In our final series of the semester, coming off of a retreat weekend, we'll begin exploring what sustaining the life we encountered on retreat requires of us.

We can believe that it's just more church attendance or different inputs into our lives in the form of music or entertainment, but as we saw at Fall Retreat, God is all around us constantly speaking! With that in mind, we must begin to prioritize coming to God in what theologians call "the secret place."

Tonight we'll define this term and look at what it entails for us to consistently come to this place to go out to the rest of our lives.

In our Sunday morning session of Fall Retreat we look at John 6:60-69 and the two opportunities all of us have when returning to our routines.

Will we seek out our satisfaction from Jesus, the lover of our souls, or will we slowly regress back into life as usual?

In our final full session of Fall Retreat we look at the story of Mary at the Tomb from John 20 to see the difference it makes when our satisfaction is wrapped up in our intimacy with the one who calls us by name.

We had some technical difficulties with our first message of the weekend, but go check out John 7:37-38 for Jesus' invitation and the promise that comes with it!

If Jesus' promise is satisfaction, why are we so unmotivated to come and receive it from Him?

In our second teaching of the weekend at Fall Retreat, we explore Isaiah 55:1-3 to see what often holds us back from seeking the satisfaction that God offers.

Will my hunger ever be satisfied?

In the search for God we will go through periods where it can feel like the God we hunger for, may never be ours to feast on. We feel dry, like we're starving, and the doubt begins to creep into our minds, "Maybe all my hungering is for nothing."

But then comes God's promise. Matthew 5:6 reminds us that not only will our hunger one day be satisfied, but that our hungering is in fact blessed. When we hunger, we are in line with the way God has designed His world to work. Not only this, but the end of that blessed hungering is our satisfaction.

Last week we looked at staying near to Jesus in order to sustain a hungry faith that looks more like desperation than complacency…but what have we been given to live this out?

In his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson touches on our world’s love for sensation. We long to be wowed by something, but we value less what Peterson calls a, “long obedience in the same direction.” To walk a path in good seasons and bad ones toward a singular goal. Jesus does not leave us without a category for this kind of life. In fact, He commissions us into it. “Make disciples…” The way we stay is through the path of discipleship.

What’s the key to sustaining a hungry faith?

So often we’re conditioned to want things quickly, easily, and without resistance. But rarely is this the experience of disciples of Jesus. To draw nearer to Him is to move further from the world, and the world does not take that kindly. Walking with Jesus is a war of attrition, of perseverance, and the only way to sustain it for the duration is to remain.

In week 2 (we had some recording issues week 1) of Hungry Faith, we will examine two stories of people who remain to see what staying near to Jesus looks like in order to live that out in our own lives.

After three weeks of in depth examination on worship the question still remains; How do I live this in the normal routines of my days? The answer, “Through the practice of Living Worship.

As worship is integrated into the regular rhythms and routines of our life we come to actualize the fact that we are not participants in worship services, rather, we are worshippers. Through the simple practices of followers of Jesus throughout the years we come to embody that reality and experience God in a way that both satisfies the longings of our hearts and leaves us hungry for more of Him.