afterWord with Pastor Kent

Pastor Kent Dresdow sits down with Sammy Barton, pastor of Gospel Community Church in Livermore, a church planted out of NorthCreek in September 2024. Sammy shares his story: saved at 15 in the NorthCreek youth group, over a decade on staff, and eventually sent out with a team when the church committed to exporting ministry across the Bay Area. Nearly two years in, he recounts the evidences of God's grace along the way, from losing their first meeting space three months after launch to an unlikely building partnership with a Christian school, a biblical counseling class that drew 40 people from a church of 100, and members already being sent to Ukraine and to missionary training. The conversation returns again and again to a simple conviction: there is no church-growth formula, just the twin engines of preaching the Word and ministering it privately through biblical counseling and discipleship, so that the saints are equipped for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11-12). Sammy closes by asking prayer for the men's and women's discipleship ministries launching this fall.Do you pray regularly for the churches and missionaries your church has sent? Have you seen God make a road plain one step at a time, without showing you the difficulties ahead, and can you thank him for that mercy? Are you being equipped for the work of ministry, or only attending? If the Lord opened a door for you to be sent, near or far, would you be willing to walk through it?Welcome to NorthCreek Church!In glad reliance on the Holy Spirit and Scripture, we exist for the glory of Christ, to make disciples who worship God, walk in love, and witness to the world.Connect With Us:Sunday Services: 9:00AM & 10:45AM Address: 2303 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94598Online Resources:Main Website: https://www.northcreek.org/ NorthCreek Academy (TK-8): https://ncapschool.org/ Sermon Archive: https://northcreek.churchcenter.com/channels/19901 Church App: Download the Church Center App and search for "NorthCreek Church"

Pastor Kent Dresdow and Pastor Jeremy Pray continue their conversation with Dr. Greg Gifford of The Master’s University, beginning with how life online is changing the way we relate: fewer close friends, conflict carried out over text, and less shared ground as each of us scrolls a different feed. Greg encourages churches to apply the same biblical communication principles to the digital age, and to point people toward good content online the way we have long recommended good books. The conversation then turns to young men leaving evangelical churches for Eastern Orthodoxy, drawn by its history, beauty, and reverence. Greg argues that Orthodoxy places church tradition on the level of Scripture and denies justification by faith alone, and that those leaving rarely give an exegetical reason beyond misreading passages like John 6 and Acts 2:38. The episode closes by putting historical theology in its proper place: a valuable check on our reading, under the final authority of Scripture.When conflict comes up with your spouse or a friend, do you work it out face to face, or does it happen over text? Do you have people in your local church who know you well enough to speak into your life? Who is shaping your thinking online, and are they leading you toward the Word or away from it? If a tradition appeals to you, could you defend it from Scripture, or only from history?Welcome to NorthCreek Church!In glad reliance on the Holy Spirit and Scripture, we exist for the glory of Christ, to make disciples who worship God, walk in love, and witness to the world.Connect With Us:Sunday Services: 9:00AM & 10:45AM Address: 2303 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94598Online Resources:Main Website: https://www.northcreek.org/ NorthCreek Academy (TK-8): https://ncapschool.org/ Sermon Archive: https://northcreek.churchcenter.com/channels/19901 Church App: Download the Church Center App and search for "NorthCreek Church"

Pastor Kent Dresdow and Pastor Jeremy Pray welcome back Dr. Greg Gifford, who teaches at The Master’s University and hosts the Transformed podcast, for a conversation about how artificial intelligence is shaping believers and the local church. Greg sorts the conversation into lanes: AI as a tool for objective tasks, AI as a generator of content, and AI as a stand-in for counsel and friendship. That last lane, he argues, is off limits, because a machine cannot replace people made in the image of God. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 2:14, Philippians 4:8, and Colossians 3:2, they discuss why discernment comes through the Word, how handing our thinking to a machine bypasses the renewing of the mind, and why a chatbot that only affirms us can’t give the sharpening that happens in the church. They close with counsel for people whose work is being reshaped by AI: plan wisely, and trust the Lord who establishes our steps (Proverbs 16:9).Where have you started asking AI for the kind of counsel you would never seek from an unbeliever? When AI produces something for you, could you explain and defend it as your own thinking? Is a chatbot quietly filling a place in your life that God designed for people? If technology is changing your work, are you planning wisely while trusting the Lord with the outcome?Welcome to NorthCreek Church!In glad reliance on the Holy Spirit and Scripture, we exist for the glory of Christ, to make disciples who worship God, walk in love, and witness to the world.Connect With Us:Sunday Services: 9:00AM & 10:45AM Address: 2303 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94598Online Resources:Main Website: https://www.northcreek.org/ NorthCreek Academy (TK-8): https://ncapschool.org/ Sermon Archive: https://northcreek.churchcenter.com/channels/19901 Church App: Download the Church Center App and search for "NorthCreek Church"

