GARDEN CHURCH Podcast

Paul and Barnabas had one of the closest partnerships in the early church, and then they had a fight sharp enough that they went in separate directions. In Acts 15, their disagreement over John Mark ends the pairing, but the gospel keeps multiplying. This week we look at why God seems to prefer partnerships to solo callings, how our need to be right can become its own idol, and why dishonor is so often the language of division. We're left with three questions worth carrying with us: whether we've shut the door on someone who left, whether there's someone who needs a second chance, and how we speak of the people who no longer walk with us.

This week in Church on Fire, we're in Acts 15 with Pastor Brian McCormack.The gospel is Jesus plus nothing equals everything. The second you take out the "nothing" and add anything to it, you ruin the whole thing. That's what was at stake in the Jerusalem Council. Some believers were trying to load new converts with extra requirements to prove they really belonged. Peter, James, and the wider church pushed back and kept the gospel clear. When gospel clarity goes down, the song of the church shifts from "look at what he's done" to "what have you been up to?"Then something else surfaces. Acts 15 opens with the word "But," which means it's responding to what came just before, Paul and Barnabas returning to celebrate that God had opened a door of faith. Read that way, this whole chapter is about an enemy trying to close a door God has opened. When attacking the messengers didn't work, he moved to attack the message. Keep your Jesus, just add a few things.Four things kept the door open in the early church, and still do now: guard the gate, protect the treasury, empty the armory, hold the line.

Paul closes his first missionary journey by walking back through the same cities where he was beaten, driven out, and left for dead. His message to the new believers there is a hard one: we must go through many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.In Acts 14:21-28, we sit with what it means to keep following Jesus after the initial excitement fades. We look at three places hardship tends to show up: pressure from the outside, tension inside the church, and the harder battle within our own hearts. We watch Paul entrust brand new, still-forming believers to the Lord. And we're pushed to think about what following Jesus looks like once it moves past Sunday and into how we spend our money, treat people, and handle disappointment on Monday.

In Acts 13, Paul preaches his first recorded sermon. He's tired, sick from the journey, and dealing with conflict in ministry, and he stands up in a synagogue full of people who already know the story. They've read the law and the prophets Sabbath after Sabbath. Then he gets to the end and reveals the one thing that changes how all of it reads: Jesus.We walk through Paul's sermon as he traces the whole Old Testament back to Jesus, the one every promise was pointing to the entire time. We talk about what it means to recognize him instead of choosing to unsee, what it means to call him Lord and not just clip him on when it's convenient, and why the peace and freedom we're after isn't found in performance or practices but in the person of Jesus.And it ends where the whole story has been heading all along. Not a God standing over you saying do more, but a Father who climbed the mountain himself and did not withhold his only Son. You were never asked to climb it. He already climbed it for you.Pastor Darren Rouanzoin, from our series Church on Fire: A Journey Through Acts.

In Acts 13, the church at Antioch is the most diverse leadership team in the early church, and it's about to send out its first missionaries. From this we pull three marks of a missional church: it worships before it works, it gives itself away, and it confronts the counterfeit.We look at how the Holy Spirit set apart Barnabas and Saul for himself, not for a mission field or a destiny, and what that does to our obsession with finding our calling and authoring our own story. We talk about being sent right where you already are, your cubicle, your carpool, your group text, not waiting on a passport moment. And we sit with Paul confronting Bar Jesus, and what it means to name the counterfeits that sound familiar enough to pass for the real thing.Garden Church | Church on Fire: A Journey Through Acts

