Westwinds Teaching

This message concludes our seven-week series exploring the questions that quietly shape our lives.In Part 7, we wrestle with the final question: Do I have a purpose?For many of us, purpose feels tied to achievement, calling, or dramatic moments. But this teaching reframes the conversation. Purpose isn’t something we discover by escaping our ordinary lives. It’s something we live out in them.Tracing the story from Genesis through Jesus, we’re reminded that even in fracture—work that feels exhausting, family that feels complicated, relationships that feel tense—God does not disappear. He leans in. He clothes. He renews.Purpose is not about title, platform, or accomplishment. It’s rooted in identity.You are a child of God. And your purpose is lived in loving God and loving your neighbor—right where you are.

This message continues a seven-week series exploring the questions that shape how we see ourselves and God.In Part 6, we face one of the most painful questions many of us carry beneath failure, comparison, and performance: Am I good enough? This teaching names shame for what it is—not guilt over what we’ve done, but a belief that something is wrong with who we are.Through personal story, Scripture, and Jesus’ encounters with people caught in shame, we’re invited to see how shame isolates, hides, and convinces us we need to disappear. But Jesus consistently does something different. He separates identity from behavior, meets vulnerability with grace, and restores people to belonging before they ever get their words right.The answer Jesus offers is not “try harder.” It’s a deeper truth: I am good enough. Not because I’ve earned it, but because grace meets me where I am.

This message continues a seven-week series built around the questions that quietly shape our lives.In Part 5, we explore a question many of us carry beneath our drive and ambition: Am I successful? Through personal story, cultural reflection, and Scripture, this teaching examines how success becomes tangled with worth—and how failure can feel like a threat to belonging itself.Drawing from Jesus’ words in John 15 and wisdom from Ecclesiastes, we’re invited to untangle who we are from what we do. Success, Jesus suggests, isn’t something we achieve through striving. It’s something that grows when we remain connected to love—like a branch connected to a vine.The invitation isn’t to stop working or dreaming. It’s to release shame, loosen our grip on performance, and rediscover success as a way of living from love, not striving for it.

This message continues a seven-week series centered on the questions that shape how we see ourselves, God, and one another.In Part 4, we wrestle with a deeply human question: Am I wanted? Not just tolerated. Not useful. But genuinely wanted—for who we are, not what we contribute.Tracing this question through the Old Testament, the life of Jesus, and the early church, this teaching challenges the idea that belonging is earned through success, strength, or religious performance. Instead, it reveals a different starting point: belonging as identity. You belong because you are human. Because you are created. Because you are seen.Jesus disrupts every system that decides who’s in and who’s out—and invites us into a community where belonging comes first, and transformation follows.The point isn’t change. The point is belonging. Change grows from there.

This message continues a seven-week series exploring the questions that quietly shape how we live.In Part 3, we turn to one of the most personal questions we carry: Am I loved? Not as an abstract idea, but as a lived reality—felt in moments when we wonder if anyone really sees us, hears us, or knows us.This teaching explores how the desire to be loved is often expressed through our need to feel known, seen, and heard—and how, when love feels uncertain, we begin searching for it in ways that leave us exhausted and empty. Drawing from Scripture, story, and lived experience, we’re invited to consider a different starting point: love as something received, not earned.The invitation isn’t to love harder or perform better. It’s to stop living on scraps—and begin living from love’s overflow.

This message continues a seven-week series built around the questions that quietly shape our lives.In Part 2, we wrestle with the second question many of us carry beneath our anxiety: Am I secure? Using Jesus’ teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, this message reframes worry—not as a lack of faith, but as a sign of how deeply we long for safety and stability.Jesus isn’t dismissing real needs or practical concerns. Instead, he’s exposing how anxiety grows when security becomes something we hoard rather than something we share. Through reflections on money, health, relationships, eternity, and generosity, this teaching invites us to change our relationship with security—and to imagine a world where those who have security help create ecosystems of safety for those who don’t.The promise isn’t that tomorrow won’t be hard. The promise is that we don’t face it alone.

This message opens a seven-week series built around the questions we ask when life feels uncertain.The first question is simple, but it sits beneath so much of our fear and anxiety: Am I safe? Using the story of Jesus calming the storm, this teaching explores why the disciples weren’t just afraid of the waves—they were afraid of what it meant to be in the presence of a God they couldn’t control.The answer Jesus offers isn’t a promise that storms won’t come. It’s a deeper assurance: I am safe. Not because nothing bad will happen, but because God is present in the middle of it.This series isn’t about eliminating fear. It’s about discovering where our true safety comes from.

Merry Christmas, Westwinds!Thank you for joining us for our annual Christmas Eve service. We had a wonderful time together in the heart of downtown Jackson at the Michigan Theatre–sharing stories of hope, holiday cheer, and a big helping of Christmas magic.Follow Westwinds Church on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram for more videos like this, or go to westwinds.org to stay up to date with what's going on at the Winds!

