Damascus Road Tucson

Damascus Road's Cooking Classes and After Parties - https://mailchi.mp/762bc6d45f68/cooking-classes-and-after-parties
Want to learn how to cook? Want help navigating politics without losing your way? Check out what is going on at dR and how we can help!

Really enjoyed learning some strategies to make cooking easier and more enjoyable with Megan Stibrich! -Kemper, Derrick, Alivia

Damascus Road's Adulting Classes 🍎 - https://mailchi.mp/1fe99f61b4d4/damascus-road-adulting-classes
Ready for life away from home? Need some help navigating the new responsibilities of life at college? Join us for our Adulting Classes, every other Friday throughout the fall semester where we will work on equipping you with the skills you need to adjust to adulthood that aren't taught in class.

We had so much fun going on a SunLink tour of downtown on Friday night! We got tea, pizza, ice cream, and great conversation. So grateful for this community! -Alivia

Meet the 2024 interns! Alivia, Kemper, Joss, Derrick, and Sam

Looking to be inspired? As classes end and summer begins, we'll revisit Inspired, a 2020 Damascus Road series, on the dR Podcast. Over the next three we'll post the next episode, exploring how God has inspired Christians in history to fight for justice, give generously, and create beautiful things. From their stories of faith rooted in God and Scripture, may we be inspired as well.

First there was a garden, and everything was perfect. Humanity walked and lived in wholeness with God. But then sin entered the story and imperfect humans could no longer live in the perfect garden. Later, God formed a nation to be God’s people, and a temple was built to remind people of how good it was to live with God. But a curtain was hung to keep people from entering into the holiest part of the temple, where God was believed to dwell because imperfect people could still not walk and live in the presence of their perfect God. However, this is not the end of the story, and one day, a cross would change everything.

Join Damascus Road for a special Easter Sunday and the story of The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross, and how we can walk and live in wholeness with God again.

There are few things more painful than the pain of being cheated on. In a relationship, we open ourselves to the vulnerability of being seen and known fully by another person, and cheating takes this vulnerability and stomps it. “You aren’t good enough. You aren’t successful enough. You aren’t interesting enough. You’re just not enough for me.” No one deserves to be treated this way – but this is often how we treat God. Over and over throughout the Bible, God likens our relationship to him to that of a cheating spouse. We are meant to be in a relationship of covenant love with God; but all too often, we cheat on him with other loves, stomping on the gift of love he offers us. How can we mend our adulterous hearts?

It's easy to dismiss the Bible's warnings against worshiping idols as a problem from antiquity. Ancient people worshiped various pantheons or powers that were imaged through human crafted statues. While there are parts of the world where these sorts of idols still exist, they are rare in the West, so we often read right past the idolatry passages. But what if idols aren't about graven images as much as what we give time and attention to? What if in our struggle to trust God, we are placing our trust in other things? Jesus invited us to trust him and learn how to live after his way, but how can we know if we're following Jesus or worshiping at the altar of American gods?

Pop culture loves a good rebel, from Star Wars to Harry Potter. Rebels are seen as heroes instead of villains, and it’s no surprise from a country that was birthed from rebellion. Rebellion against evil or tyranny can be heroic but rebellion against a loving and gracious God is foolishness and destruction. What if we have so celebrated rebellion that we have blurred the distinction between righteous rebellion and devastating deviation from God’s good and beautiful design?

New series starting this Sunday! 🤠

The world tells us: “Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else.” A basic starting point for not being a terrible human being, but this view of immorality is horizontal – defined by disjointed relationships with others – rather than vertical – defined by a disjointed relationship with God. The Bible teaches us that immorality and sin are far more about our disjointed relationship with God that then bleeds into our relationships with others. In order to find freedom from sin in our lives and the destruction it causes, we need to understand what sin actually is – and cultivate a vision of the beauty of whole relationships with God and others.

Handling conflict online can be as easy as hitting unfollow or unsubscribe. However, it seems we are losing our ability to disagree in healthy ways. In a society that cancels anyone who makes a mistake, we are bound to get canceled ourselves. How can we
extend grace and patience to others when we are tempted to cut them off?

To use the internet is to accept that you will see tons of adds on a daily
basis. Every one is trying to get us to buy something, and what we buy becomes intertwined with our identity. How can we protect ourselves from the cycle of consumerism and find contentment?

We had so much fun watching the Superbowl together!

Dating apps, Instagram, and online-communication are changing the way we form relationships. They also change the way we value others and ourselves. So as Christians how can we resist the urge to objectify and commodify people? What does it look like to love others well in the era of Hinge and Tinder?

Information is available to us in unprecedented ways. Just call up your computer servant Alexa, Siri, or Echo, and get a quick, concise answer. The internet is changing how we get our news, how we deal with problems, and how we develop our sense of wisdom. How will these changes impact our walk with Christ, and how can the Bible help us find wisdom in the digital age?

The dR book store has gotten some updates! We have awesome books on prayer available to purchase from authors like Skye Jethani, Pete Greig, and Tim Keller. If you're wanting to go deeper with prayer you can pick up one of these resources on Sundays for around $10 or less. Happy Reading!

Thanks so much to for giving dR a tour of biosphere 2! We learned so much about creation and ecosystems, and felt inspired to be better stewards of the earth.