Acts 12 gives us two apostles arrested by the same king. James meets a sword in a single verse. Peter, guarded by sixteen soldiers and bound in chains, is set free by an angel while the church prays through the night. One gets a sword, one gets an angel, and we live in that tension, because God doesn't always answer the way we hoped.In this message, Pastor Darren walks through the story of Peter's rescue and gets honest about the kind of praying most of us have never been discipled into. We pray small, polite, vague prayers, sometimes out of unbelief and sometimes because we're tired of getting our hopes up again. But Jesus never rebuked a bold prayer. He rebuked small belief. Drawing from how Jesus taught us to pray in Luke, the neighbor banging on the door at midnight, the widow who won't quit, the settled son and daughter who come to the Father with confidence, we're invited to pray bold and pray specific. Vague prayers get vague answers, so we get specific and keep knocking on the door of heaven.Part of our series Church on Fire, a journey through the book of Acts.Join us on Sundays in Huntington Beach at 9, 11, or 1, or in Costa Mesa at 10 or 12. Visit garden.church for more info.

Jesus promised he would build his church, and Acts 11 shows us what that actually looks like in practice. The church at Antioch didn't have a famous founding pastor or an official send-off from Jerusalem. It was started by scattered people who'd watched their friend Stephen get stoned to death and then just kept going. And out of that, the first truly multicultural church was born.In this message, Pastor Ramin looks at what the Antioch church reveals about how Jesus builds something, and it's not primarily about programs, stability, or meeting people's needs. It's about forming missional disciples who live for something beyond themselves.We're in our series Church on Fire, a study through the book of Acts.Join us on Sundays in Huntington Beach at 9, 11, or 1, or in Costa Mesa at 10 or 12. Visit garden.church for more info.

Acts 10 is one of the great turning points in scripture. A Roman centurion named Cornelius prays and gives generously. A Jewish apostle named Peter wrestles with a vision he doesn't yet understand. And the wall that separated Jew and Gentile begins to come down, not through an argument, but through hospitality.In this message, Pastor Darren walks through the story of Cornelius and Peter and asks what it means for us today: that heaven keeps track of hidden prayers, that the Spirit is always a sending voice, and that the new thing God wants to do is often most resisted by the people who participated in the last thing he did. Geography teaches theology. Joppa, the same port Jonah fled from, becomes the place Peter says yes.The invitation is simple and uncomfortable. Let hospitality go first. Welcome the people you've categorized out. Move on the whisper before you have full clarity.Part of our series Church on Fire, a journey through the book of Acts.

Peter heals Aeneas in Lydda and raises Tabitha in Joppa, and the whole region turns to Jesus. But the point of Acts 9 isn't the miracle. It's the kind of people the Spirit is forming.Pastor Bill Dogterom walks through Acts 9:32-43 and asks what it looks like to live like Peter, who has been around Jesus long enough to know he's not the healer, and like Tabitha, a widow whose ordinary faithfulness to the poor leaves a hole in the community when she's gone. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us. The question is whether we'll be discerning enough to notice what God is already doing, and humble enough to step in without making it about ourselves.Part of our series Church on Fire, a journey through the book of Acts.Acts 9:32-43

In Acts 9, Saul is on his way to Damascus to imprison followers of Jesus when a light from heaven stops him in his tracks. He hears his name called, goes blind for three days, and the entire direction of his life changes.Chase Cofer walks through the story of Saul's encounter on the road to Damascus and the role of Ananias, an ordinary disciple Jesus sends to lay hands on him. It's a message about how mercy interrupts, how transformation often comes through faithful, unnamed people, and what it looks like to say "here I am" when Jesus asks something costly of us.This sermon is part of our series Church on Fire, a journey through the book of Acts.

In Acts 8, Philip leaves a thriving revival in Samaria to walk a desert road, where he finds one Ethiopian official reading Isaiah in a chariot. That single conversation becomes the seed of the Ethiopian church, one of the oldest Christian traditions on earth.We walk through this story to ask a simple question: what does success in the kingdom of God actually look like? Not crowds, not platforms, not the American instinct to do large things famously and fast. Something quieter. Faithful obedience to the whisper of God, often in small, overlooked places.Along the way, we look at four things that shaped Philip's life: trustworthy in small things, faithful in hard things, quick to obey, and willing to look foolish. And we sit with the Ethiopian eunuch, a man religion had locked out, who finds in Jesus that nothing can hinder him from being welcomed in.Part of our series Church on Fire, a journey through the book of Acts.

