Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Joshua 23:1–11

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Before moving forward, we must look back. Joshua gathered Israel to recount God's miraculous interventions—parted rivers, fallen walls, supernatural victories. What has God done in your life? Perhaps He provided when resources seemed impossible, healed a relationship you thought was dead, or opened doors you never imagined. These memories aren't nostalgia; they're fuel for faith. When we rehearse God's past faithfulness, we build confidence for future battles. Today, write down three specific ways God has proven faithful in your journey. Let these testimonies become stones of remembrance, anchoring your trust when new challenges arise. God's track record in your yesterday guarantees His presence in your tomorrow.        

How has God been faithful in your life, and how can remembering that strengthen your faith today?                 

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Thank God for His faithfulness in your life and ask Him to strengthen your trust as you move forward.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Write down at least three specific ways God has been faithful to you and revisit them throughout the week.
2. Share one of those testimonies with someone to encourage their faith.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: John 19:38–42; Ephesians 5:8–14

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Nicodemus, who first came to Jesus by night, eventually stepped into the light. After the crucifixion, he publicly identified with Jesus, bringing burial spices and caring for His body. The secret seeker became a bold disciple. When he encountered the resurrected Christ, Nicodemus must have understood fully what being "born again" meant. His transformation from midnight questioner to daylight follower illustrates what Jesus does in every surrendered life. You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. The same resurrection power that raised Jesus transforms everyone who believes. Your response to Jesus determines everything.        

How has your life changed since encountering Jesus? Are you living as light in the darkness?  

Share your faith story with someone this week. Step out of hiding and publicly identify with Jesus, just as Nicodemus finally did.                 

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Ask God for boldness to live openly for Him and to reflect His light in your everyday life.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Share your testimony or what God has done in your life with at least one person this week.
2. Choose one way to visibly live out your faith—through kindness, truth, or encouragement—in your daily environment.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: John 3:18–21; 2 Corinthians 6:1–2

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Jesus didn't come to condemn, yet some face condemnation. What makes the difference? Not God's willingness—He proved His love at the cross. The difference is our response. Belief isn't mere intellectual agreement; it's surrendering control of your life to Jesus. Some refuse because they love darkness more than light, preferring to hide rather than be exposed and healed. But today is the day of salvation. The invitation stands open. Jesus offers new birth, forgiveness, eternal life, and relationship. The most powerful Being in existence, who has a redemptive plan for your life, loves you more than anyone ever has or will.

Have you truly surrendered your life to Jesus, or are you still holding back control?  

If you've never surrendered to Christ, do it today. If you have, identify any areas you're still controlling and release them to Him in prayer.                 

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Surrender every area of your life to Jesus and ask Him to take full control.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Identify one area of your life you’ve been holding back and intentionally surrender it to God in prayer.
2. Take a practical step of obedience in that area, trusting God with the outcome.

"I've come to peace with it because I love God and I know God, I know his character- but the biggest question I have is why were we even able to sin."- Pastor Matthew Johnson

The Branch Podcast hit a milestone with Episode 100, and Pastor Matthew Johnson, Pastor Anthony Lombardi, and Pastor Chris Reed marked the occasion the way they always do- with an honest, unhurried conversation. No fanfare, no formal retrospective. Just three friends and colleagues sitting down to talk about ministry, theology, and the journey that brought them to this point.

The episode is a fitting celebration of everything The Branch has always been: accessible, grounded, and genuinely real.

Before the conversation turned reflective, the pastors took time to revisit some of the funnier moments from ministry life. Pastor Chris Reed recalled a man who attempted to knock his hat off during a church interaction- an incident that required security involvement and left a lasting impression. Pastor Matthew Johnson described leading communion, dropping the bread mid-service, and invoking the five-second rule in front of the entire congregation. A short clip of the moment went viral within the church community, though not without some criticism from viewers who felt it crossed a line.

The stories kept coming- awkward mid-sermon situations, unexpected visitors in services, public speaking stumbles, and the behind-the-scenes conversations that never made it to air. Pastor Anthony Lombardi shared that he once told a woman in a meeting to stop talking, a moment his colleagues found both shocking and, knowing the circumstances, completely understandable.

Underneath the laughter was something genuine: a portrait of three men who have spent years in the unpredictable, occasionally absurd, always meaningful work of pastoral ministry.

The podcast did not start with a strategy. It started with a conversation.

Pastor Matthew Johnson described how the three of them would regularly gather in the open office space at The Tree Church and talk through theological questions- sometimes sparked by a sermon he was preparing, sometimes just by curiosity. Staff members began stopping to listen. Eventually, people started telling them they should record it.

What those listeners responded to was the format. Theology was being discussed in plain, accessible language by people who clearly cared about it- not as a performance, but as a genuine working-through of ideas. That combination of depth and approachability became the heartbeat of The Branch.

The podcast launched first as a pilot series called The Holy Podcast, covering eight episodes, before evolving into the ongoing weekly format it holds today.

A significant portion of the conversation centered on why theology matters beyond the walls of a classroom or a seminary. Pastor Matthew Johnson reflected on a lesson he learned during seasons of cultural tension, particularly around COVID and the political climate that followed. When the church made decisions or took positions, some people read those decisions through a political lens rather than a biblical one. The solution, he said, was not to avoid the topics but to clearly communicate the why- to show that the church's positions were rooted in scripture, not preference.

The Branch became one of the primary ways The Tree Church could do that. Rather than a quick post or a brief statement, the podcast gave the pastors space to show their reasoning, model a biblical worldview in real time, and invite listeners into the process.

Pastor Anthony Lombardi added that the dialogue format itself was part of the value. In a cultural moment where civil disagreement has become increasingly rare, watching three people work through complex ideas respectfully- and sometimes land in different places- models something many people rarely see.

Each pastor shared how his relationship with theology developed, and the paths were notably different.

Pastor Anthony Lombardi came to faith around his nineteenth birthday while attending Malone University as an undeclared student. Once he encountered Christ, he said, there was nothing else he could imagine doing with his life. He described sitting for hours reading through books of the Bible with a hunger that surprised even him- a firsthand encounter with scripture that felt entirely different from the secondhand Christianity he had grown up hearing about.

Pastor Chris Reed's entry point was a hermeneutics class at Malone- a course on how to read and interpret scripture. He admitted that before that class, he had found the Bible repetitive. He already knew the stories. What the class revealed was the depth beneath the surface, and it opened something in him that he described as an insatiable desire to understand who God is and how he interacts with humanity.

Pastor Matthew Johnson grew up with a father who was a pastor and a serious student of scripture. His father's phrase- book, chapter, verse- shaped him from a young age, instilling the discipline of grounding every belief in what the Bible actually says rather than personal opinion. Even so, he entered ministry carrying significant insecurity, convinced he could never match the depth of his father's knowledge. What he discovered over years of weekly teaching was that the knowledge came through the process of preparing to teach others.

One of the most candid stretches of the episode came when the pastors discussed how their theology has changed over time. Pastor Matthew Johnson described a shift away from the expectation that theology was a fixed destination to be discovered, toward an understanding that it is a lifelong, nuanced conversation.

He shared a specific example. While reading through Revelation in personal devotion, he found himself unable to locate the rapture in the way it is commonly taught in American evangelical culture. He brought the question to Pastor Anthony Lombardi, who told him plainly that the concept as popularly understood is not clearly present in scripture- and that the theological framework most American Christians assume is largely a product of teaching that emerged less than a hundred years ago.

For Pastor Matthew Johnson, that moment was not destabilizing. It was freeing. Unlearning something he had assumed to be settled made him feel more grounded in his theology, not less.

Pastor Anthony Lombardi spoke to the broader pattern: dogmatism, he said, feels stabilizing because it eliminates uncertainty. But intellectual honesty requires acknowledging that scripture contains complexity, that context shapes interpretation, and that two thousand years of church history have not produced a single, tidy answer to every question. The goal, he argued, is not to have everything figured out but to remain open, curious, and anchored to the ultimate purpose- knowing God, worshipping him, and obeying him.

The episode closed with each pastor naming a theological question he still wrestles with.
Pastor Matthew Johnson pointed to the passages in Joshua where God commands total destruction of a people- passages he has studied extensively and still finds difficult to fully reconcile with the broader picture of God's character. Pastor Anthony Lombardi named the uneven distribution of suffering in the world, the apparent absence of rhyme or reason in why some people carry far heavier burdens than others. Pastor Chris Reed named what he called the ultimate question: why God permitted the possibility of sin at all.

