosen your grip on the ledger you’ve been keeping. Love that forgives looks like Jesus—and that kind of love changes everything.
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This week, Rev. Nicole Unice helps us look honestly at where we really are on the journey of love as she unpacks one short but searching line from 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient… it is not easily angered.” Nicole shows that this passage isn’t just wedding poetry—it’s a picture of deep spiritual transformation. Together, we explore a simple framework for locating our own hearts (asleep, resistant, open, or surrendered), then dive into what patience actually requires: calm endurance, perseverance, emotional self-control, and a long-term focus. With humor and real-life stories—from traffic jams to coffee drive-thrus—she reframes anger as a “check engine light” for the soul, not a feeling to deny or a license to explode. You’ll learn five root causes of anger (hurt, pride, frustration and control, fear and insecurity, and holy indignation), and how each irritation or provocation can become training ground with the Holy Spirit as your guide. More than a call to “try harder,” this message invites you to let Jesus’ own unprovoked, patient love reshape how you respond to the people and pressures in front of you today. May we become people whose patience and holy restraint make the love of Jesus believable in an easily provoked world.
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In this week’s lesson, Small Groups Director Sarah de Jong invites us to practice the long-fused, mercy-soaked patience of 1 Corinthians 13. Drawing on Moses’ story in Exodus and Jesus with the woman caught in adultery (John 8), Sarah shows that God’s patience isn’t passivity—it’s holy restraint: “merciful and gracious, slow to anger,” yet committed to justice in His time. Patience, she explains, is the endurance to love through suffering, the marathon mindset that keeps us steady when emotions boil. To grow here, Sarah offers four simple guards: guard your response (pause, pray, give it time), guard your relationships (don’t apprentice yourself to anger), guard your thoughts (take rumination captive and think on what is true and lovely), and guard your rest (remember the H.A.T. check—hungry, angry, tired). As we run this race with endurance, we’re not called to point out every flaw or win every argument, but to trust that God will bring perfect justice while we extend the same patience He has lavished on us. Let this session help your group slow down, breathe, and love with a longer fuse—so that in conflicts big and small, Christ’s composure and compassion become your reflex.
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In this week’s message, Dr. Scott McKee continues our journey through 1 Corinthians 13 with a stirring reflection on the simple yet searching phrase, “Love does not envy.” With wisdom both pastoral and deeply personal, Pastor Scott invites us to confront how comparison steals joy, gratitude, and connection—and how love, rightly rooted, restores them. Through Jesus’ parable of the vineyard workers in Matthew 20, he offers five antidotes to envy: stop comparing, celebrate God’s grace to others, practice gratitude, trust God when life feels unfair, and stay focused on the unique path He has set before you. Yet the power of this message transcends principles—it’s carried by the weight of lived experience. Speaking from his own journey through physical suffering, Pastor Scott bears witness to a faith that still finds joy, perspective, and peace in God’s goodness. His words remind us that love without envy isn’t naïve optimism but hard-won trust in a faithful God. This is a message that stills the soul and reorders the heart toward gratitude and grace. May we be a people who carry the torch forward with courage, humility, and generational faithfulness.
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In this lesson, Dr. Scott McKee explores why genuine love refuses pride and keeps no running tally of rights or wrongs (1 Corinthians 13). Drawing on Philippians 2 and James 4, Pastor Scott shows how Jesus’ self-emptying humility becomes our pattern for everyday relationships. We’ll learn four practical practices: prefer others (even when the “faster line” opens or when someone else gets first chair), stay teachable by inviting correction rather than defending our image, admit when we’re wrong with honest confession that leads to healing (James 5:16), and surrender our plans to God, trusting His purposes over our ambitions. With memorable images—from the grocery checkout to the orchestra’s “second fiddle”—this session reframes humility not as thinking less of ourselves, but as thinking of others first and acting for their good. As your group discusses, consider where you can yield preference, ask brave questions, offer a clear “I was wrong,” and place your schedule, goals, and outcomes before the Lord. Real love is humble—and when we walk this way, the harmony of Christ-like relationships becomes a beautiful witness to the world.
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Rev. Terence Gray and Ashley Gray team up to teach “loving with your words,” showing how our tongues can be a wildfire or a warming hearth. Drawing from James 3, Pastor Terence warns that a single spark—gossip, sarcasm, a cutting email—can burn down trust, while cold silence can freeze a relationship just as surely; the goal isn’t “no fire,” but Spirit-guided, contained fire. Ashley then anchors the message in 1 Corinthians 13, clarifying that Paul describes agape—the self-giving love of Christ—not a checklist but a Spirit-formed character that makes communication truly Christian. You’ll learn four practices you can start today: (1) assess the “temperature” of your home, work, and online words; (2) set boundaries so your speech brings warmth, not scorches; (3) use 1 Corinthians 13 as a diagnostic—patient and kind, not irritable, boastful, or score-keeping; and (4) try “reverent listening”: create safety, ask open-ended questions (“Say more about that”), and decenter yourself so the other feels seen and loved. Together, Pastor Terence and Ashley call us to grow up in our speech—moving from impulse to surrender, from being “right” to being Christlike—so our words become instruments of blessing in God’s hands. May we be a people who carry the torch forward with courage, humility, and generational faithfulness.