Merry Christmas, Westwinds! Thank you for joining us for our Christmas Eve services. We had a wonderful time together in the heart of downtown Jackson at the Michigan Theatre–sharing stores of hope, holiday cheer, and a big helping of Christmas magic. Follow Westwinds Church on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram for more videos like this, or go to westwinds.org to stay up to date with what's going on at the Winds!

For many of us, faith feels heavy. Like God has done so much for us that we must now repay Him with obedience, effort, or guilt-driven devotion.In this message, Pastor Josh reframes John 3:16 through the lens of Christmas, generosity, and love. God doesn’t come demanding repayment. God comes giving Himself. From a child giving a gift to their parent, to the vulnerability of a newborn baby, we’re reminded that love doesn’t ask, “What do I owe?” Love asks, “What can I give?”Christmas isn’t God handing us a bill. It’s God offering a gift. And the only thing a gift asks is to be received.

John 3:16 is often treated like a slogan, but John meant it as a story — a story told through real people and real encounters.In this message, Pastor Cory walks through the Gospel of John and shows how God’s love isn’t an abstract idea. It shows up through people: a teenager finding faith through kindness, a religious leader searching for status, a woman burdened by shame, a grieving family, a doubter who needs proof, and a disciple who can’t believe he’s still loved.Eternal life, John says, isn’t just about someday. It’s about trusting Jesus now — stepping into a way of life where God’s love breaks through ordinary places, ordinary people, and ordinary moments.The question isn’t whether God loves the world. The question is whether we’re willing to trust that love — and participate in it.

When Jesus said, “God so loved the world,” John chose a surprising word. Not earth. Not humanity. Cosmos. All of creation. Everything God made.In this message, Pastor Phil unpacks how the love of God stretches far wider than we usually imagine—from mountains and oceans to the thin places where time and eternity brush up against each other. Through temple imagery, incarnation, and the presence of the Spirit, we see how God doesn’t stay distant. God comes near. God dwells. God fills creation—and us—with love.Christmas isn’t just the story of a birth. It’s the story of a God who refuses to stay far away.

We spend so much of life trying to find God—trying to earn, deserve, or prove something. But the story of Scripture is the opposite: God comes to find us. From Abraham to Jesus to John 3:16, this message explores what makes the Christian story different from every other story humans have told about God.

A lot of people haven’t just walked away from church — they’ve lost the framework they once trusted. In this message, Pastor Cory returns to the stories of people who’ve been wounded, pushed out, or disillusioned, and asks a deeper question: how do you begin putting faith back together again?Using four “containers” — Construct, Deconstruct, Reconstruct, and Mystery — Cory walks through how people actually rebuild faith in real life. He looks at Timothy holding onto what formed him, Jesus crying out in abandonment, Thomas demanding honesty, and the disciples learning to trust again through suffering and resurrection.This isn’t about going back to what was. It’s about learning how to tell the truth, name the pain, hold onto what’s good, let go of what’s not, and make room for mystery — all while trusting that Jesus meets us at the table.

For over a century, American Christianity has been shaped by fear—fear of losing power, fear of being wrong, fear of outsiders. But what if that fear has distorted the way we see God, the Bible, and even each other?In this message, Pastor Cory traces how American fundamentalism took root, how it still shapes our instincts today, and how Jesus offers a better way—a faith not rooted in control, but in trust.Because as John wrote, “Perfect love drives out fear.”

What happens when faith stops working the way it used to?In this message, Pastor Josh unpacks how seasons of doubt, disillusionment, and disappointment can actually become sacred ground. Using Elijah’s story, he shows that spiritual growth often follows a rhythm—order, disorder, reorder. When everything falls apart, God doesn’t demand quick fixes or blind optimism. He meets us right there, in the quiet, with gentleness and grace.Sometimes the breakdown is the beginning of something deeper.

Many of us have walked away from church—not because we stopped believing in God, but because of the pain, hypocrisy, or exhaustion we found there.In this message, Pastor Cory shares stories of people who left the church for good reason… and how the way back isn’t found in guilt or performance, but in rediscovering loyalty, honesty, and theology—in that order.It’s an honest look at what went wrong, what could go right, and how God’s loyalty always makes room for our honesty.

Jesus doesn’t stay distant from the mess — He moves toward it. His ministry shows us that the heart of God beats for those who are overlooked, unseen, and left out. To follow Jesus is to be with the Littles, the Least, the Lost, and the Lonely — not out of pity, but out of shared belonging. When we make room at our tables and in our hearts, we’re not just helping others; we’re meeting Christ Himself. The gospel is not about status, but about presence — a love that shows up, stays near, and calls us to learn how be with each other.

Reconciliation isn’t a quick fix — it’s a process of being made new, one step at a time. The love of Christ compels us to let go of self-protection, to enter into the realities of pain and healing, and to receive and extend God's grace. True reconciliation mirrors the cross: it costs something, it feels something, and it changes everything. It shows up not just in words, but in the small, ordinary acts of care — in feeding, forgiving, showing up, and letting ourselves be seen. God is making all things new, and we’re invited to participate right where we are.