In Acts 8, the gospel moves into Samaria and a whole city begins to come alive. But Luke pulls back the curtain on something we can't miss: wherever God is moving, a counterfeit power is always at work. Simon the Sorcerer had an entire city under his spell, and two thousand years later, the same power is still shaping us. We just call it something different now.This message confronts the quiet danger of being baptized but never actually changed. Of believing the right things, showing up on Sunday, and still running the old operating system inside a new kingdom. Are we consuming the things of God, or participating in the mission of Jesus? Are we trying to earn what He only gives as a gift?If you've been exhausted from performing or sensing that there's more of the Holy Spirit available to you than you've ever received, this is an invitation to stop striving and surrender. Jesus isn't in the sparing business. He's in the saving business. And He's coming after you.

This message explores the tension many of us feel after Easter. If Jesus really rose from the dead, why does life still feel the same? Why are we still dealing with anxiety, uncertainty, and unanswered questions?Looking at the life of Thomas, we’re reminded that resurrection doesn’t force change on us. It invites us into it. Faith isn’t inherited from someone else’s experience. It’s personal. It’s a choice to trust, even in the places where we still have doubts.This teaching walks through what it means to engage resurrection in everyday life. Not as a one-time moment, but as a daily decision to follow Jesus through uncertainty, wounds, and real life circumstances. It’s an invitation to move from observation to participation, to say with your own life, “My Lord and my God.”

This Palm Sunday message invites us to wrestle with a version of Jesus that doesn’t always match what we want.The crowd expected power, control, and deliverance on their terms. Instead, Jesus comes gentle, refusing to be shaped by their expectations and showing that the way of the Kingdom is not climbing up, but laying things down.This is a story about what happens when Jesus disappoints us, and what it looks like to keep following Him anyway. Because the truth is, we often want Jesus to serve our agenda, but He invites us to surrender to His.Resurrection changes everything, but it begins with surrender.

In Acts 8, the early church faces one of its darkest moments. Persecution breaks out, Stephen is killed, and believers are scattered. But what looks like loss becomes the very thing God uses to move His mission forward. This message explores how God works through suffering, why He doesn’t waste the hardest seasons of our lives, and how surrender becomes the pathway to being used by Him. Through the story of Philip, we see that ordinary people who simply say yes to Jesus can carry His presence into unexpected places and bring real freedom, healing, and joy.If you’re walking through disappointment, pressure, or uncertainty, this is an invitation to see your story differently. God is not absent in your pain. He’s working through it, forming you, and sending you.

In Acts 7, Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin under intense pressure and opposition. Instead of defending himself, he tells the bigger story of what God has been doing all along. From Abraham to Joseph to Moses, Stephen reveals a vast panorama of God’s grace and shows how every part of the story points to Jesus. In this message, we see that following Jesus does not remove pressure. Sometimes it increases it. But the invitation of the Spirit is to become the kind of people who keep their eyes on Jesus even in the middle of it. Stephen’s life shows that God meets us in the trial, reveals His glory in the struggle, and empowers ordinary people to remain faithful no matter the cost.Even when the world pushes back, heaven is not closed. Jesus is near, the Spirit is present, and God is still writing a story of redemption that is far bigger than what we can see.

In Acts 6 we meet Stephen, an ordinary follower of Jesus chosen to help care for widows in the early church. Yet Scripture describes him as a man full of faith, full of grace, full of power, and full of the Holy Spirit. Even in the face of opposition and false accusations, Stephen responds with wisdom, courage, and a peace that reveals the presence of God in his life. This message explores what it looks like to live a life truly shaped by the Holy Spirit. The early church was not built on influence or platforms but on ordinary people who walked closely with Jesus in everyday life.When we declare that Jesus is Lord, it changes everything. Our allegiance, our identity, and the way we live in the world all begin to shift.

