Spiritual growth sounds great, but what does it mean? There is something very grounding about trees. We understand how they grow and how dirt, seeds, water, and roots support the life and seasons of a tree. Using a tree as a metaphor, Christopher Maricle presents a model for spiritual growth that is easy to use and remember. Deeply Rooted borrows Catherine of Siena's image of the soul as a tree and categorizes it into four parts: the garden, the soil and roots of the tree, the trunk and essen...

Doug Ruffle writes A Missionary Mindset using the timeless principles of E. Stanley Jones and transfers them for use today. Teaching us to approach the mission field as if we were from a different country and learning a new culture, a new way of communicating, and a new way to connect people to the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

How can the church stay in step with the Spirit during a time of unprecedented change? The apostle Paul led the Galatians through a massive cultural shift in which they had to radically expand their ideas of who God is, who they were, and God's mission for the church. He was able to lead them through this time of great change because of his encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus road, an experience in which his view of God was completely upended. Today Christianity is undergoing a cu...

Doug Ruffle writes A Missionary Mindset using the timeless principles of E. Stanley Jones and transfers them for use today. Teaching us to approach the mission field as if we were from a different country and learning a new culture, a new way of communicating, and a new way to connect people to the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In this video, Rob Fuquay helps us learn the background of the words "I Am" in scripture. Filmed in the Holy Land, the video begins in the desert, where God spoke the words "I Am" to Moses. Through Moses's encounter with the burning bush, God called Moses to return to Egypt and tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go!" Moses asked God, "If the people ask who sent me, what shall I say?" God replied, "Tell the Israelites 'I Am' has sent you." Twelve hundred years later, Jesus used the words "I Am" to r...

This video segment takes us to the Mount of Beatitudes, the site that commemorates Jesus' feeding the 5,000. Fuquay notes that the crowd consisted of 5,000 men; with women and children, it could have been as many as 15,000 people. Besides the Resurrection, the story of Jesus' miracle of feeding the crowd is the only miracle story told in all four Gospels. Next, we go with Fuquay to Capernaum, an outpost of Jesus' ministry that was located on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus came to Capernaum after t...

In this video segment Rob Fuquay takes us to Jerusalem during the Feast of Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths. This festival commemorates and celebrates God's guiding the people of Israel through the desert, leading them with a pillar of fire. Fuquay notes that the feast is a reminder that we are still people on a journey. We visit the Western Wall of Jerusalem, also known as the Wailing Wall. On top of that wall was the courtyard where Jesus stood on the Ni...

This video segment begins in a sheep pen as Rob Fuquay talks about shepherding. Shepherds have been around for at least 6,000 years, he says. In Jesus' day, shepherds sometimes rented a safe place to keep their sheep at night, in an enclosure with a locked gate. Often several flocks of sheep were kept in the same enclosure. This setting brings life to Jesus' words "I am the good shepherd" and "I am the door and gate of the sheep." We travel out to the countryside, where Fuquay remarks that sh...