Hello Discovery Family!Thank you, once again, for excelling in generosity, demonstrated this week throughanother successful backpack drive.I had the privilege of dropping off 20 backpacks on Friday and another 30 on Monday morning to the great joy of Deysi, the Student Success and Program Supervisor at Montgomery Elementary. She sent me this note last week:"Thank you Disc...

Discovery Family! Well, if I have learned anything over the last 4.5 years leading our community it is that there is always an adventure waiting. This past weekend the adventure involved storms, power outages, and canceling our first Gathering of the year. Not Fun! Looking ahead, though, I am very excited for the adventure of 2023 (Super Fun!). The theme of the year, as ...

Discovery Family! We are now well into Week 2 of Advent. In the traditional church calendar Advent is actually thestartof the new year. Which immediately raises the question: what if we saw Advent as the start of something, rather than a finish line? What new thing is God stirring in your soul right now? One of the new things happening at Discovery are Neighborhood Comm...

Hello Friends!A critical piece of our mission and vision is reaching emerging generations with the good news of Jesus. Our culture continues to move towards what many are calling "post-Christian," with more and more young people growing up with little to no awareness of the Jesus story.We know we must develop and disciple young leaders forthis mission. This is the genesis ...

Discovery Family! This fall has been a real joy for me: from the launch of our neighborhood communities and internship program, to the cooler weather, to Davis feeling "back,"it seems like a season of new life. Speaking of new life (see what I did there), one of our favorite moments is celebrating Baptisms. Given our reality as a mobile church, we get to do this a few ti...

Hello Discovery Family,I hope and pray that you have encountered our good God in new and profound ways this Lenten season. We now enter Holy Week. The count down to Easter is on!I have three simple challenges for us. First, as we wrap up Lent:finish strong! We all engaged in Lent in different and unique ways, so my encouragement to you is to stay with those commitments all...

Hello Discovery Family!Thank you all so much for your awesome participation in Serve Weekend on January 29th and 30th. So many cool stories from each of our projects, all of which continue to grow and strengthen relationships with our neighbors, city, andcommunity. Love it!This past Sunday Jeff graciously re-invited us to thePractice of Sabbath! This is year threefor us in...

Discovery Family! What an awesome Advent and Christmas season we shared together. I don't know about you, but it went by too fast for me! Two highlights: First, Christmas Eve was really special, being able to share that moment, in-person, withall of you! Second, your response to our generosity challenge has been fantastic.We raised $8788.12to share with World Relief.100...

Hello Discovery!I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving week with time and space to reflect on the people and opportunities you are grateful for.Now that we are past Thanksgiving, we jump right into the Advent season. We started the journey in our Gathering on Sunday (check it out here if you missed it), lighting the candle of Love.My encouragement to you (see what I did t...

Discovery Family! I continue to appreciate this community so much. I am grateful for each of you: for how you bear the image of God to one another, for your love for our city,your desire to serve, and for your flexibility (moving to the park, then back to the theater). I love being on this adventure with you! And I appreciate you all leaning into our current conversation...

Friends!After 18 months wefinally worshipped together on a Sunday morning in the Brunelle Theater. For me, it was a very surreal experience of: "We're back and it feels like we never left," and "Wow, it's been a long time since we've been here!"I know this is a strange time. It's worth celebrating, for sure, our return "home" so to speak. And yet, with the Delta variant, w...

Hello Discovery Family!Well, it is September, believe it or not! Fall is nearly upon us, and my hope and prayer is that despite smoke and Covid-19 and everything else, you are able to sense the gift of a new season and the new rhythms that accompany it.As you know we are anticipating our return to theBrunelle Theaterin less than two weeks. This coming Sunday (September 5th...

Hello Discovery Family, I write to you in the midst of troubling times (covid spikes, unending divisions, wildfires, churches and ministries crumbling around us), and yet also in the midst of hopeful and exciting times. I want to speak tothe hopeful and excitingfor a moment. Go back with me to January of this year, and our Vision 2021 conversation. We said then that this...

Hello Discovery Family! This weekend we started a new conversation in theamazing adventure story that is the book of Acts. This convo, calledEkklesia(which is the word translated "church" most often in our English Bibles), will help forge our imaginations for the future Jesus is inviting us into. I would encourage all of us to read through Acts as we go through the book t...

Hello Discovery! As we mercifully come to the end of a tumultuous, challenging, saddening, stretching year, I want to say one thing: I am so proud of you. I am so grateful to be a part of this community. This community that has adapted, grown, prayed, sacrificed and served, together. I am amazed at your individual and collective response. When it would have been easy t...

Hello Discovery!Well, it got chilly in a hurry didn't it! I hope you are enjoying this transition to the fall and to jackets and hot beverages and leaves all over the ground.With the changing of the season comes more changes for us as well. We have two moreIn Person Gatherings at Bet Haverimand then we will celebrateAdventtogether online. (Stay tuned, we have some great st...

"Whatever happens...conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ...stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith...our citizenship is in heaven." Philippians 1:27 3:20 Discovery Family, Well...it continues to be crazy times here in Davis, in the United States, in this world, in 2020. Which is why those words in Phil. 1:27 leap off...

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8 Hi Friends, I don't know if you have a "life verse." I always sort of cringe at that language. However, if I had to pick a life verse I guess it would be Micah 6:8. (I use it as my bio in all my social accounts, so...

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. I Peter 2:9 Many times when we hear the word holy we think: good, morally upright, people who don't do bad stuff, or various other things along these lines. But did you know all it reall...

Hey Discovery!Summer is flying by and we are looking ahead towards the fall.But we don't want you to miss out on the summer events that are still to come!The second session of Discovery'sSummer School of Theologyresumes on MondayAugust 17, 24 and 31 at 7PM. We had some amazing conversations during the first session, and can't wait to continue. You can still join, even if y...

Therefore, return to your God,Observe kindness and justice,And wait for your God continually.Hosea 12:6 NASB As we continue ourconversation onthe life of David, we join Davidin entering the wilderness: a place of uncertainty and even danger. But over and over again, God leads people into the wilderness for a purpose. The purpose may be mysterious, but it holds the potenti...

Hello Friends,Over the past week there have been many debates, thoughts, and social media posts regarding the surprisingly contentious issue of "reopening" church. Our county, last night, just released some new guidelinesas well.I wanted to share a bit more about our thought process regarding this big question.First, in everything we do, we want, to the best of our ability...

Dear Discovery, First, thank you so much to everyone who helped with Sunday's LiveStream and to those of you who tuned in! Pretty cool to see the response in a very strange moment!Here's the latest update from the city of Davis on COVID-19 guidelines. This weekend we really pushed group involvement, but that has changed now, and sowe are cancelling in-person Group gatheri...

2019 has been a year of growth in clarity about our mission as a church. We are a community that exists to help people discover the good news of Jesus. We are seeing the fruit of this in baptisms, lives transformed, and in our church serving in all sorts of new ways. Let me share a few specific wins from 2019: We added Grace Cooper (Children's Ministry Director) to our...