None of them offered a tidy resolution. What they offered instead was the posture they have cultivated over years of study and conversation- trust in God's character, comfort with mystery, and the recognition that faith is not the absence of hard questions but the willingness to keep asking them while remaining rooted in relationship with Jesus.

As Pastor Chris Reed put it, scripture is not a comprehensive document designed to answer every question. It reveals what God intended to reveal- enough to know him, trust him, and respond to him. The rest, as all three pastors acknowledged, requires faith.

Looking for a church in Lancaster or a church in Logan? We would love to meet you on Sunday.

The Tree Church is a community of faith with two campuses in central Ohio, meeting every Sunday at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM.

Lancaster Campus 837 E Main St, Lancaster, OH 43130

Logan Campus 195 E Hunter St, Logan, OH 43138

"The most powerful being there is is also the one who loves you more than anyone has ever loved you. And he is saying he has a redemptive plan for your life." - Pastor Matthew Johnson

Every Easter weekend, somewhere between one and two billion people gather in churches around the world to hear some version of the same message. Pastor Matthew Johnson opened this Easter Sunday service at The Tree Church by asking a simple question: why?

The answer goes back 2,000 years to a man who claimed to be God in the flesh. His name was Jesus. And the things he did seemed to support that claim in ways that nothing before or since has been able to match. Jesus healed lepers with a touch or a word. He opened the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf, and the mouths of the mute. He restored a man who had never walked in more than thirty years of life. He multiplied food to feed thousands on more than one occasion. He stilled a storm at sea. He cast out spiritual forces that oppressed people. He even raised the dead.

But Pastor Matthew was clear - as remarkable as all of that was, none of it was the greatest thing Jesus ever did.

What set Jesus apart from every other figure in human history was not the miracles. It was a prophecy he made about himself. Jesus told those closest to him that he would be arrested, that the religious leaders would manipulate the Roman Empire to have him killed, and that on the third day he would come back to life. No one had ever made a claim like that - and no one had ever fulfilled one.

Pastor Matthew did not shy away from the weight of what the crucifixion actually meant. Jesus was beaten, whipped with a device designed to disfigure and cause severe blood loss, and nailed to a cross where he eventually suffocated. The soldiers who carried out the execution were professionals. They confirmed his death with a spear through his side. His body was taken down, placed in a sealed tomb, and guarded by Roman soldiers.
And on the third day, Jesus walked out alive.

That is why billions gather every Easter. Not for tradition. Not for ritual. But because if that event is true, it changes everything.

Pastor Matthew offered two personal reasons for his confidence in the resurrection.

The first was the response of the men closest to Jesus. When Jesus was arrested, his disciples went into hiding. They were terrified, confused, and devastated. These were men who had dedicated years of their lives to following someone they believed would overthrow the Roman Empire - and now he was dead. They went back to their old lives. And yet something happened that turned those same cowards into men who would willingly confront the religious leaders who had Jesus killed, travel to foreign lands with a message that cost nearly all of them their lives, and die as martyrs without recanting what they had witnessed. As Pastor Matthew put it, people do not willfully die for something they know is a lie.

The second reason was personal. Pastor Matthew described a relationship with God that has been real and vivid throughout the vast majority of his life - a consistent experience of God's love, comfort, direction, and supernatural intervention, including healing from a serious back injury sustained in a fall from a ladder. That personal experience, layered on top of the historical evidence, is where his faith stands.

With that foundation in place, Pastor Matthew turned to John 3 and the story of a man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee - one of the most religiously disciplined people in all of Jewish society. To reach that status required mastering the first five books of the Bible from childhood, outlasting peers at every level of religious education, and living under an intense system of rules and restrictions. By every outward measure, Nicodemus was the example of what a spiritually serious person looked like.

And yet he came to Jesus at night, in secret, because he was not entirely sure who Jesus was. Pastor Matthew identified three qualities in the way Nicodemus approached Jesus: he was respectful, he was hopeful, and he was unaware. He recognized that no one could do what Jesus did unless God was with him. But he did not yet fully understand what that meant.

Pastor Matthew paused here to note that this posture - respectful, hopeful, but unaware - describes a lot of people who attend church without having fully surrendered their lives to Jesus. People who have fond thoughts toward God, who have seen faith work in someone else's life, who keep showing up - but have never actually crossed the threshold of personal surrender.

Jesus looked at Nicodemus and said something that would have been shocking to anyone who heard it: unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Not unless he follows more rules. Not unless he gets his life together. Born again - a spiritual rebirth that goes beyond anything religious effort or good upbringing can produce.

Nicodemus was confused, and Jesus continued to explain. He told Nicodemus that he had come from heaven and therefore had an eternal perspective that Nicodemus did not yet have. Then he referenced one of the stranger stories of the Old Testament - the bronze serpent Moses lifted up in the wilderness, which God used to bring salvation to everyone who would look at it in faith. Jesus used that image to describe what was coming. The Son of Man, he said, must also be lifted up - so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Nicodemus did not yet understand that Jesus was describing his own crucifixion. He was planting a seed in this man's heart that would take root over the next two years. But the message was clear: something was coming that Nicodemus could not yet see, and it would make everything he had worked so hard to achieve on his own look like not nearly enough.

That something was the cross.

Pastor Matthew read John 3:16-17 aloud - the verse that appears on signs at football games and billboards and has been printed on more pieces of paper than almost any other sentence in history. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Jesus did not come to condemn. Pastor Matthew made that personal. He described a season of his own life when he could not receive grace because he was so aware of his own brokenness. He knew every lie, every act of lust, every moment of violence, every selfish choice. And rather than bringing those things to God, he kept telling God he would come back when he had cleaned himself up. He had no concept of grace. He did not understand that Jesus had not come to shame him - he had come to save him.

But Pastor Matthew was equally clear about John 3:18. Whoever believes is not condemned. Whoever does not believe is condemned already. Jesus came to save, and yet not all will be saved - because not everyone responds to him. The difference, Pastor Matthew said plainly, is not in what Jesus did. The difference is in how you respond to him.

Pastor Matthew returned to Nicodemus at the end of the message to show how his story concluded. Scripture mentions Nicodemus three times. The first is the nighttime conversation in John 3. The second is a brief moment where he defends Jesus before the religious council. The third is at the crucifixion itself, where Nicodemus shows up in broad daylight - no longer hiding - to help prepare Jesus' body for burial alongside Joseph of Arimathea.

The man who once came to Jesus in secret was now standing publicly at the cross, washing wounds and wrapping a body, honoring the one he had come to believe in. And Pastor Matthew invited the congregation to imagine the moment when Nicodemus encountered the resurrected Jesus - when Jesus would have thanked him for that act of honor, and then reminded him of the conversation they had two years earlier. He told you I would be lifted up. It happened. Now will you trust me?

Pastor Matthew asked the same question of everyone in the room. Do you believe that Jesus is able? Able to save, able to provide a life better than the world can offer, able to carry the weight of everything you have been trying to carry on your own? If the answer is yes, then the only fitting response is surrender.

Pastor Matthew closed the message by describing the moment he made that decision as a child at a Christian concert - nervous, heart pounding, but certain enough to raise his hand. Almost forty years later, he said, that one decision has made all the difference.

He gave the congregation the same opportunity - a moment of quiet reflection, a song of worship sung over the room, and an invitation to raise a hand as a simple physical marker of a spiritual decision. Hands went up across both campuses.

The message was not a sales pitch. It was not a performance. It was a pastor standing before his church on Easter Sunday and doing exactly what the day calls for - pointing people to a risen savior and asking them what they intend to do about it.

Looking for a church in Lancaster or a church in Logan? We would love to meet you on Sunday.

The Tree Church is a community of faith with two campuses in central Ohio, meeting every Sunday at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM.

Lancaster Campus 837 E Main St, Lancaster, OH 43130

Logan Campus 195 E Hunter St, Logan, OH 43138

"This story is so beautiful in that it shows almost the entirety of your spiritual life - where there was life change that happened, and God finds this family in the most devastating of circumstances." - Pastor Zach Stephens

The Tree Church Bible Study is stepping into a new season - and the book of Ruth is the destination. Pastor Stacey Crawford, Pastor Chris Reed, and Pastor Zach Stephens open this introductory episode with energy and genuine excitement, and it does not take long to understand why. Ruth is a short book. Four chapters. But as the pastors make clear from the very first minutes of this conversation, there is enough in those four chapters to fill twelve episodes - and then some.

