Pastor Lonnie Rev. Dr. Lonnie Richardson

Whenever something threatens our well-being, jeopardizes our normal existence, or thrusts us into an unexpected, unplanned, and unwanted direction, the natural result is fear. But we don’t have to reside there. God wants us to trust him not only with our salvation, but also with our relationships, our resources, and our futures. God wants to see our professed faith in action and wants us to put our trust in him for every detail of our lives.

The woman at the well thirsted for far more than the water of that well. She thirsted for the love, forgiveness, and friendship of God. Jesus initiates a conversation that changed her life. Her new life began by giving Jesus a drink. Will you give him a drink?

To be born again is to receive and trust what has been done for us by Jesus on the cross. It’s not about what we do but about what God has already done. Our spiritual selves become alive through this grace. Pastor Lonnie goes into detail about the conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus and what it meanas to be born again.

Temptations will come. They will always show us the barren wildernesses in our lives where love is thin or perhaps non-existent. The wilderness will always ask us to face reality and make our response. Often, the process will feel evil to us. It will seem that way because the choice between our preferences and the possibility of grace is so plain.

In this talk, Pastor Lonnie shows how the body of Christ is dynamic, unified, and organic and how these attributes empower the church to make a positive difference in the world.

This is the night when God sent out a love letter of cosmic proportions. It was a night that changed everything. You could say Christmas is the beginning of a classic love story with all the right ingredients: infatuation, pursuit, risk, and relationship. In all relations of love, there does have to be the first meeting, doesn't there? A crossing of paths where we find the Christ of God intersecting with humanity! And it is a meeting with God who has desired us from the very beginning. If it weren't for Christmas, we might never have known the intensity of the love that God has for us.