When You Can’t Control What Happens Next

Sunday, August 30, 2026

Scriptures: Acts 20–27

• Sermon Summary

  What do we do when life unfolds beyond our control?
  In the closing chapters of Acts, Paul learns to release the communities he helped build—and eventually loses control over his own journey. Yet even amid imprisonment, uncertainty, and shipwreck, he retains something vital: the freedom to choose how he will show up.
  Jeremy explores the difference between control and agency, the courage required to let go, and how we can meet life’s changing seasons with grace, hope, and trust in God.

• Discussion Guide

  Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions and reflections are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.
  
  Summer Discussion Guide 2026

  If your group is meeting this summer and wants to talk about the sermons, here are a few questions that you could use to engage with our teaching. 

  • What specific part of the message resonated with you the most? Why do you think that particular part, or idea, or story caught your attention? 

  • Did the sermon speak into a particular struggle or question in your life or your faith journey right now?

  • How did the message challenge or encourage you personally?
    And what do you think the application could be for our church community? Was there anything that could strengthen or stretch us as a church? 

  • How did the exposition of the scriptures used in the sermon provide you with a new perspective of deeper understanding?

  ——
  It is good to remember that the conversation experience in the group is shaped by the personal stories of those who participate in it and how willing the people are to be open and vulnerable in the group.

  So if you’re leading the discussion, feel free to model and encourage person-centred and story-centred sharing by reflecting on how some parts of the sermon resonate with you personally.
  ——

  Additionally, what contributes to a more authentic group discussion is when people can share not about the abstract and theoretical applications, but one or two practical things they are taking away from either the sermon or the discussion. 

  So, you can end your time together with this question: 

  • What is one thing you are taking away from either the sermon or the discussion we’ve just had?

• Service Songs & Prayers

  CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 133

  MUSIC Curated by Alycia F.
  Bethel Music - If The Lord
  Brooke Ligertwood - A Thousand Hallelujahs
  Bethel Music - Heaven Come
  City Alight - Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me

  EUCHARIST INVITATION
  Written by Scott Wall

  On this final Sunday in August — as many get ready to return to school this week — we come to the Eucharist table.

  In this practice, we affirm the ancient hope that Christians have held since Christ’s last Passover meal — that God is making all things new, and that we can encounter this newness in all our beginnings and attempts to start again.

  On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread…broke it…and gave it to his friends with an reminder that his brokenness would bring them comfort.

  After this, he also took wine…blessed it…and shared with his friends — assuring them that he was inaugurating a new way to be human.

  So as you come to the table today - do so with open hands and hearts to receive ancient hope and assurance…with fresh perspective.

  As we ready ourselves — pray with me.

  Risen Christ - host of this expansive table

  Come and bless the fruit of field and vine,

  So that as we receive these gifts we find that our emptiness is filled once again.

  Give us grace to extend your welcome, we ask.

  Amen.
  
  SERIES BUMPER
  Soapbox Sundays