This first episode does not dive into the text yet. Instead, it lays the groundwork. It covers what listeners can expect from the season, why the book of Ruth matters, and what historical and literary context is needed before the story begins. Think of it as a map before a journey.

One of the things that makes this season of Tree Church Bible Study different is the resources being built around it. Pastor Chris Reed walked through the new format, which is designed to help listeners do more than simply follow along - it is designed to help people learn how to study scripture for themselves.

Each week, show notes will be released alongside the podcast episode. Those notes will include key takeaways from the discussion, study questions to process throughout the week, and links to commentaries, podcasts, and other resources the pastors reference in their own study. The Bible Project is highlighted as one resource listeners will encounter regularly.

In addition to the weekly notes, a community discussion board is being launched so that listeners can engage with the material together - asking questions, sharing observations, and processing the text in community. As Pastor Chris noted, Bible study was never meant to be a solo endeavor. The process of understanding scripture takes conversation, and this season is built around creating space for that.

Listeners are also encouraged to read the entire book of Ruth before the series begins, and to read the passage for each week ahead of the episode. Pastor Stacey described her own practice of reading a passage first, writing her own thoughts, and only then turning to other resources - a rhythm that keeps her open to what God wants to say through his word before anyone else's voice enters the room.

Each pastor shared what drew them to this book, and the answers pointed in the same direction.

Pastor Zach was drawn to the way the story traces what he described as almost the entirety of the spiritual life - from devastation to provision, from being far from God to being caught up in his plan. He noted that the story covers real circumstances that mirror the kinds of things people actually walk through, which makes it unusually relatable for an ancient text.

Pastor Chris Reed framed his anticipation around the theological foundation the book provides. Ruth, he said, gives a clear picture of who God is in the Old Testament and what his posture is toward his people - and toward the world beyond his people. The book is ultimately about redemption, about God taking what looked like destruction and producing life from it.

Pastor Stacey brought a perspective that she acknowledged is a little different when the main character shares your gender. There are many incredible figures in scripture, but female main characters are rare. What makes Ruth even more striking is that she is not just a woman - she is a foreigner, a Moabite, someone entirely outside the covenant people of God. And yet she ends up in the genealogical line of King David and of Jesus. As Pastor Stacey put it, that is a constant reminder that the gospel is for everyone.

The authorship of Ruth is genuinely unknown. Jewish tradition has sometimes attributed it to Samuel, but there is no way to confirm that with certainty. The story itself is set during the time of the judges, though it may have been written - or reached its final written form - sometime later, potentially after the exile.

Pastor Chris addressed the question directly and honestly: knowing the author matters, and it also does not matter. Knowing who wrote a book gives historical context, helps identify a literary voice, and can add a layer of authority to the text. But not knowing does not diminish the book's standing. Ruth is one of the most universally accepted books in the entire biblical canon - there has never been serious dispute about whether it belongs. Its authority comes not from a named author but from the consistent recognition by the community of faith across thousands of years that this is part of God's word to his people.

Before the pastors moved into historical background, Pastor Chris took time to explain the difference between literary context and historical context - and why both matter for reading Ruth well.

Historical context tells us what was happening in the world at the time the story takes place: who was in power, what the social structures looked like, what a famine in Israel would have meant for a family trying to survive. Literary context is about the text itself - its genre, its structure, the way the narrator moves the story forward, the way speeches by characters are shaped to communicate meaning.

Ruth is what scholars call histography - history shaped for a theological and moral purpose. It is not simply a record of events. It is history told in a way that wants to teach something. The same is true of the gospels, Pastor Chris noted. The four gospel accounts exist not because the writers disagreed about what happened, but because each one is highlighting different truths from the life of Jesus. Ruth works the same way - it is telling a true story, but it is telling it with intention.

The story of Ruth is set during the period of the judges - one of the most turbulent stretches in all of Israel's history. Pastor Stacey described it plainly: this was a dark and difficult 400-year period defined by the repeated failure of God's people to walk in obedience. The famine that opens the book of Ruth was not random. It was a consequence of that disobedience - God holding the land back until his people returned to him.

Pastor Chris filled in the broader picture. The book of Joshua sets up the problem. Israel was called to clear the land of Canaanite idol worship, but they failed to do it completely. That failure became the engine of the entire judges period - a recurring cycle of falling back into the worship of other gods, experiencing the consequences, crying out to God, and being rescued by a judge, only to fall again.

The placement of Ruth in the biblical canon - between Judges and Samuel in most Christian Old Testaments - is not accidental. The book opens in the time of the judges and closes with the beginning of the genealogy of King David. It bridges the gap between the chaos of the judges and the arrival of the monarchy. And it does so through the story of a foreign woman who had no reason to expect that God had anything planned for her at all.

As the episode drew toward its close, the pastors identified the threads that will run through the entire study.

God's sovereignty and provision are present throughout the book, even though God is named only a handful of times. His involvement is implied rather than announced - which, as Pastor Chris noted, may be one of the most honest things about the book. That is often how God works. His faithfulness and kindness - the Hebrew word hesed - show up through the actions of the characters themselves, particularly through Ruth.

Redemption is central. The book turns on the concept of a kinsman-redeemer, a figure from Old Testament law who had the responsibility to restore what had been lost to a family member. That role will carry enormous weight as the story unfolds, pointing both to Boaz and, beyond him, to God himself.

And then there is the theme that may be the most surprising: God's consistent use of people who do not fit the expected mold. Boaz's own mother was Rahab - a Canaanite woman from Jericho who had helped the Israelite spies. Ruth is a Moabite. These are outsiders. And yet they are the ones through whom God's most significant plan is carried forward. As Pastor Zach put it, that gives hope - the reminder that God can use broken and unexpected things to accomplish his will.

The series ahead promises to be rich. Four chapters. Twelve episodes. And a story that, as the pastors made clear, has a great deal to say about the God who is faithful even in the most devastating of circumstances.

We're diving into the Book of Ruth! This beautiful 4-chapter story bridges the gap between Judges and Kings, showing us God's faithfulness in the midst of devastation and complexity.

Ruth's story is extraordinary—a foreign woman who becomes central to God's redemptive plan and the lineage of King David and Jesus himself. Her journey reminds us that God never wastes a hurt and that His provision shows up in our messiest moments. Even when His name isn't mentioned, His loving faithfulness (chesed) is woven throughout every detail.

Join us for this 12-week study as we explore themes of redemption, loyalty, and how God uses the "unlikely" to accomplish His beautiful purposes.

New to TCBS! 
We're providing study notes, discussion boards, and resources to help you dive deeper into Scripture. We are aiming to make the TCBS a full Bible study experience designed to help you encounter God's Word in powerful new ways.

Access the reading plan and study notes below and be sure to join Pastor Stacey and Pastor Chris for weekly dialogue in our TCBS discussion group! 

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: John 3:16–17; Romans 5:6–8

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

"God so loved the world..." These four words contain the entire gospel. Not "God so tolerated" or "God so pitied," but "God so LOVED." This love wasn't passive sentiment—it gave. It sacrificed. It sent His only Son. While we were still sinners, hostile and rebellious, Christ died for us. You weren't saved because you cleaned up first or proved yourself worthy. God's love reached down into your mess and offered rescue. The purpose wasn't condemnation but salvation. Jesus didn't come to point out everything wrong with you; He came to make everything right between you and God.

Do you truly believe God loves YOU personally, not just humanity in general?  

Read John 3:16 aloud, inserting your own name: "For God so loved [your name] that He gave His only Son..." Let this truth settle deep into your heart.                  

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Ask God to help you fully receive and believe His personal love for you.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Speak John 3:16 over yourself daily this week, personalizing it with your name.
2. Write down one way God has shown His love to you and thank Him specifically for it.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: John 3:13–17; Numbers 21:4–9

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Jesus referenced a strange Old Testament story where poisonous serpents attacked Israel. God instructed Moses to lift up a bronze serpent on a pole—anyone who looked at it would live. It seemed foolish, yet it worked. Similarly, Jesus would be lifted up on a cross, appearing weak and defeated, yet providing salvation for all who look to Him in faith. God's rescue plan often defies human logic. The cross looked like failure but was actually victory. Jesus didn't come wielding condemnation but offering rescue. The God of the universe loved you enough to become one of you, to die for you.