In Acts 6, Stephen is described as a man full of the Holy Spirit, wisdom, faith, grace, and power. Not a platform preacher. A table server. A volunteer. Yet when pressure came, what spilled out of him looked like Jesus.This week we ask a simple question: When your life is shaken, what comes out?Crisis does not create what is inside of us. It reveals it. And the Christian life is not about trying harder or mastering spiritual practices. It is about being filled again and again with the presence of the Holy Spirit.In this message, Pastor Darren walks through what it means to be full of the Spirit, full of wisdom, full of faith, full of grace, and full of power, and how real transformation happens not through self effort, but through surrender.

In Acts 6, the early church is growing fast. Revival is breaking out and right in the middle of it, there’s conflict. Widows are being overlooked. Needs are exposed. And the solution is not better branding or stronger personalities. It’s surrendered, Spirit-filled people.This message is a call to lay down your life again. There is no small role in the kingdom. Serving tables is ministry. Prayer is ministry. Preaching is ministry. God moves through ordinary obedience when it’s fully surrendered to Him.

In Acts 5, revival turns into resistance. The apostles are arrested, beaten, and warned to stay silent. And yet they leave rejoicing.Why? Because they did not see suffering as failure. They saw it as fellowship with Jesus. This message challenges a comfort-first version of Christianity and invites us into something deeper. Obedience may cost you. Faithfulness may lead through pain. But when your identity is rooted in Christ and your hope is anchored in the resurrection, suffering does not have the final word.If you are walking through pressure, loss, or disappointment, this teaching is for you.

What does it look like when God’s presence is not just talked about, but carried?In this message from our Church on Fire series through the book of Acts, we look at Acts 5 and the early church as a community marked by the real, active presence of God. As the Spirit fills ordinary people, lives are healed, faith becomes public, and the church becomes a visible sign of Jesus’ reign in the world.This teaching invites us to see that signs and wonders were never the point. They point to something greater. The living presence of the risen Jesus at work through His people. When the church hosts God’s presence, faith wakes up, outsiders are drawn in, and transformation moves beyond gatherings into everyday life.From this week’s message, God’s Presence Transforms Lives. Watch or listen now.

What happens when the Holy Spirit fills a community but our inner lives do not match our outer appearance?In Acts 5, we are confronted with a sobering moment in the early church where hypocrisy is exposed and God’s holiness is taken seriously. This message explores the danger of curated faith, unprocessed wounds, and pretending to be someone we are not, even while participating in the things of God.Through the story of Ananias and Sapphira, we are invited to examine where we may be managing an image instead of nurturing a transformed inner life. This teaching calls the church back to congruence, reverence, confession, and a deeper dedication to Jesus. Not a performance, but a life shaped by truth, humility, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 4, we are given a snapshot of what life looks like when resurrection power moves beyond a moment and into a community.This message explores how the Holy Spirit reshapes everyday life, not just our beliefs or worship gatherings. We see a church formed by covenant rather than convenience, marked by deep commitment to one another, a transformed relationship with possessions, and a shared responsibility for those in need.Rather than mastering spiritual content, the early church was shaped by the living presence of Jesus. Their unity, generosity, and care for one another became a visible witness to the resurrection. Not through programs or pressure, but through a reordered way of life.This teaching invites us to consider how resurrection life takes shape in ordinary spaces. Our relationships, our resources, and our response to need. It is a call to move from consumer Christianity toward a rooted, shared life centered on Jesus.

Fear and anxiety shape so much of how we live and even how we pray. In Acts 4, the early church shows us another way. When opposition came, they did not retreat or ask for safety. They gathered together, prayed scripture, and asked God for boldness.This message explores how fear trains us to pray small and how the Holy Spirit forms us to pray with courage. When God’s people depend on His presence, their faith grows, their prayers deepen, and the name of Jesus goes forward with power.From our Church on Fire series through the book of Acts.