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In this second lesson of Loving Like Jesus: A 40-Day Journey, Rev. Terence Gray helps us see that our words have extraordinary power—the power to heal or to wound, to build up or to tear down. Through vivid illustrations and practical wisdom, Pastor Terence reminds us that loving like Jesus means speaking truthfully, carefully, and encouragingly. Drawing from Proverbs 18:21 and Ephesians 4, he offers tools like the “H.A.T. check” and the “N.I.C.E. filter” to help us pause before we speak, choose honesty wrapped in grace, and use our voices to strengthen others rather than harm them. Whether in moments of tension or tenderness, our words can reflect the heart of Christ and become instruments of love that last long after they’re spoken.
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Dr. Scott McKee continues our 40-day “Loving Like Jesus” journey by walking through 1 Corinthians 13 with five surprising “shock treatments” for the church: love outranks ecstatic gifts, surpasses biblical knowledge (and home-run sermons), is preferable even to mountain-moving power, and outshines dramatic vows of poverty or martyrdom. Pastor Scott shows how Corinth had elevated secondary things—and how we still do—then re-centers us on Jesus’ mark of discipleship: “By this everyone will know… if you love one another.” In this message you’ll learn why love is the true exam, how ordinary kindness carries more voltage than spectacle, and why daily “small deaths” to self form Christlike hearts. You’ll also hear how the 40 days work—six Sunday messages, daily readings (The Relationship Principles of Jesus by Tom Holladay), weekly small-group conversations, and simple practices—so love moves from ideal to habit. A moving Henri Nouwen story invites us to grow our capacity to love people in concrete, inconvenient, beautiful ways. Our aim is not to “try harder,” but to let Jesus love through us until love becomes our dominant life principle. May we be a people who carry the torch forward with courage, humility, and generational faithfulness.
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What if love isn’t just something you feel, but something you learn? In Lesson 1 of Living Like Jesus: A 40-Day Journey, Dr. Scott McKee invites us to see love as a skill we can grow through practice and intention. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 13 and the life of Jesus—the ultimate relationship master—we’ll discover why love is the highest calling, the best use of our lives, and the only thing that truly lasts. Learn how to give your time, attention, and heart more fully to God and others as we begin this transformational journey together.
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Dr. Scott McKee opens our new church-wide journey, “Loving Like Jesus,” by asking a piercing question: What is your dominant life principle? Scripture’s answer is clear—“Follow the way of love” (1 Cor. 14:1). Pastor Scott lays the foundation for forty days of growth with three big truths: we love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19); love is an action, not just an emotion (“Let us not love with words… but with actions,” 1 John 3:18); and love becomes real as a habit—“keep on loving” (Heb. 13:1). You’ll hear down-to-earth examples (emails, parking lots, parenting, politics) and a liberating shift: this isn’t “try harder to be nice,” but “let Jesus love through you.” Learn how the 40-day plan works—six Sunday messages, daily readings on Jesus’ relationship principles, weekly small-group conversations, and simple practices—to help love move from idea to instinct. Along the way, Pastor Scott reframes the guilt of “I don’t love God enough” into the gospel promise: when you truly receive God’s unconditional love, love begins to overflow to others. He closes with Paul’s prayer (Phil. 1:9) that our love would “abound more and more” in knowledge and depth of insight. May we become people who make love our dominant life principle—letting Jesus love through us, every day, in every interaction.
Dr. Scott McKee continues “Living the Five” with a tender and challenging word on Audacious Generosity—rooted in the God who loves and holds us. Beginning with the wonder of meeting his newborn grandson, Pastor Scott explores how unearned love naturally opens the hand: “I am loved, I am held.” From there he takes us to 2 Corinthians 8, where Macedonia’s “overflowing joy + extreme poverty” yields “rich generosity,” and contrasts it with the modern myth that more income creates more giving. Learn the strange math of the kingdom, why cheerful giving is a work of grace (not compulsion), and how generosity can be remarkably fun—like when Ward moved from renovating one Detroit home a year to buying 37 in one audacious season. You’ll also hear practical next steps for every giver (first gift, consistent percentage, or sacrificial stretch), and a theologically rich finale in 2 Corinthians 8:9: though Jesus was rich, for our sake He became poor so that we might become rich. Along the way Pastor Scott names our fears, confesses his “outrageous frugality,” and invites us to let God renew our instincts with open-handed joy. May we be a people who live open-handed—held by God and eager to excel in the grace of giving.