Does the cross seem foolish to you, or have you recognized it as God's power to save?    

Spend time today meditating on the cross. Thank Jesus specifically for what He endured to save you from condemnation.                  

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Thank Jesus for His sacrifice on the cross and ask Him to deepen your understanding of His love and salvation.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Set aside time to reflect on what Jesus endured on the cross and write down what it means personally for your life.
2. Share with someone this week what the cross means to you and how it has impacted your faith.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: John 3:1–8

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Nicodemus came to Jesus under cover of darkness, carrying questions his religious credentials couldn't answer. Despite his knowledge and position, he recognized something was missing. Like Nicodemus, many of us approach Jesus respectfully, even hopefully, yet remain spiritually unborn. Jesus' response cuts through our accomplishments: "You must be born again." This isn't about trying harder or knowing more—it's about experiencing spiritual transformation. God doesn't grade on a curve or accept good intentions as sufficient. He offers something far better: complete renewal.

What credentials or accomplishments have you been trusting in instead of surrendering to Jesus? Are you merely respectful of Jesus, or have you been born again? 

Write down anything you've been substituting for genuine relationship with Christ—religious activity, moral behavior, family heritage. Confess these to God and ask Him for spiritual rebirth.                  

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Ask God to reveal anything you’ve been relying on instead of Him and to bring true spiritual transformation in your life.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Take time to honestly confess areas where you’ve relied on yourself rather than surrendering to Jesus.
2. Invite God to begin a fresh work in your heart—ask Him specifically for renewal and new life.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Hebrews 10:19–25

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

"Let us hold fast... let us consider how to stir up one another... not neglecting to meet together." The Christian life is relentlessly communal. We're called to hold fast to hope—but notice we do it together. We encourage one another, stir each other up to love and good works, and meet consistently. Why? Because isolation is the enemy's playground. When we drift from community, faith withers. The author warns against "the habit of some" who were neglecting gathering—it was already a problem in the first century! Satan hasn't changed his strategy: isolate, discourage, deceive. But God's strategy is equally consistent: gather, encourage, strengthen. As we "see the Day drawing near," the need for community intensifies. We're not meant to survive spiritually alone. Your presence matters. Your encouragement strengthens others. Your consistency inspires faith. Where have you been absent? What would it look like to re-engage fully? The church needs you, and you need the church.

Where might you be drifting from community, and what is it costing you spiritually?                   

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Ask God to help you re-engage with community and to use your presence to encourage others.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Recommit to regularly gathering with your church or small group this month.
2. Encourage one person this week through a message, prayer, or intentional conversation.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Hebrews 11:1–6

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

"Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him." This verse dismantles two common misconceptions: that God is distant and that seeking Him is pointless. God is not playing hide-and-seek, making Himself difficult to find. He rewards seekers. But notice what's required: we must believe He exists and that He rewards. This isn't blind faith—it's confident trust that pursuing God is never wasted effort. The question isn't whether God will show up, but whether we will seek Him. Many Christians want transformation without pursuit, breakthrough without seeking, intimacy without investment. But God has designed the Christian life to be relational, not transactional. He doesn't want our religious duty; He wants our desperate desire. When did you last truly seek God—not out of obligation, but longing? He's waiting to be found.

Are you seeking God out of routine, or out of genuine desire?             

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Ask God to stir a deeper hunger in your heart to seek Him wholeheartedly.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Spend intentional time seeking God this week through Scripture and prayer with no agenda other than being with Him.
2. Write down one area of your life where you need to trust that God rewards those who seek Him—and surrender it to Him.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Matthew 6:5–15

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Jesus doesn't say "if you pray" but "when you pray." He assumes His followers will have a consistent prayer life. But notice what He emphasizes: authenticity over performance, intimacy over image. God isn't impressed with public displays or eloquent words—He rewards those who genuinely seek Him in secret. There's something sacred about shutting the door, removing distractions, and being real with God. In that private place, pretense falls away. You don't need to impress Him; you need to encounter Him. "Your Father who sees in secret will reward you." The reward isn't always what we expect—sometimes it's peace in chaos, strength in weakness, or clarity in confusion. The greatest reward is God Himself—His presence, His perspective, His power. Today, find your secret place. Shut the door. Pour out your heart. God is listening.

Are your prayers more about being heard by others or connecting deeply with God?     

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Invite God into an honest, unfiltered conversation—share your real thoughts, fears, and desires with Him.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Create a quiet, distraction-free space where you can consistently meet with God.
2. Spend time in prayer today focusing on honesty rather than perfect words.

"I see myself in so many of, for lack of a better term, the good guys and the bad guys. I see myself in both sides of so many of the stories in there." — Pastor Phil Venrick

Every great journey has a final chapter. For the book of Acts, that chapter arrives not with a dramatic conclusion but with a quiet, almost understated image - a man in chains, working to pay his own rent, welcoming anyone who will listen, and proclaiming the kingdom of God with complete freedom. That man is Paul. And in this final episode of the Tree Church Bible Study's study of Acts, Pastor Stacey Crawford, Pastor Chris Reed, and Pastor Phil Venrick sit with that image and ask what it means for the church today.

The episode picks up in Acts 28:23, where Paul has arranged a gathering with the Jewish leaders in Rome. He spends an entire day - from morning until evening - working through the law of Moses and the writings of the prophets, making the case that Jesus is the fulfillment of everything they had been waiting for. Some are persuaded. Others are not. And when those who reject the message begin to leave, Paul sends them off with a word that stops the room.

What Paul quotes in that moment is not something he invented. It is a prophecy from Isaiah 6:9–10, written roughly 700 years before Paul ever set foot in Rome. Isaiah spoke those words to the nation of Israel at one of the darkest moments in their history - a moment when the people had repeatedly ignored God's warnings, abandoned his ways, and given themselves over to patterns of life that were pulling them toward exile. The message was blunt. You hear but do not understand. You see but do not comprehend. Your hearts are hard.

Pastor Chris pointed out that when Paul reaches for that passage, he is doing something deliberate. He is not simply insulting the people who rejected him. He is showing them that their resistance is not new. It is part of a long pattern that the scriptures themselves had named and warned against. The same word that went out to Israel centuries earlier still applied. And just as Israel walked into exile because they refused to repent, these leaders were in danger of missing something far greater for the same reason.

But Pastor Chris was equally careful to note what that passage does not mean. It does not mean the outcome is fixed or that hard-heartedness is permanent. The proof, he said, is sitting right there in the text. Some of them were persuaded. The offer of repentance is always open. Paul's heart was to present the gospel precisely because he never knew who might be the one whose mind would change.

What makes this passage land with weight is not just what it says about first-century Jewish leaders. It is what it says about anyone who has ever resisted what God was asking of them. Pastor Stacey made that connection plainly. It is easy to read a passage like this and feel distant from it - to look at the people who walked away and wonder how they could have missed it. But there are moments in every believer's life when Isaiah's words could just as easily describe them.

Sometimes that hard-heartedness shows up in how a person reads and interprets scripture - clinging to the version of things they have always been taught, unwilling to consider that God might be doing something broader or deeper than what they were handed. Pastor Chris described the particular difficulty that comes when someone has grown up in the faith and their entire understanding of scripture has only ever lived in the space of the answers they were given. When something comes along that challenges that, it can feel like the whole structure is collapsing. But he argued that the willingness to ask hard questions and sit with new perspectives is not a threat to faith. It is part of what it means to mature in it.

Pastor Phil brought that conversation back to something more personal. He shared that reading Acts has consistently shown him both sides of himself - the moments where he recognizes his own faith and obedience in the people who followed well, and the moments where he sees his own resistance and pride in the people who did not. That honest double recognition, he suggested, is one of the most valuable things scripture can do for a person.

Pastor Stacey added another layer. Hard-heartedness is not only about theology or biblical interpretation. It shows up just as clearly in the everyday moments - when God asks a person to speak truth to a friend going the wrong direction, or to love someone who has been unkind, or to walk into a situation that feels threatening rather than away from it. Resistance to those promptings is just as much a hardening of the heart as any doctrinal stubbornness.