In Acts 4, the early church is offered a deal: you can keep your faith, just keep it quiet.After a public miracle and a public proclamation of the resurrected Jesus, Peter and John are arrested and brought before the most powerful and educated leaders of their day. The pressure is clear. Stop speaking. Stop teaching. Keep the name of Jesus out of the public square.But instead of shrinking back, Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks with boldness. He names what’s true: the man was healed by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the One they crucified, the One God raised from the dead. And then comes the line that still confronts every generation: “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”This message challenges two kinds of Christianity that the enemy loves: silent Christians and private Christians. It exposes how our culture trains us to compartmentalize faith, keeping it personal, polite, and manageable. And it invites us into a different way, a witness that is humble, faithful, and visible.The world isn’t waiting for impressive Christians. It’s waiting for ordinary people who have been with Jesus.

What does resurrection look like beyond Sunday?In this message from our Church on Fire series, Bill Dogterom walks through Acts 3 and reminds us that resurrection life is not just something we believe in, it is something we live. When Peter and John encounter a man who has spent his life on the margins, we see that healing is not about spectacle but about pointing people to Jesus and inviting them into a new way of life.This teaching challenges us to consider how the resurrection shapes our everyday moments, our work, our relationships, and the places where life feels heavy or ordinary. It also speaks directly to those who feel disqualified by failure, reminding us that brokenness is often the place where God meets us and invites us forward.Resurrection life is not confined to the past or the future. It is an invitation to join Jesus in His restoring work right now.

Advent is an invitation to slow down, redeem time, and make room for Jesus. In this final Advent message, Bill Dogterom reminds us that love is not a shallow feeling or a seasonal mood. It’s the foundation of everything God is doing in us.Through John 3, 1 John 4, Romans 8, and Ephesians 3, we’re invited to stand in the reality that God’s love does not depend on our performance. Not in our best moments, and not in our worst. This is love that does not condemn, love that stays present in the dark, and love that transforms us from the inside out.If you’ve ever felt disqualified, numb, cynical, or tired, this message is a steady reminder: God is for you, and nothing can separate you from His love. 

At some point, most of us have asked the question, even if we’ve never said it out loud. Does God actually want me to be happy?In this Advent teaching, Pastor Darren sits with that tension and invites us to slow down and be honest about how we think about joy. Not the kind that depends on things going well, but the kind that can exist even when life feels complicated. He looks at the Christmas story and points out how joy shows up right in the middle of uncertainty, fear, and ordinary people trying to trust God one step at a time.There’s an invitation here to rethink happiness, not as something we chase or manufacture, but as something rooted in who God is and how close He comes to us. Especially in a season where expectations are high and emotions run deep, this conversation helps ground joy in something deeper than circumstances.

In this Advent message, Pastor Bill Dogterom invites us to look beyond a shallow idea of peace and see the deeper work Jesus is doing in us. Peace is not just the absence of conflict. It is the restoration of what has been fractured in our hearts and in our relationships. Bill walks through Isaiah 9 and Ephesians 2 to show how Jesus takes the fragments of our lives and brings them together into something whole.This teaching calls us to receive the peace Jesus offers and to become people who bring that peace into a divided world. As followers of the Prince of Peace, we learn how to step out of hostility, lay aside the need to be right, and join God in his work of reconciliation.

We are beginning a four week series through Advent as we prepare the way for Christmas. Advent is the season where the Church slows down so we can become awake to God’s presence. It teaches us to wait, to notice, and to make room for the God who comes close.In this opening message, Pastor Bill calls us to step out of the rush and become present to what God is doing right now. Advent invites us to breathe, to pay attention, and to trust that God meets us in the real moments of our lives.Pastor Bill reminds us that thanksgiving is more than a reaction. It is a practice that grounds us and becomes the place where hope grows. Through Romans 5 and 1 Thessalonians 5, we see how joy, prayer, and gratitude shape us into people who can carry hope in every season, even in suffering or uncertainty.Advent forms us into people who recognize that God is near in the highs, the lows, and the everyday moments in between.