Pastor Kent Dresdow is joined by Jeremy Ang, NorthCreek’s Director of Adult Ministries, to walk back through Jeremy’s recent sermon on Psalm 51. Jeremy shares how the Lord led him from engineering and tech into caring ministry. He then explains why he preached the whole psalm in one sermon, and why the less familiar second half, from the plea for restoration through the closing verses on Zion, matters as much as the first. He also covers material that didn’t make the final cut: God’s answer to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7, where he reveals his glory by proclaiming his mercy; repeated words like “delight” and “purge”; the psalm’s ties to Psalm 32 and Psalm 50; and the contrast between David as an imperfect king and Christ as the perfect King. The conversation closes on David’s confession of sin from conception in Psalm 51:5, and on how the psalm ends with God’s people praising him together.When you confess sin, do you stop at the specific sins you can name, or do you come before God aware of how deep your sin runs? Do you come to him in repentance confident that he is merciful and ready to forgive, or do you expect him to hold you at arm’s length? When God confronts your sin through his Word or through another believer, as he did with David through Nathan, what is your first response? And does the mercy you’ve received stay private, or does it move you to praise God together with his people?Welcome to NorthCreek Church!In glad reliance on the Holy Spirit and Scripture, we exist for the glory of Christ, to make disciples who worship God, walk in love, and witness to the world.Connect With Us:Sunday Services: 9:00AM & 10:45AM Address: 2303 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94598Online Resources:Main Website: https://www.northcreek.org/ NorthCreek Academy (TK-8): https://ncapschool.org/ Sermon Archive: https://northcreek.churchcenter.com/channels/19901 Church App: Download the Church Center App and search for "NorthCreek Church"

Pastor Kent Dresdow, with Executive Pastor Matt Rehrer and Pastor Jeremy Pray, continues the conversation on Matt's book, When Sleep Won't Come, with a turn toward practical help. Matt begins with a key distinction: God does not promise us sleep, but He does promise us rest, and holding onto that promise can free a weary believer from the anxiety of a sleepless night. From there, the conversation covers caffeine, clock-watching, melatonin, over-the-counter and prescription sleep aids, and how to tell when a sleep problem calls for a doctor, a biblical counselor, or both. Matt also addresses the heart issues behind our habits, from treating sleep as an idol to neglecting it for screens and productivity. The episode closes with a reminder that the greatest day in history, the day of the cross, was lived after a sleepless night.When you can't sleep, do you fight for it, or receive the night as an opportunity to rest in the Lord? What fills the last two hours before you go to bed, and does it quiet your mind or stir it up? Is sleep something you guard anxiously, or something you neglect for the sake of productivity or entertainment? If poor sleep has worn on you for months, have you been willing to ask for help from a doctor, a pastor, or a trusted friend? And if God withholds the sleep you want, do you believe He can still give you strength to live the next day faithfully for Him?Welcome to NorthCreek Church!In glad reliance on the Holy Spirit and Scripture, we exist for the glory of Christ, to make disciples who worship God, walk in love, and witness to the world.Connect With Us:Sunday Services: 9:00AM & 10:45AM Address: 2303 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94598Online Resources:Main Website: https://www.northcreek.org/ NorthCreek Academy (TK-8): https://ncapschool.org/ Sermon Archive: https://northcreek.churchcenter.com/channels/19901 Church App: Download the Church Center App and search for "NorthCreek Church"

Pastor Kent Dresdow, with Executive Pastor Matt Rehrer and Pastor Jeremy Pray, discusses Matt's new book, When Sleep Won't Come. Matt explains what compels him to write, and how his work as an ER physician, his counseling in the local church, and a packed conference session showed him how many people struggle with sleep in silence. The conversation then turns theological. Sleep is more than a physical process; it is a gift from God (Psalm 127:2) that calls us to hold body and soul together. Each night we lie down vulnerable and dependent, practicing the trust we will one day need to face death itself, as seen in Jesus asleep in the boat (Mark 4:38), Stephen falling asleep as he was stoned (Acts 7:60), and Peter sleeping soundly in prison before his trial (Acts 12:6).How are you sleeping, and have you considered what your restless nights might reveal about what is occupying your heart? Do you receive sleep as a gift from God, or treat it as wasted time or a mechanical necessity? When you lie down at night, are you resting in the Lord's care, or holding on to worries you have not entrusted to Him? If every night is a small rehearsal for trusting God with death, what does your rest say about where your hope is anchored? And if you have been struggling quietly, who in your church could you talk to?Welcome to NorthCreek Church!In glad reliance on the Holy Spirit and Scripture, we exist for the glory of Christ, to make disciples who worship God, walk in love, and witness to the world.Connect With Us:Sunday Services: 9:00AM & 10:45AM Address: 2303 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94598Online Resources:Main Website: https://www.northcreek.org/ NorthCreek Academy (TK-8): https://ncapschool.org/ Sermon Archive: https://northcreek.churchcenter.com/channels/19901 Church App: Download the Church Center App and search for "NorthCreek Church"

