It All Starts With Vision

Students graduate unable to read past a fifth-grade level because someone decided that showing up was good enough. Pastor Trevón Gross uses that picture to ask what happens when believers settle for the same standard with God. In part six of The Beloved Community, he shows from Ephesians 4 and the letter to Philemon how God places us in a loving church that receives us as we are and then calls us higher. Love never leaves a person where it found them. If you’ve ever felt stuck in a faith that stopped growing, this message is for you.

The father in Luke 15 saw his son while he was still a long way off, which means he had been watching the road every day. In part five of Becoming the Beloved Community, Pastor Trevón Gross shows how God receives the broken and calls His church to do the same. He challenges us to throw away the ledger we keep on other people and to walk closely with those who are trying to find their way back. If you have ever wondered whether you have gone too far for God to restore you, this message is for you.

Zacchaeus climbed a tree because the crowd would not let him see Jesus, and Jesus stopped in that same crowd to call him by name. In Part 4 of Becoming the Beloved Community, Pastor Trevón Gross preaches "Love Sees You" from John 1:42 and reminds us that God sees us when the mask comes off and the tears fall. He challenges the church to give people full attention and to value them before asking anything of them. A community shaped by this kind of love can minister to what people struggle to put into words. If you have ever felt overlooked or used by the people around you, this message is for you.

As a young seminary student, Pastor Trevón was greeted every Sunday by a kind, generous church member who never learned his name and only ever saw his complexion. In part three of Becoming the Beloved Community, he shows how quickly all of us sort people into categories, and how the love of Jesus calls us past every one of them. Drawing on Galatians 3:28, Ephesians 2:14, and Peter’s encounter with Cornelius in Acts 10, this message reminds us that comfort is not the same as community. The beloved community is built on agape. If you have ever kept someone at a distance because they were not like you, this message is for you.

You know your friend’s breath is bad, and you hold your breath every time they talk instead of telling them. Pastor Trevón uses that small, familiar moment to ask a bigger question about how many people we fail by staying silent. In part two of Becoming the Beloved Community, he shows from Ephesians 4:15 that we only grow up into Christ when truth is spoken in love. He also explains why a friend’s honest word can be trusted more than an enemy’s kiss. If you’ve ever kept quiet to avoid a hard conversation, this message is for you.Short version: Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is permissiveness. Watch Love Tells the Truth, part two of Becoming the Beloved Community.

Most of us have learned to love people as long as they treat us right. In "Love Without Conditions," the first message in Becoming the Beloved Community, Pastor Trevón Gross reminds us that God demonstrated His love while we were still sinners. He shows why we must first receive that love before we can extend it to people who have not earned it. This is where the Beloved Community begins. If you have ever felt that God's love depends on how well you perform, this message is for you.

When Pastor Trevón and his wife, Qwynn, were newly married and deep in debt, a financial advisor told them they could make it if they simply stopped giving. They thanked him and walked out. In How to Live Differently, Part 2, the final message in the Where Do We Go From Here series, Pastor Trevón teaches that every kingdom vision comes to pass through the law of sowing and reaping. Drawing from Galatians 6, 2 Corinthians 9 and Luke 12, he shows why our words and our giving are seed, and why God is the true source behind every harvest. If you have ever wondered why the vision God gave you has not yet come to pass, this message is for you.

“How many of us have a kingdom vision for our lives, written down where we can see it?” Pastor Trevón Gross asked that question this week, and the silence that followed said more than words could. In How to Live Differently, part two of the Where Do We Go From Here series, he explains why a kingdom vision only becomes real when we let our spirit lead instead of our emotions, and why God’s word has to hold first place over every competing opinion in our lives. Drawing from Exodus 33, 1 Thessalonians 5, and Joshua 1, he names a problem many of us know well: plenty of goals, plenty of strategy, but nothing underneath strong enough to hold. If you have a vision for your life but keep living the same way you always have, this message is for you.

Pastor Trevón grew up watching his family go without, and he still remembers wanting nothing more than enough money to enjoy life. In this first message of Where Do We Go From Here?, he asks a harder question than how much you want: whose benefit is your vision actually built around? Drawing from Exodus 33 and Habakkuk 2, he shows how a kingdom vision changes your goals for your money and your marriage. If you’ve ever set a goal and later wondered what it was really for, this message is for you.

Thirty days ago, Hope House for Our Families got an urgent call: the farm property they lease was about to be sold. In this Vision Message, Juan and Diera Mendez trace that moment back to a prayer they both prayed decades earlier, the prayer of Jabez. They walk through each line of that prayer, from asking boldly for blessing to asking for a territory large enough to require God's own hand. If you've ever wondered whether the vision in your heart is too big to ask for, this message is for you.