After addressing those who rejected the message, Paul turns to close with a declaration that carries enormous weight. He tells those still in the room that the salvation of God has been offered to the Gentiles - and they will accept it. For a Jewish audience, that statement was not a minor footnote. It was a direct challenge to everything they assumed about who the people of God were and who stood at the center of God's story.

Pastor Chris described the moment as both beautiful and sobering. Beautiful because it meant the invitation was wider than anyone had imagined — that people who had always stood on the outside looking in were now being welcomed in. Sobering because it meant that the people who had been entrusted with God's word and God's presence for generations were in danger of missing what those entrusted with less were receiving with open hands.

Pastor Stacey connected that to a simple and present truth. The gospel is for anyone willing to accept it. It does not check backgrounds, history, or ethnic makeup. And rather than causing resentment, that reality is worth rejoicing in. The fact that God's reach extends further than any boundary human beings would draw is not a diminishment of anyone. It is the point.

One of the most striking things about the end of Acts is what Luke does not tell the reader. He does not explain what happens to Paul after his two years in Rome. He does not describe the outcome of the trial before Caesar. He does not provide a tidy resolution. He simply closes with Paul working, welcoming, and proclaiming - and no one trying to stop him.

Pastor Chris argued that this is not an oversight. It is a deliberate choice. Luke leaves Paul's story open-ended because the story is not over. The Acts of the Apostles is not meant to be a closed historical account. It is meant to be a living document that the church sees itself inside of. The spirit that drove Paul through shipwrecks, imprisonments, and rejection after rejection is the same spirit that is still at work. The church today is not reading about something that happened long ago. It is reading about something it is still a part of.

That is what Pastor Chris and Pastor Phil each landed on as their final encouragement to the listeners. The mundane moments of ordinary life - dragging yourself to church on a difficult Sunday, choosing to love a difficult person at work, showing up consistently in the small things - are not disconnected from the story of Acts. They are the continuation of it. The spirit is still working. The gospel is still going out. And every person who follows Jesus gets to be part of what God is doing.

"A thriving faith is built through daily pursuit of God and a consistent life with his people. It's simple, but it's not necessarily easy." — Pastor Anthony Lombardi

Most people would say their faith matters to them. Most people would say they value their relationship with God. But Pastor Anthony Lombardi opened this message with a question that cuts a little deeper than that. He asked the congregation to consider not what they say they value, but what their habits actually reveal.

In closing out The Tree Church's Unstoppable Force series, Pastor Anthony brought the final two components of the series together, arguing that they are two sides of the same coin. Those two things are personal daily devotion to God and consistent participation in the gathered church community. And while they may seem distinct, he made the case that they are deeply connected and that a Christian life without both is a Christian life running on empty.

He framed it this way. The things we are consistent in are the things that actually matter most to us. Not the things we say we enjoy. Not the things we claim to value. But the things we keep showing up for, week after week, day after day. That standard, he suggested, is worth applying honestly to our faith.

Pastor Anthony identified two ways Christians tend to drift from a healthy, integrated faith. The first he called Sunday-centric Christianity. This is where church attendance becomes the whole of someone's faith. They show up on Sunday morning, sit through the service, and then largely disconnect from God for the rest of the week. Their faith never quite makes it into the rhythms of daily life.

The second extreme is isolated individual Christianity. This is the familiar idea that it is just me and Jesus, that faith is a private, personal matter with no need for community or corporate worship. Pastor Anthony was direct about this one. At best, he said, that idea is incomplete. At worst, it is completely unbiblical.

Biblical Christianity, he argued, is neither of these things on its own. It is both. It is a people who seek God personally and daily, and a people who gather regularly as the body of Christ. Removing either of those elements leaves something that looks less like the faith described in scripture and more like a faith shaped by personal convenience.

To address the individualistic extreme, Pastor Anthony pointed to something more foundational than a church attendance policy. He pointed to how human beings are made. God himself, he noted, exists in relationship as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And when God created humanity in his image, he created people who need one another. Even before sin entered the world, God said it was not good for man to be alone.

This reality shows up everywhere. Psychologists describe the need for secure attachment from infancy. Children long to belong. Adults pursue community in friendships, marriage, and shared experiences. There is something electric, Pastor Anthony observed, about being in a room full of people cheering for the same team or laughing together at a live comedy show. That electricity is not accidental. It reflects something God built into us.
The question he posed was a simple one. If community is that powerful in ordinary life, how much more essential must it be in the journey of faith?

He recalled a conversation from his college years with a man who had returned to church after a difficult season. The man admitted he chose a large church specifically because he could sneak in and sneak out without anyone noticing. Pastor Anthony remembered thinking that this man was missing the point entirely. Community is not a backdrop for a Sunday service. It is the very thing God intended the church to be.

To ground this in scripture, Pastor Anthony turned to Hebrews 10:24–25, where the author challenges believers to hold fast to the confession of their hope without wavering and to not neglect meeting together. The instruction to gather is not presented as optional. It is presented as one of the primary ways Christians hold on to their faith when life gets hard.

He also read from Acts 2:42–47, which gives the earliest picture of what Christian community looked like after Jesus ascended. The first believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to breaking bread, and to prayer. They were not casual about it. They were not occasional about it. They were devoted.

Pastor Anthony paused on that word. Devoted. It means intentional. It means consistent. It means they made gathering a priority rather than an afterthought. And the result, he pointed out, was that the Lord added to their number day by day. When the people of God did their part, God moved.

He also reframed fellowship as something more than a social activity. Community, he said, is a spiritual discipline. It is one of the means God uses to shape, encourage, and sanctify his people. Being in close relationship with others has a way of surfacing things in us that might otherwise stay hidden, and that exposure is part of how God does his transforming work.

Having addressed the community side of the equation, Pastor Anthony turned to the other. For those whose faith had become entirely Sunday-centric, he pointed to the personal and private dimension of following Jesus.

He drew from Mark 1:35, where Jesus rose very early in the morning, slipped away from everyone, and went to a desolate place to pray. His disciples eventually tracked him down, confused about why he had disappeared when there were crowds to attend to and needs to meet. Jesus's response was to simply keep going. He had not abandoned his mission. He had gone to the source of everything that made his mission possible.

Pastor Anthony did not let that moment pass without making the application plain. If Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, made private prayer a consistent priority, how much more do ordinary followers of Jesus need to do the same?

He then moved to Matthew 6:6, where Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer. The language Jesus uses is instructive. He does not say if you pray. He says when you pray. The assumption is already there. A follower of Jesus prays. A follower of Jesus carves out time to seek God privately, to open scripture, to be alone with the Father.

And Jesus does not leave the motivation vague. He says that the Father who sees in secret will reward those who seek him there. Pastor Anthony was careful to clarify what he believed Jesus meant. This is not a transaction. God is not a vending machine. What Jesus is pointing to is something far better. When we seek God, we find God. We grow in our knowledge of him. We begin to experience his presence, his peace, his strength, and his work in our lives.

Pastor Anthony closed the message with honesty and pastoral care. He acknowledged that the Christian life is genuinely difficult. There are personal struggles, spiritual opposition, and a culture that consistently pulls attention away from God. The busyness excuse is real, he admitted, though he also gently challenged it by suggesting that a quick look at daily screen time might reveal more available time than most people think.

But his larger point was not about time management. It was about what God has always designed the flourishing Christian life to look like. It is not complicated. It is daily pursuit of God in private and consistent participation in the gathered community of faith. Simple as that sounds, it is not always easy, because it requires making choices about what actually comes first.

He closed by asking each person to honestly assess where they fall. Are there things crowding out private time with God? Is Sunday morning the ceiling of your faith rather than one component of a fuller life with him? Are you communicating to your children, by what you prioritize, that the gathered church matters? These were not rhetorical questions. They were an invitation to respond.

Pastor Anthony then led the congregation in prayer, asking God to reveal whatever needs to be removed, simplified, or reprioritized so that seeking him can take its rightful place.

If you are looking for a church in Lancaster or Logan, Ohio, The Tree Church would love to have you join us. We gather every Sunday at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM at both campuses in Lancaster and Logan, Ohio, and we believe the weekly gathering of God's people is not just a tradition but a vital part of a thriving faith.