Pastor Darren teaches from Acts 3 and invites us to recover a simple truth. Healing was never meant to be unusual for the people of Jesus. In the early church it was normal for God to meet people in their pain, restore what was broken and reveal his Kingdom through ordinary disciples who made themselves available.Through the story of the man at the Beautiful Gate and the testimonies coming from our own community, Pastor Darren shows how Jesus continues his ministry through the Church today. This message calls us to lay down a powerless version of faith, raise our expectations and learn to pray with compassion, courage and trust.If you have ever wondered how healing fits into everyday discipleship, this teaching will help you step toward a bigger and more hopeful view of what life with Jesus can look like.

Most of us do not feel rich. We just feel like we never have enough. We live in a culture of Amazon boxes, comparison, and quiet anxiety about money, and it is easy to believe that life really does consist in the abundance of our possessions.In this teaching, Pastor Darren Rouanzoin walks through Acts 4, Luke 12, John the Baptist’s call to repentance, and the story of Zacchaeus to show that Jesus cares deeply about how we relate to our stuff. Not because he wants something from us, but because he wants freedom for us.You will hear real stories from our church family of canceled debts, unexpected cars given away, rent covered, and spontaneous offerings that could only be explained by grace. Then Pastor Darren presses into the deeper question behind all of it: what would Jesus see if he looked at your bank statement, and what would change if he was truly in charge of your finances?This message is for anyone who feels the pull of consumerism, who feels suspicious of the church and money, or who longs to live with open hands but does not know how to start.

When the Holy Spirit takes hold of your life, nothing stays off limits. In this message from our Church on Fire series, Pastor Darren Rouanzoin teaches that when God fills His people with His Spirit, generosity becomes the natural response.This isn’t about guilt or percentages. It’s about surrender. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is forming a people who live with open hands and open hearts. When we give everything to Him, we become a church marked by abundance, grace, and extravagant generosity.Scripture: Acts 2:42–47, Acts 4:32–37, 1 John 3:16–18, Deuteronomy 15:7–11Speaker: Darren RouanzoinSeries: Church on Fire

What does real devotion look like in a world built around comfort and convenience? In this message, Pastor Darren looks at Acts 2:42–47 and shows us a picture of the first church. It was a community of people devoted to Jesus, devoted to one another, and devoted to His mission.So much of faith today can become about consuming spiritual content, showing up to events, or chasing comfort. But the call of Jesus is different. He invites us to be all in. To live in a way that reflects heaven on earth. To be a people shaped by Scripture, filled with the Spirit, and committed to love.This teaching will help you see what the church was meant to be and how to live with wholehearted devotion in an age of consumerism.

The gospel is not an idea or an experience. It is a person. In this message from our Church on Fire series, Pastor Ramin walks through Peter’s first sermon in Acts 2 and shows the full story of Jesus—the King who lived, died, rose again, and now reigns with power and love.If you’ve been trying to carry life on your own, this is an invitation to turn to Him and receive the life only Jesus can give.

The Spirit of God still speaks. In Acts 2, Peter stands and reminds the crowd that God’s promise is for everyone. Sons and daughters. Young and old. Every person filled with the Holy Spirit now carries His voice into the world.In this message, Pastor Darren teaches that prophecy isn’t about performance or hype. It’s about revealing the heart of Jesus. The Church is meant to be a prophetic people who listen to God and speak His words of life, truth, and love.