Pastor Kent Dresdow, with Executive Pastor Matt Rehrer and Pastor Jeremy Pray, continues the conversation on the public and private ministry of the Word, now asking how they complement each other and what goes wrong when a church neglects either one. They talk about how the preached Word lifts a suffering believer's eyes beyond a private crisis to what God is doing through the whole church (Ephesians 2-3), and how the private ministry of the Word picks up the person that a sermon alone cannot reach. Then they turn to the dangers: a church strong in small groups but weak in the pulpit drifts toward individualistic, consumer Christianity, while a church built around a gifted preacher produces what they call "church à la carte," hearers who love the sermon but are known by no one. A healthy church, they argue from 1 Corinthians 12, needs both, because the body is fed together and its members minister the Word to one another.Do you come to the preached Word each week prepared to apply it, or just to hear it? When life gets hard, do you let believers in your own church open Scripture with you, or would you rather no one there know? Are you truly known at your church, or are you assembling church à la carte from sermons, podcasts, and the few people you've chosen? Who is discipling you, and who are you discipling?

Pastor Kent Dresdow, with Executive Pastor Matt Rehrer and Pastor Jeremy Pray, opens season two with a conversation about the two great expressions of the Word in the life of a church: the public ministry, from the pulpit down through classes and small groups, and the private ministry, from informal discipleship to formal biblical counseling. Following Paul's pattern in Acts 20:20 of teaching "in public and from house to house," they define each one, consider how the same Word addresses a whole congregation and a single soul, and look at how Jesus himself modeled both, preaching to crowds and sitting with Nicodemus and the woman at the well. The episode sets up part two, where the conversation turns to what happens when a church emphasizes one at the expense of the other.Which of these two ministries of the Word are you actually engaged in? When was the last time you opened Scripture one-on-one with another believer, whether giving help or receiving it? Do you think of discipleship and counseling as a pastor's job, or as part of your own life in the body? What would it look like this year to be served by both, and to serve through both?

In this short wrap-up from Pastor Kent Dresdow, the afterWord podcast closes out its first year of conversations and announces a summer break. Lord willing, a new season is planned to return in late summer or early fall. Kent looks back with gratitude over 52 episodes recorded with Executive Pastor Matt Rehrer and Executive Pastor Jeremy Pray, alongside staff interviews from across NorthCreek's ministries and visits from guests like Kevin Carson, Andrew Rogers, Brad Bigney, and Greg Gifford. If you haven't subscribed yet, now is a great time to do so, and the break is a fitting chance to revisit past episodes. Kent closes with a clear pastoral charge: a break from the podcast is not a break from Christ. Don't take a vacation from the Word, the church, or your walk with the Lord this summer.How will you keep feeding on God's Word in seasons when the routine slows down? When your schedule loosens this summer, will your walk with Christ loosen with it? Are you committed to your local church even when travel and rest pull at your calendar? Is there a past afterWord episode you could revisit to strengthen what God is doing in you?Welcome to NorthCreek Church!In glad reliance on the Holy Spirit and Scripture, we exist for the glory of Christ, to make disciples who worship God, walk in love, and witness to the world.Connect With Us:Sunday Services: 9:00AM & 10:45AM Address: 2303 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94598Online Resources:Main Website: https://www.northcreek.org/ NorthCreek Academy (TK-8): https://ncapschool.org/ Sermon Archive: https://northcreek.churchcenter.com/channels/19901 Church App: Download the Church Center App and search for "NorthCreek Church"

Pastor Kent Dresdow and Executive Pastor Matt Rehrer continue their conversation on singleness in the Christian life, picking up where Part 1 left off. They address the remaining listener questions head-on: why singleness rarely surfaces explicitly in expository preaching (and why that's not a slight), whether contentment means surrendering the desire to be married, and how to hold unmet longing without despair. Rooted in Philippians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12, they make the case that contentment is not a status — it's a learned posture in Christ. They close with a perspective that reframes the whole conversation: in eternity, marriage gives way to something greater, and every believer arrives at the same destination.Do you find yourself conflating contentment with resignation — as if accepting your circumstances means abandoning your desires? When an unmet longing surfaces, are you taking it to Christ, or are you looking for something else to fill it? If you're married, when did you last stop to seriously consider the unique gifts and struggles of the single brothers and sisters in your church?Welcome to NorthCreek Church!In glad reliance on the Holy Spirit and Scripture, we exist for the glory of Christ, to make disciples who worship God, walk in love, and witness to the world.Connect With Us:Sunday Services: 9:00AM & 10:45AM Address: 2303 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek, CA 94598Online Resources:Main Website: https://www.northcreek.org/ NorthCreek Academy (TK-8): https://ncapschool.org/ Sermon Archive: https://northcreek.churchcenter.com/channels/19901 Church App: Download the Church Center App and search for "NorthCreek Church"