The Grove Church

Israel had just watched God thunder against the Philistines and rescue them without a single soldier lifting a sword. And then, a few years later, they came to Samuel with a request: give us a king. Like the other nations have.

The thing they were asking for — someone to represent them, fight for them, go before them — was exactly what they already had. They just couldn’t see it.

In week four of the Samuel series, Charlie walks through 1 Samuel 8 and makes the case that this isn’t just an ancient mistake. It’s the same one m...

Last week covered the church’s first 500 years. This week, Charlie and Abigail finish the map. They trace the story from the book of Acts through Constantine and the medieval church, the split between East and West in 1054, the corruption that sparked calls for reform, and the printing press that put the Bible in ordinary people’s hands. From there they move to the Reformation, the Great Awakenings, global missions, and the challenges facing the church today. Along the way they talk about why monks pushed back against a comfortable, mainstream faith, why opening the Bible to everyone was both...

Most of us assume that if God has called us to something, the path will be clear. The doors will open. Things will fall into place. And when they don’t — when the waiting stretches into years, when obstacles pile up, when the trial hits right when things were finally starting to move — we wonder if we heard wrong.

Samuel waited 20 years. Twenty years between the audible voice of God calling him as a prophet and the moment Israel was finally ready to listen. And when the moment came, he was ready.

In week three of the...

After two weeks on why church history matters, Charlie and Abigail start laying out the map. This week they cover the first three of eight eras they’ll walk through in the series: the church of the apostles, the early church under persecution, and the moment Christianity went from illegal to mainstream under Constantine. Along the way they talk about what “the church” actually means, why one verse about Peter shapes so much of church history, how the destruction of the temple in 70 AD scattered believers, and why so many early heresies were about one question: who is Jesus? They a...

It’s easy to look at the way things are and assume that’s the way they’ll stay. The powerful stay powerful. The ones who’ve been knocked down stay down. The situation that looks impossible probably is.

Hannah didn’t believe that. And in week two of the Samuel series, Mark walks through her prayer in 1 Samuel 2 — one of the most overlooked passages in the Old Testament — and unpacks what it actually says about who God is and how he operates. He’s not the God of the expected outcome. He’s the God who raises the poor fr...

Most of what we believe about God didn't start with us. We inherited it from centuries of Christians who studied, debated, and prayed their way through the hardest questions of the faith. This week, Charlie and Abigail finish making the case for church history by talking about humility and how Christian doctrine developed over time. They get into why the Trinity is harder to arrive at on your own than it seems, how Constantine shaped the church in the 300s, and what changed when the printing press let ordinary people read the Bible for themselves. There are a few...

This week in our Samuel series, we discussed how God’s purposes often begin long before we understand them, using the opening chapters of 1 Samuel as our guide. Charlie shared his own journey of feeling called to ministry and related it to Samuel’s “origin story”—a calling that took shape even before Samuel was born, woven through his mother Hannah’s years of persistent prayer. We unpacked what it means that God prepares a path for each of us (Ephesians 2:10) and why that’s not just about prophets or pastors, but about all of us, wherever we are in life. With...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail begin a new series on church history. Before getting into the people and events, they start with a simpler question: why should a Bible-centered church spend months studying what happened after the Bible was written?

Abigail explains that every era's view of God is shaped by its circumstances, including war, money, and who held power. She draws on her history minor and her love of bottom-up history, the idea that you can understand a society better through the fairy tales it told than through its official records. She also makes...

You can sit in a room full of people and still feel completely alone. You can come to church every week, check the box, and never actually let anyone in. And if you're honest, part of you prefers it that way — because community is hard, people are weird, and you've probably been burned before.

In the final week of Walking the Ancient Paths, Charlie looks at the very first thing the early church did after 3,000 people came to faith in one day — and it wasn't launch a program or build a building. They just started spending time toge...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail close out the parables series the way it deserves — with a Q&A episode where Abigail asks the big picture questions she's been sitting with across ten months of episodes.

They cover how Jesus's original audience heard "the kingdom of God" (hint: they were expecting military victory and Roman blood), why Jesus taught in parables instead of just saying what he meant, what gets lost when we approach Scripture with a Google-everything mindset, and why reading Jesus is so different from reading Paul. They also get into whether the Old Te...

Most of us have been taught to treat serving people and telling people about Jesus as two separate things — maybe even competing ones. Do you help someone in need, or do you share the gospel with them? Charlie's answer: yes.

In week five of Walking the Ancient Paths, Charlie walks through Matthew 5:14-16 and makes the case that being the light of the world isn't something you work up to. It's who you already are. Right now. In whatever stage you think you're in.

The question isn't whether you're ready. The question is whether you ha...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through the final parable of the series — the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25.

It's the last judgment. The Son of Man sits on his throne. Everyone is gathered. Sheep on the right, goats on the left. The sheep get in because they fed Jesus when he was hungry, gave him water when he was thirsty, clothed him, visited him in prison. The goats didn't. Neither group has any idea when they saw Jesus in any of those situations. The answer: whatever you did for the le...

The culture around us is lying. It's telling us that more is always better — more stuff, more success, more achievement — and that life is found somewhere on the other side of having enough. Most of us know it's a lie. We're buying it anyway.

In week four of Walking the Ancient Paths, Mark takes on two of the most countercultural practices in the ancient Christian tradition: simplicity and fasting. Not as guilt trips or religious obligations, but as two very specific ways to push back against the noise — to declare with your life that God is your portio...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through the Parable of the Wedding Banquet in Matthew 22.