What does it mean to speak in tongues, and why does it matter for followers of Jesus today? In this message, Pastor Darren teaches from Acts and 1 Corinthians to bring clarity to what the Bible says about this gift.Tongues are a way of praying and praising God through the power of the Holy Spirit. They help us grow in intimacy with God, strengthen our spirit, and build faith in ways our own words cannot. Tongues are not proof of salvation, they are not a requirement to follow Jesus, and they are not something to be afraid of. They are a gift meant to bring us closer to the presence of God and to stir our hearts toward love.This message helps us see that the Spirit still speaks, still fills, and still moves through His people today.

Many believers know about the Holy Spirit but live without His power. The book of Acts shows us what happens when the Spirit fills ordinary people and the church comes alive.In this message, Pastor Darren teaches on ten ways the Holy Spirit moves through the life of a believer and the church today. The Spirit continues the ministry of Jesus, empowers witness, forms a new kind of community, breaks cultural and spiritual barriers, and authenticates the gospel through signs and wonders.This isn’t just a message about history. It’s an invitation to live in the reality of Pentecost—to be filled, led, and transformed by the presence of God.Watch the full teaching from our Church on Fire series and learn what it looks like to live with the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

Acts 2 is more than the beginning of the church. It is the culmination of the entire story of Scripture and the moment the Holy Spirit fills ordinary people to carry the presence of Jesus into the world. In this message, Pastor Darren unpacks Pentecost not as a distant event but as the Spirit’s ongoing invitation to live Spirit-filled and anchored in God’s Word.Listen to discover why a truly biblical church must also be a Spirit-filled church.

Waiting is never easy. The disciples were confused, disappointed, and broken after Jesus left. Yet in Acts 1, before the Spirit was poured out, God was already shaping a new kind of community. It was not built on power or position but on faithfulness and trust.In this message, Pastor Bill Dogterom calls us to keep showing up even when we feel hidden or overlooked. The Spirit empowers us not just to do but to be, to be a people God can trust with His presence.God works in the ordinary, in the places we would rather skip past. It is there that He prepares us for what is next.

Many followers of Jesus live with a faith that feels powerless. We settle for behavior management, curated church experiences, and good ideas rather than stepping into the life Jesus promised. But the book of Acts tells a different story. Ordinary men and women were filled with the Holy Spirit and became powerful witnesses of the risen Jesus.In this message, Pastor Darren unpacks Acts 1:8 and teaches on what it means to receive and grow in the power of the Holy Spirit. Power is not about hype or performance. It is the Spirit’s presence enabling us to live transformed lives, proclaim the gospel, heal the sick, and partner with God’s mission in the world.If you’ve ever wondered why your faith feels empty or how to experience more of God’s presence and power, this teaching will give you a framework for stepping into it.📖 Scripture: Acts 1:8, John 14:12, Mark 9🎙️ Part of our Church on Fire series, a journey through the book of Acts.

Jesus’ final words set the tone for everything that follows in the book of Acts. In Acts 1:8, He promises power through the Holy Spirit and calls His followers to be His witnesses. Ordinary people are invited to live lives that point to Him in every place, from the familiar to the farthest ends of the earth.In this message, Pastor Darren unpacks what it truly means to be a witness. It is not about consumer Christianity or simply sharing information. It is about embodying the reality of the risen Christ. Our lives, our communities, and our everyday choices become a testimony that Jesus is alive.This is the mission every Christian is called into: to live empowered by the Spirit, reflect Jesus to the world, and join God’s story of renewal.

The last command Jesus gave His disciples before sending them into the world was simple: wait. Not to strategize, not to build programs, but to wait for the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. In a culture that hates waiting, this call can feel like weakness or failure. But in God’s kingdom, waiting is where He forms us, fills us, and empowers us.In this message from our Church on Fire series, Pastor Darren unpacks Acts 1 and reminds us that the Church was never meant to run on talent, vision, or programs alone. We are called to be a people who carry His presence into every corner of life.If you’ve grown tired of running on your own strength, this is an invitation to slow down, open your hands, and wait for His Spirit.