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Everybody Belongs, Starting with You

Stained Glass

Everybody belongs. When we say everybody, we mean every color, every shape, every personality, and people with every kind of story imaginable. Everyone belongs, even before they believe. It's sad that we have to expound on the word "everybody" to make sure people know that we mean everybody. This is the …

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The Abiding Church: Calling Church Leaders Back to Jesus

The Abiding Church

When I first moved back to northwest Arkansas to plant a church, not everyone understood. Even quite a few church leaders wondered why the neighborhood needed another church. But Nate Sweeney embraced us and has encouraged us all along the way. I so appreciate his ministry in northwest Arkansas, and I'm excited …

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Eight Questions for Churches at a Life and Death Cultural Crossroads

Crossroads

One of our core values at Grace Hills is, "We stay fast, fluid, and flexible. There are no sacred cows. We embrace the pain of change for the win of seeing more people meeting Jesus." I wrote that one knowing that of all of our other core values, it would probably be the hardest to honor over the long haul. It …

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Everybody Belongs In the Church, Including You

Grandma Briggs

I'm white. So when I die, I'll go to white heaven, right? Actually, a Jewish man named John once had a God-given vision of what heaven would look like, and what he saw was more like "a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and …

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Happy First Birthday, Grace Hills!

Cold Baptism

Northwest Arkansas is a fantastic place to call home, and thousands of people are calling it home for the first time, many of whom don't have a relationship with Jesus. So a year ago, Grace Hills Church launched publicly to reach people far from God. In that first year, thirty people went public with their …

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The Problem With My Old Church Was…

Tilt-shift Church

That's a phrase you will only hear in the modern, western church - particularly in the United States. In first century Jerusalem, if you didn't like the music, the Pastor, or the amount of perfume Sister Bertha wore, you had to stay and work it out. Where else would you go? Disclaimer: What I'm about to say …

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Big Truths I Need to Hear Every Day

Eternal Truth

I'm a messed up human being. I don't mean that I'm particularly deranged - just that I was born broken and have reached the plateau of adulthood carrying some flaws with me. The biggest flaw? I believe lies... sometimes. Here's a law of life that can't be avoided or broken... The way I think determines what …

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A Biblical Ecclesiology for Church Planting

Peter Waldo

A casual observer of the modern church planting movement might conclude that we have a generation of leaders who are aggressively launching churches in the same way serial entrepreneurs start new businesses. With the right model, enough talent, and piles of cash, we can build a show sure to attract enough …

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Our First Easter as Grace Hills Church

Easter Egg Hunt

Was awesome. On Saturday, we hosted a community Easter egg hunt at Grace Hill Elementary School. About 75 volunteers, a third of which were teens, came and hid 5,000 eggs and served a hot grilled lunch to about 350 people. The school was gracious enough to allow us to invite all 500 of their students which …

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Doing Discipleship Post-Resurrection Style

Sermon on the Mount

I've heard plenty of talk about discipleship and multiplication recently, and it usually goes something like this... If you want to make disciples the way Jesus wants, you have to do it the way Jesus did it. And Jesus, in His earthly ministry, chose only a few people, weeded out those who weren't true …

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