Lancaster Campus

• Lancaster Campus Address
• Sunday Services: 9:00 AM & 11:00 AM

Logan Campus

• Logan Campus Address
• Sunday Services: 9:00 AM & 11:00 AM

Whether you are new to faith or simply looking for a community to grow with, there is a place for you here. We would love to see you on Sunday.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Mark 1:35–39

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Even Jesus, fully God and fully man, needed solitude with the Father. While everyone searched for Him, He had already slipped away to a "desolate place" for prayer. This wasn't a luxury—it was His lifeline. If the Son of God required daily connection with the Father to sustain His ministry, how much more do we need it? Jesus didn't pray because He was weak; He prayed because He was wise. He understood that supernatural strength flows from sustained connection. Notice He rose "very early"—He prioritized this time before the demands of the day consumed Him. What crowds are clamoring for your attention? What noise drowns out God's voice? Jesus shows us that the secret to an impactful life isn't doing more—it's being with God more. Your greatest ministry flows from your hidden moments with Him.

What is currently crowding out your time alone with God?

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Ask God to help you prioritize time with Him and to quiet the distractions that compete for your attention.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Set aside a specific, uninterrupted time this week to be alone with God, even if it means waking up earlier.
2. Remove or limit one distraction (phone, social media, noise) during your time with Him.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Acts 2:42–47

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

The early church didn't accidentally stumble into powerful community—they "devoted themselves" to it. This word "devoted" means they made it a non-negotiable priority. Notice what happened when they gathered: teaching deepened their understanding, fellowship strengthened their bonds, breaking bread created intimacy, and prayer connected them to God's power. The result? "The Lord added to their number daily." There's a divine equation here: our intentional gathering + God's presence = spiritual multiplication. When we treat fellowship as optional, we rob ourselves of the very environment where faith flourishes. Consider today: what would change if you approached Christian community with the same devotion as those first believers? God moves powerfully among people who prioritize gathering in His name.

What place does Christian community truly hold in your priorities right now?

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Ask God to give you a deeper desire for authentic community and a heart that values gathering with other believers.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Commit to attending your next church gathering or small group with intentionality, not obligation.
2. Reach out to one person this week to build a deeper, more meaningful connection.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Acts 2:37-41

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Peter's answer to "What shall we do?" was clear: "Repent and be baptized...and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Baptism opens the door to Spirit-filled living. This isn't about a one-time experience but a continuous surrendering to God's power working in and through you. The Holy Spirit is the supernatural force that makes the Christian life possible. Without Him, we're just trying harder in our own strength. With Him, we become part of an unstoppable force transforming the world. Like the Israelites crossing the Red Sea or Joshua stepping into the Jordan, baptism is a physical act of obedience that invites supernatural intervention. Today, ask yourself: Am I living filled with and surrendered to the Holy Spirit? Is there evidence of His power in my life? Surrender afresh to Him today and watch what God does.

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Holy Spirit, I surrender myself to You. Fill me afresh and lead my life. Teach me to rely on Your power, to walk in obedience, and to live in a way that reflects Your presence in me.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Practice daily surrender: Start your day by verbally surrendering your plans and desires to the Holy Spirit.
   
   
2. Respond to a prompting: Act on one way the Spirit leads you today—encourage, pray, share, or obey immediately.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Baptism isn't a private spiritual experience—it's a public declaration that you belong to the Body of Christ. When the Spirit baptizes you into this one body, being the church isn't optional; it's essential. You have a role, a function, a purpose within the community of believers. Too many have been "dunked in water" but never truly baptized into the mission and community of the church. You cannot follow Jesus in isolation. Your gifts, your service, your presence matters to the whole body. Today, consider: Are you actively connected to a local church? Are you using your gifts to build up others? Are you committed to the messy, beautiful work of being family with other believers? The unstoppable force Jesus envisioned requires every member functioning in unity and love.

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: God, thank You for placing me in the Body of Christ. Help me to see my role clearly and to commit to living in community. Teach me to love, serve, and build up others as part of Your church.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Deepen connection: Take a concrete step into church community (join a group, attend consistently, or reach out to a leader).
   
   
2. Use your gifts: Find one way to serve or encourage someone in your church this week.

"Baptism is a physical action with a spiritual impact that invites God to supernaturally move." — Pastor Matthew Johnson

Water baptism is one of the clearest commands Jesus ever gave his followers. Yet for many people, it has become little more than a milestone - something checked off early in the Christian life and rarely revisited. In a recent Sunday message at The Tree Church, Pastor Matthew Johnson challenged that assumption directly, inviting the congregation to hear the subject with fresh ears regardless of whether they had already been baptized.

The message opened with a simple observation. When Jesus gave his disciples their final command before ascending to heaven, he could have singled out communion. He could have emphasized the call to love one another. Instead, in Matthew 28:18–20, Jesus uniquely highlighted baptism as part of the Great Commission. That choice, Pastor Matthew argued, was not accidental.

To understand what Jesus was calling his followers into, Pastor Matthew went back to the original Greek. The word translated as baptism comes from baptiso, a term common in first-century Greek culture. In the fabric industry, workers would baptiso cloth into dye - immersing it, saturating it, dunking it until the color fully took hold. The word simply means to immerse.

That same imagery carried into Jewish practice, where those converting to Judaism would walk fully into a body of water as a public declaration that they were leaving one life to walk in another. When Jesus came, he took that practice and filled it with new meaning - his own death and resurrection. Modern Christian baptism, Pastor Matthew explained, is a picture of being crucified with Christ and raised with him to walk in a new kind of life.

The depth of that meaning, he suggested, is exactly where the problem often begins.

Pastor Matthew made a pointed observation about the culture surrounding discipleship today. There is a persistent tendency, he noted, to take difficult things and make them easy, to take long things and shrink them down. That instinct is not always wrong. But when it is applied to the process of becoming like Christ, something gets lost.

Too many people, he said, have entered into a relationship with Jesus without ever truly wrestling with what they were committing to. They added salvation to their lives rather than allowing it to transform them. Drawing from Romans 6:1–4, Pastor Matthew walked the congregation through what the Apostle Paul described as the real meaning of baptism - dying to the old way of living and being raised into something new.

That process, he argued, was meant to be mental, emotional, physical, and ultimately spiritual.

Working through Romans 6, Pastor Matthew laid out four truths that frame what baptism was always designed to be.

The first truth is that baptism begins with clearly naming what you are putting to death. This is not a vague spiritual gesture. It requires honest reckoning — with sin, with broken patterns of thinking, with the wounds the world has inflicted. Before going into the water, a person should be able to name what they are surrendering. Dying to sin. Dying to self-determination. Dying even to the brokenness that has defined them. Baptism, Pastor Matthew said, is not a starting line if no one has thought seriously about what they are leaving behind.

The second truth is that baptism continues with choosing who you now belong to and how you will live. He pressed this point with a question projected on the screen: if Jesus told you to blank, what would your answer be? The right answer, he said, is always yes — not because the blank has been filled in, but because Jesus is Lord. That total surrender, across relationships, finances, parenting, calendars, and calling, is what baptism represents.

The third truth is that baptism is the moment you act in obedience and invite God to do what only he can do. Pastor Matthew drew a parallel to worship, the Sabbath, and tithing — each a physical act that creates an invitation for God to move supernaturally. The crossing of the Red Sea, he suggested, is the first image of baptism in scripture. God led the Israelites to the water's edge with Egypt closing in behind them, and then did what they could never do for themselves. He cut the old threat away completely. The enemy you see today, God told them, you will never see again.

The fourth truth is that baptism leads to a new life empowered and directed by the Holy Spirit. Referencing Acts 2:37–39, Pastor Matthew walked through Peter's response to the crowd on the day of Pentecost. Repent and be baptized, Peter told them, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. God does not change a life from a distance. He moves from the inside, filling the person who surrenders and providing everything they need to live differently.

Pastor Matthew closed by turning the four truths into personal questions. Have you named what needs to die? Have you chosen who you belong to? Have you acted in obedience and asked God to move supernaturally? Have you opened yourself to the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit?

For those who have never been baptized, his encouragement was straightforward - do it, but go through the process first. For those who have been baptized without experiencing its full weight, he invited them to set aside time that week to wrestle with it seriously. Baptism was never meant to be a moment that fades into the background. It was meant to mark the beginning of a life that looks genuinely different.

The Tree Church gathers every Sunday at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM at both of its Ohio campuses.

If you are looking for a church in Lancaster, Ohio, you can find us at 1025 W Wheeling St, Lancaster, OH 43130.
 
If you are looking for a church in Logan, Ohio, we also meet at 65 E Hunter St, Logan, OH 43138.