Come by the Free Water Table, now featuring hot and cold water ☕

Blessings to all studsnts on the beginning of the spring semester 😁 We're praying for you all this 2024 🙏

In Luke 11, the very first disciples of Jesus ask him something profound. They don't ask Him how to heal the sick, or how to perform miracles, or how to gain salvation. They ask Jesus something simpler: to teach them to pray.

When the disciples asked Jesus, “teach us to pray,” in Luke 11, Jesus gave them a pre-made prayer, or what some call a liturgy, to pray to God. In various seasons of our lives when we’re exhausted, tired, traveling, grieving, doubting, or distracted, liturgies can carry us through and guide our prayers.

Here are some resources to help you find the words to pray when you don't have the words.

A baby named Jesus came, and there is nothing we can do to change that, but we do have the agency to respond to that coming, and ask: "Does God want to change us for the better or for the worse through the gift of this incarnation? Through the gift of God-with-Us?"

The answer to how we change for the better is found in the word with. My parent friends are changed – yes, because of a baby – but they are changed for the better because that child will be with them throughout their lives. They will give to him, and he will give to them. They will nourish him, and he will nourish them. They will grow by him, and he will grow by them. They are irrevocably changed for the better because of him being with them. Will we let Christ transform us by being with?

Based on Scott Erickson's "Honest Advent"

Can you imagine the moment it hit, the ending of the spiritual high of angelic announcement and Mary falling into the uneasy, queasy feeling of actually having to go through the physical details of this divine calling? That’s the rub of all divine proclamations, isn’t it? The announcement that you are going to grow.

The process of growth is always uneasy, because growth never comes through ease. It comes through the stretching and expanding of one’s own capacity and moving into a holy space powered by the Spirit. And often the change that needs to happen in order for you to grow may leave you dry heaving on the sidelines. The uneasiness is not a sign you’re doing it wrong. In fact, just as with pregnancy, it’s a sign you’re on the right track.

Based on Scott Erickson's "Honest Advent"

At the heart of the Christ story is a mystery. The paradox is Jesus being fully God and fully human – two seemingly contradictory truths existing in the same space and time. And that mystery was birthed out of another paradoxical mystery – one where the finite and Infinite wove together salvation in the belly of a Middle Eastern young woman.

Your transformation throughout life will be a paradox. One truth is that you have agency to make decisions to change and transform the parts you wish. And yet there are other parts of your transformation that are like a virgin birth – in the way that you’re not in charge of any of it. It’s less about your mustering up the strength to accomplish something and more about your being open to the transformation God wants to do in you.

Based on Scott Erickson's "Honest Advent"

When Mary is visited by an angel, it kickstarts one of the most epic stories of human history. It would be awesome to have this kind of revelation in your life. But if we're honest, we're often actually afraid of revelation. In any divine annunciation, you receive revelation as a gift, but at the same time you receive notice that all you had
planned is ending. Everything will change–most of all you.

And the rub of revelation is that it’s a transformation you’re not in charge of. Revelation is a hard gift to receive. You must give up everything else to receive it– like finding a treasure in a field and selling everything you have so you can get that treasure. But then again, the one who is willing to accept the cost of revelation finds themselves in the deepest of stories. Stories that are so mysterious, divine, and human that we still tell them today. May you receive the light of divine annunciation in the flames of your best-laid plans.

Based on Scott Erickson's "Honest Advent"

Happy Thanksgiving from Damascus Road! We are thankful for you and so happy to live and serve in God's kingdom alongside you. He has blessed us beyond what we can ever deserve or imagine, so we can be truly grateful!

We work hard for our money. We should be able to spend it how we please, right? Tithing is optional. And yet, so is giving glory to God. Giving offering is how we worship God with our money. It is how we honor that he is the creator and giver of all things. So what does the Bible have to say about giving to ministry, and can we learn to give with a cheerful heart?

Join us at 10:30 this morning!

🦃 🦃 🦃

The haves and the have-nots rarely mingle. We leave it to the government to take care of the poor. We seem to think it's always someone else's problem. All the while inequality gets worse and the poor are all too often forgotten. What is our responsibility in caring for our neighbors needs? And what does doing good works have to do with our faith?

Join us at 10:30 this morning!

Serve with our friends in Mexico!

Over Veterans Day Weekend (11/9 - 11/12) we will be taking a group to Hermosillo in the state of Sonora, Mexico for a short service trip with college ministries from ASU and the University of Sonora! dR has been able to make this trip a few times previously, and we are grateful to be able to serve here again this year.

A group will drive to Hermosillo together on Thursday 11/9 and return Sunday 11/12 after lunch. Join in Church Center!

S P I R I T U A L . F O R M A T I O N . R E T R E A T
Jan 12-15

In many Christian communities, language about having a "personal relationship with God" is ubiquitous, but the practice of prayer--which is how we actually have a personal relationship with God--is largely absent. And while Jesus' disciples wanted to learn how to pray above all else, our priorities are precisely the opposite. We have been taught how to read and study the Bible, share our faith with nonbelievers, manage our money, date and dress, but have we learned how to pray? Have we been more focused on living for God but never learned how to actually live with God?

Join us for a 3 day retreat as we dive into the practice of prayer as the root of our lives with God. Katalyst is our annual spiritual formation retreat where we engage with the practices that anchor our lives all year long in the firm foundation of life with God.