Garden City Church Garden City Church Pittsburgh

This week, Pastor Shaq Hager walks through Acts 5:17-42. It's a story about the apostles being brought before the Sanhedrin. This is becoming a regular occurrence for the apostles - trials before the Sanhedrin, questioning, veiled threats, and now a physical beating. All because they continue to heal people and teach the crowds the Gospel of Jesus. What does it mean for us to face and endure persecution? How can we respond to persecution and rejoice in the midst of it?

This week Pastor Shaq Hager discusses Acts 5:12-16. It's a brief and descriptive passage in which Luke describes the ways the Spirit is at work through the apostles to bring physical healing and restoration to people's lives and bodies. And not just for people within the nascent church community, but also people outside the community. The Spirit's healing activity was not just reserved for the first Christians, but appears to have been available to anyone. The apostles and the early church understood their role as agents of shalom, and we're invited to see ourselves the same way in our neighborhoods, families, and workplaces.

Pastor Dennis Allan continued our Acts study by walking through the story of Ananias and Sapphira recorded in Acts 5:1-11 (NIV). Ananias and Sapphira want to be leaders and hold positions of honor in the early church, and so they devise a plan to deceive Peter and the apostles. They want to appear good without doing the work of becoming good. They want to create a shortcut to leadership and influence without having to do the work of discipleship. It’s a challenging story, and yet it reminds us that the our kingdom impact is connected to the way we imitate Jesus. Because our righteousness impacts our witness.

This week Pastor Dennis continued our study on the book of Acts by leading a conversation on Acts 4:32-37. It's a summary passage in which Luke describes the way the early church met the needs of vulnerable people until, according to Luke, "there were no needy persons among them." What values and ethics did the early church embody that we need to pay attention to today? Is a church's willingness to care for its vulnerable members evidence of its Gospel proclamation?

This week, Carrie Buckner continues our community's study of the Book of Acts by focusing on Acts 4:23-31. It's a story about the way the first followers of Jesus gathered together after Peter and John were questioned by the Sanhedrin and ordered by them to no longer speak or teach about Jesus. We see the early church prioritize prayer in the face of opposition. Their first impulse was not to strategize, but to pray. It's an indication of the early church's dependence on Jesus and it's an insight into how we can approach prayer today.

This week, we return to our Acts series. Pastor Dennis walked through Acts 4:1-22, the story of Peter and John and the Sanhedrin Council. In the story, the Sanhedrin, Judaism's most powerful legislative body, appear threatened by Peter and John and the "power" with which they healed a lame man and taught crowds of people. And that's what the story is about: who can have power, how power is distributed to people, and the ways people and institutions will seek to thwart good things (like the spread of the Gospel) in order to maintain their own power and position. This is a conversation Christians and the church need to have. What do we do with power? And what is it even for?