We would love to have you join us.

"How many times have I missed God because it wasn't the way that I thought it would unfold or the way that I thought he should do things?" — Pastor Phil Venrick

After one of the longest and most turbulent journeys in the book of Acts, Paul finally arrives in Rome. He has survived a plot on his life in Jerusalem, multiple hearings before Roman governors, a shipwreck in the Mediterranean, and a snake bite on the island of Malta. And yet within three days of arriving in Rome, he does something that might seem surprising. He calls together the local Jewish leaders.

In this episode of the Tree Church Bible Study, Pastor Stacey Crawford, Pastor Chris Reed, and Pastor Phil Venrick pick up in Acts 28:17 and work through one of the most revealing conversations in the entire book. What unfolds is not just a historical account of Paul's arrival in Rome. It is an honest look at what happens when people encounter something that does not match what they were expecting - and what it costs them when their hearts are not open enough to see it.

To understand why Paul's message created such tension everywhere he went, it helps to understand what the Jewish people were actually hoping for in a Messiah. Pastor Chris took time in this episode to walk through that historical context, and it reframes the entire conversation.

The expectation was not simply spiritual. For centuries, the Jewish people had been living under foreign rule. The priestly line had been compromised. A king with no legitimate claim to David's throne had been installed by Rome. Israel had been exiled and never fully restored. And so what they were waiting for was a Davidic figure - a prophet, priest, and king - who would come and set things right. Someone who would restore the land, return Israel to prominence among the nations, and usher in an era of freedom, peace, and justice. The language the Old Testament prophets used to describe the messianic age sounds, in many ways, like what Christians would later associate with heaven.

Jesus fulfilled none of that in the way they were watching for. He was not a political liberator. Rome did not fall. The land was not restored. And rather than ascending to a throne, he was crucified. For many Jews, that was not just a disappointment. It was disqualifying.

Pastor Chris put it plainly. The Christians were interpreting the Old Testament in ways the Jewish people had not interpreted it. They were seeing in Jesus the fulfillment of traditions that, to the Jewish leaders, pointed somewhere else entirely. And so when Paul walked into a room and declared that Jesus was the Messiah, it was not that his audience was ignorant. It was that what he was saying sounded completely backward to everything they had spent their lives expecting.

What makes this episode more than a history lesson is the moment the conversation turns personal. Pastor Stacey noted that it is easy to read this passage and wonder why the Jewish leaders simply could not see it. But Pastor Phil pushed back gently on that instinct.

He pointed out that missing God because he does not move the way we expect is not a first-century problem. It is a human one. There are moments in every believer's life where God leads in a direction that feels wrong, uncomfortable, or simply not what was asked for. The way forward looks nothing like the way forward was supposed to look. And in those moments, the temptation is to resist, to question, or to quietly conclude that God must not be in it.

Pastor Chris added a layer to that by describing how God often addresses anxiety not by removing the anxious situation but by walking a person directly into it and asking them to trust him through it. That is not the answer most people are hoping for. It feels, as he said, like being broken in order to be healed. But the thing being broken is not the person. It is the hardness and the resistance that has been keeping real healing out.

Paul himself was the clearest example of this in the room. Before his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, he was a Pharisee who knew the scriptures thoroughly, understood the traditions deeply, and was completely convinced that the Christians were wrong. He had formed a strong, informed, religiously grounded opinion - and it was entirely off. The encounter with Jesus did not just change his mind. It reoriented everything.

When Paul addresses the Jewish leaders in Rome in Acts 28:17–20, he explains his situation plainly. He was arrested in Jerusalem, handed over to Rome, found innocent, and appealed to Caesar not out of a desire to press charges against his own people but simply because he had no other option. He is bound in chains, he tells them, because he believes the hope of Israel has already come.

Their response in verse 21 is striking. They tell him they have received no letters about him from Judea and have heard nothing against him personally. The only thing they know about the movement is that it is denounced everywhere. And so they ask to hear more.
Pastor Chris offered a practical explanation for why no letter had arrived ahead of Paul. Given everything Paul had been through just to get to Rome, it is entirely plausible that any correspondence sent from Jerusalem simply had not made it yet. There was no email. Letters traveled with people, and the journey was long and uncertain. Paul had essentially outrun the opposition.

But what the group found most worth noting was the posture of the Jewish leaders in Rome. They did not walk in with a verdict already formed. They were willing to hear. Pastor Stacey compared it to substitute teaching - walking into a classroom having already heard that a certain student is difficult, only to find that on that particular day, he is the best kid in the room. Pre-formed opinions close off what direct experience might reveal. These Jewish leaders, at least initially, were open enough to say they wanted to hear it for themselves.

The episode closes with a conversation that connects directly to the present moment. The culture surrounding opinions has changed dramatically. What was once a thought shared with a small circle of friends or family - and easily forgotten if it turned out to be wrong - can now reach thousands of people instantly. Pastor Phil described it as handing an unvetted, uninformed opinion a megaphone. Pastor Chris noted that the sheer volume of competing voices has made it genuinely harder to think critically, to slow down, and to ask whether an opinion is actually informed before sharing it widely.

The group was careful not to suggest that having opinions is itself the problem. Forming views is a natural part of being human. The issue is the speed and confidence with which opinions are formed and broadcast, and the way that public commitment to a position makes it harder to change course later even when real knowledge would warrant it. As Pastor Stacey observed, once an opinion is out there, people hold onto it. If God changes your mind on something, that work becomes much harder when the original position was declared loudly and publicly.

The corrective the group kept returning to was humility. Pastor Chris described his own approach to scripture as one that always holds room for the possibility of being wrong - not out of uncertainty about God, but out of honest awareness of his own limits as a finite, subjective reader. He has been in enough situations where a piece of context he had missed, or a perspective he had not considered, changed his understanding significantly. That experience has made him slower to declare and quicker to listen.

Pastor Phil grounded it simply. Base your opinions on God's word. Go back to it consistently. And hold everything else with an open hand, because God has a long track record of doing things in ways that turn out to be exactly right - even when they looked completely wrong in the moment.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Romans 6:4-14

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Just as Christ was raised from the dead, baptism declares you are walking in newness of life. This isn't just forgiveness—it's transformation. You emerge from the water with a new identity, new purpose, and new power. But here's the question: Do you know what you're committing to? Who is your new allegiance? What does your new life look like? Many people get baptized without understanding they're enlisting in God's Kingdom purposes. You're not just saved from something; you're saved for something. Your life now belongs to advancing Christ's Kingdom. Today, reflect on your calling. How has Jesus asked you to live differently? What new habits, relationships, or priorities should characterize your new life? Newness isn't passive—it's actively walking in the resurrection power of Christ daily.

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Jesus, thank You for raising me to new life. Help me to fully embrace my new identity and walk daily in Your resurrection power. Align my life with Your purpose, and lead me into the calling You’ve placed on me.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Define your new identity: Write 3–5 truths about who you are now in Christ.
   
   
2. Start one new habit: Begin a daily practice that reflects your new life (prayer, Scripture, or serving others).

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Romans 6:1-11

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Baptism is more than getting wet—it's a funeral and a birth. When you go under the water, you're declaring that your old self has died with Christ. Every broken pattern, every sin, every piece of your former identity is being buried. This requires honest reflection: What specifically are you putting to death? Paul asks, "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" The answer is we can't—not if we've truly been baptized into Christ's death. This isn't about perfection but about direction. Your baptism marks a definitive break from your past. Today, name the specific things you're burying with Christ. Write them down if needed. Acknowledge them before God, and trust that what goes into the grave with Jesus stays there. You are no longer who you were.

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Father, I confess the parts of my life that need to die. Thank You that my old self was crucified with Christ. Help me to fully bury what belongs to my past and to live as someone who is dead to sin and alive to You.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Write a ‘burial list’: Write down the sins, patterns, or identities you are leaving behind, then destroy the paper as a symbol of surrender.
   
   
2. Create a replacement plan: For each thing you’re burying, choose a new, godly habit to walk in moving forward.

"When you remove the people element of it, you remove the Christ element of it because he's about people." — Pastor Matthew Johnson

Immigration is one of the loudest conversations in American culture right now. It is also one of the most avoided inside the church. In this episode of the Branch Podcast, Pastors Matthew Johnson, Anthony Lombardi, and Chris Reed chose not to avoid it.

Their goal was not to issue a policy statement or tell people how to vote. It was something more pastoral: to give believers a biblical framework for thinking through a complex issue without losing their compassion, their convictions, or the people caught in the middle.

Before the pastors addressed immigration directly, they grounded the conversation in a theological reality that shapes everything else. We do not live in a fully redeemed world. We live in what theologians call the already but not yet.

Pastor Chris described it this way: Christ has come, he died and rose again, but the fullest effects of that have not yet arrived. Salvation is a past event, a present reality, and a future completion all at once. The same is true of restoration. The world is groaning, as Paul writes in Romans 8, waiting for the glory that is still to come.

This means that everything we deal with in this world — including immigration, governments, borders, and broken systems — exists inside that tension. We mourn what is broken. We strive for the ideal. And we resist the pull toward apathy that can come when we remind ourselves that things will always be imperfect this side of eternity. Pastor Matthew pointed to the Lord's Prayer as the corrective: Jesus taught his followers to pray that God's kingdom would come and his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is not a passive posture. It is an active one.

The pastors moved from theology into history, working through what Scripture actually shows about nations, borders, and the treatment of foreigners.

Pastor Chris walked through Genesis 11 and the Tower of Babel, noting that the diversity of nations and languages across the earth reflects something of the beauty and glory of God. Revelation pictures every nation, tongue, and tribe gathered in worship before King Jesus. The distinction between people is not itself sinful. But the enmity between those peoples, the walls built out of fear and pride, is a consequence of the fall.

On the question of Israel specifically, Pastor Anthony pointed out that God gave his people clear instructions for how to treat sojourners and foreigners who entered the land. There was a distinction between Israel and the surrounding nations, but that distinction was always meant to function as an invitation. Israel was to be a beacon, a people set apart to point the rest of the world toward the one true God. And even within the Old Testament, people outside Israel — those who were not Jewish by heritage — were welcomed into the people of God.

When it came to government, the pastors were clear. Romans 13 establishes that all governing authority has been instituted by God. Governments are not accidents. They exist for a purpose: to bring order, to protect their people, and to create the conditions for human flourishing. Pastor Anthony noted that God is a God of order, pointing to 1 Corinthians 14 as an example of that same principle applied even to how the church gathers. Order is not oppression. It reflects the character of God.

But governments are also led by broken human beings. And when a government stops protecting human flourishing and starts treating people as less than image bearers of God, that is where Christians must pay attention.

One of the most important contributions of this conversation was the insistence that immigration is not a single issue. It is a spectrum.

Pastor Chris laid it out plainly. There are people in this country illegally who have committed crimes. There are people here illegally who are simply trying to build a better life for their families. There are people here on work status. There are refugees. There are people who entered under previous administrations and are now actively pursuing legal status. Each of those situations is different, and treating them all the same does not serve truth or justice.

Pastor Anthony raised a sobering detail from a podcast he had listened to that morning. Pastors in Minneapolis, a city that had become a focal point of immigration enforcement, were reporting that roughly 30 percent of arrests were people who genuinely needed to be deported. That means a significant portion of people being detained were not criminals. They were caught in the sweep of enforcement that was not designed to make those distinctions carefully.

The pastors were not arguing against the government's right to enforce immigration law. They were asking a harder question: how is it being done, and are the people caught up in it being treated with dignity?

Pastor Chris drew a line that cut through much of the noise in this debate. The question is not only what the government is doing. It is how they are doing it.

A government that has the legal authority to deport people still has a responsibility to treat those people as human beings. Just because someone is not an American citizen does not make them any less an image bearer of God. When Christians who are Americans begin to write off the basic dignity of people simply because of their legal status, Pastor Chris argued, they have crossed into sinful territory. American identity and Christian identity are not the same thing. The call to love people transcends national borders.

Pastor Matthew put it in terms any parent or pastor would recognize. Fixing something broken is rarely a clean process. A marriage that has fallen apart over years does not heal overnight. A person who has let their health go cannot get back into shape without difficulty. When a nation's immigration system has been in disorder, restoring order will involve complexity, collateral damage, and hard decisions. That is not an excuse for inhumane treatment. It is a realistic description of why the process is painful even when the goal is legitimate.

So what does this mean practically for a follower of Jesus?

The pastors were careful not to turn Christians into either government enforcers or political activists. Pastor Chris used a straightforward illustration. If someone is speeding behind you on the highway, it is not your job to follow them and call the police. But how you respond to that person still matters. The same principle applies here. Enforcing immigration law is the government's responsibility, not the church's.

What is the church's responsibility? Pastor Anthony pointed to the book of Acts. Philip got into a carriage with an Ethiopian and shared the gospel. Peter walked into a Roman soldier's home. Paul and Silas spoke to a jailer in prison. The posture in every case was the same: I want to serve you. I want to show you something greater than all of this.

That posture does not require a political position. If a family in your community loses a provider to deportation or detention, the church can bring groceries. The church can show up. Peaceful protest is also a legitimate avenue for Christians who believe that the way enforcement is being carried out is unjust. Voting and civic engagement are real tools. But none of those things replace the basic call to love the neighbor in front of you, regardless of their legal status.

The final portion of the conversation may have been the most practical. How do you relate to someone who holds a completely different position on this issue?

Pastor Chris was direct. The culture has lost the ability to have civil dialogue, and a big reason is that people have stopped listening. Not listening to prepare a response, but genuinely seeking to understand. When someone holds a different view, the instinct is to write them off immediately. What if instead you assumed they might have a perspective worth learning from?

Pastor Anthony offered a word about the danger of what he called political idolatry — being so committed to a political tribe that the nuances of Scripture no longer get a hearing. Both sides of the political spectrum get things wrong. The way of Jesus regularly disrupts both. Christians should be willing to hold that tension rather than defaulting to whatever their preferred media outlet tells them to feel.

Pastor Matthew closed with a personal moment. Driving home earlier that day, he watched a car in front of him hand a man begging on the side of the road what appeared to be two twenty-dollar bills. His first reaction was annoyance. Then he saw the joy on the man's face and felt what he described as a deep conviction. He had reduced a human being to an issue. He had removed the human element and, in doing so, removed Christ from the moment.

That is the danger with immigration too. When it becomes only a policy debate, only a political argument, only a headline, the people disappear. And wherever people disappear from the conversation, so does the gospel.

The Tree Church is a community of faith with two campuses in central Ohio, meeting every Sunday at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM. Whether you are searching, returning, or ready to go deeper, you are welcome here.

Lancaster Campus 837 E Main St, Lancaster, OH 43130

Logan Campus 195 E Hunter St, Logan, OH 43138

Looking for a church in Lancaster or a church in Logan? We would love to meet you on Sunday.

Take 2-3 minutes to quiet yourself and ask God to speak to you today through your devotional time.  

Reading: Luke 9:23-25

Be sure to highlight or note anything that stands out to you while you read.  
After reading the passage, take the next 5-10 minutes and spend time reflecting on what you read. You can write these things down in a journal or record them in your phone. Be attentive to both what you highlighted in the passage and what is going on in your life.

Jesus never promised an easy path—He promised a transformative one. When He calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him, He's inviting us into total surrender. This isn't a one-time decision but a daily recommitment. Before baptism, we must honestly assess what we're leaving behind and what we're embracing. What old patterns, sins, or allegiances need to die? The transition from unsaved to saved should be dramatic, not subtle. Today, take inventory of your life. What are you clinging to that prevents full surrender? True discipleship begins when we stop negotiating with Jesus and start obeying Him completely. The unstoppable force of the church is built on individuals who've genuinely counted the cost.
      

Now, take 10 minutes to seek God in prayer…  

1. Begin your time in prayer by taking 1-3 minutes to sit in silence (You can take longer if you sense the Spirit already beginning to speak to you).  
2. Pray through the things you sensed God speaking to you through the Scriptures or pray the following prayer: Jesus, I surrender my whole life to You today. Show me what I’ve been holding onto and give me the courage to lay it down. Teach me to deny myself, take up my cross daily, and follow You without hesitation or compromise.
   
3. Close by taking 5 minutes to sit in silence, asking God if there is anything else He wants to speak to you today.  

Faith Steps:

1. Do a personal inventory: Write down specific habits, sins, or attachments that are competing with your surrender to Christ.
   
   
2. Act on one area today: Choose one thing to lay down and intentionally replace it with obedience (prayer, Scripture, or accountability).