A king throws a wedding banquet for his son. The invited guests don't come. He sends more servants — some are ignored, some are killed. The king destroys the city. He opens the invitation to literally anyone off the street, good and bad. The hall fills up. Then he spots one man without wedding clothes and throws him out.

Charlie and Abigail slow down on that last detail — because if everyone was invited off the street with nothing, how did...

Christians have been doing these two things since the very beginning. They've started wars, split denominations, and derailed would-be alliances between reformers who agreed on everything else. And at The Grove, if we're honest, we've probably undersold them in an attempt to stay out of the controversy.

In week three of Walking the Ancient Paths, Charlie takes an honest look at baptism and communion — what they are, what they aren't, why they've carried so much weight for 2,000 years, and why that weight is worth honoring. Not to tell you which tradition is right, but to make sure th...

Most of us have a complicated relationship with both of these. Celebration can slide into pride — quietly convincing yourself that maybe you earned some of what God gave you. And confession can collapse into shame — that inner voice that doesn't just say you did something wrong, but that you are something wrong.

Neither of those is what God is after.

In week two of Walking the Ancient Paths, Charlie walks through two Psalms written by the same man at very different points in his life. Psalm 40, where David is overflowing with gratitude for what God pull...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through the Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25 — and Abigail's initial read of the story was completely wrong in the most entertaining way possible.

Ten bridesmaids are waiting for the bridegroom to arrive so the wedding party can begin. Five bring extra oil for their lamps. Five don't. The bridegroom is delayed — they all fall asleep waiting. When he finally shows up at midnight, five of them are ready and five aren't. The five who ran out of oil go to buy more. By the time they get back...

There are paths that have always led to life. Tried, proven, ancient paths — the kind that don't go out of style any more than a well-made shoe does. We know they're there. We just don't walk them.

In the first week of Walking the Ancient Paths, Mark opens in Jeremiah 6:16 and lands on one of the most underused spiritual practices in the modern church: Scripture memory and meditation. Not just reading the Bible, not just hearing it taught — but planting it so deep in your heart that it's there when you need it most.

There's a di...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through the Parable of the Tenants in Matthew 21 — and Jesus is not being subtle anymore.

Coming right off the Parable of the Two Sons, Jesus is still in the temple courts, still talking to the chief priests, and he's about to unload. A landowner builds a vineyard, sets it up completely, rents it to tenants, and leaves. When harvest time comes and he sends servants to collect, the tenants beat them, kill them, and stone them. He sends more. Same result. Finally he sends his son — surely they'll respect my s...

Most of us feel like we need to have all the answers before we can tell anyone about Jesus. The right words, the right theology, the right moment. So we wait — and the invitation never comes.

In the final week of The Grove's mission series, Charlie walks through a small but significant story in John 1 — Philip, Nathanael, and a two-word response that's still the best evangelism strategy around: come and see.

You don't have to convince anyone. You don't have to win the argument. You just have to know where you found hope — and be willin...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through one of the shortest and sharpest parables Jesus ever told — the Parable of the Two Sons in Matthew 21. It's four verses. Jesus gets an immediate explanation in. And it lands like a slap.

A father asks two sons to go work in the vineyard. The first says no — and then goes anyway. The second says yes — and never shows up. Jesus asks the chief priests which one did what the father wanted. They answer correctly. And then Jesus tells them: tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God...

Most of us have friends. Acquaintances. People we like. But there's a different category — the kind of people who show up when everything falls apart, who know you well enough to know what you actually need, and who will tell you hard things because they care too much not to.

Do you have those people?

In week two of The Grove's mission series, Charlie walks through three stories about a man named Barnabas — one of the most underrated figures in the New Testament — and what it looks like to be that kind of person for someon...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through one of the shortest and strangest parables Jesus ever told — the Parable of the Fig Tree in Luke 13. It's only four verses. It doesn't resolve. And Jesus drops it almost as an aside, mid-crowd, without anyone asking for it.

A vineyard owner has a fig tree that hasn't produced fruit in three years. He tells the gardener to cut it down — it's wasting soil. The gardener pushes back: give it one more year, let me tend to it, and if it still doesn't produce, then cut it down. And...

Life doesn't come at you in one big wave. It comes in a relentless series of them — and if you don't have something solid underneath you, you end up somewhere you never meant to be.

In this week's sermon, Charlie kicks off a new three-week series on The Grove's mission statement and lands on one specific, practical challenge: what does it actually look like to know Jesus — not just know about him, but really know him? He works through Psalm 1 and the contrast between a tree planted by a river and chaff blown around by the wind, and...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail dig into one of the most well-known parables Jesus ever told — and one of the most misunderstood. The Parable of the Talents (or Bags of Gold, depending on your translation) is sitting at the tail end of their parables series, and Charlie says it's easily top three, maybe number one.

A wealthy man goes on a journey and leaves enormous sums of money — one talent being roughly equivalent to a million dollars — with three servants. Two of them put the money to work and double it. The third digs a hole a...

The disciples thought the good news was for their people. Their nation. Their tribe. They had to be pushed — sometimes literally scattered by persecution — before they understood what God had been saying since Abraham: this was never just for one group.

In the final week of Foundations, Mark walks through Acts 1 and 15 and traces the early church's journey from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. From a confused Ethiopian official reading Isaiah on the side of the road, to a Roman soldier named Cornelius whose conversion broke every cultural assumption the disciples had, to the council in J...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail work through one of the most unusual parables Jesus ever told — the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16. It's the only parable where a character gets a name. The poor, sick man covered in sores outside the gate is called Lazarus. The wealthy man who ignores him every day gets no name at all.

That detail alone is worth sitting with.

Charlie and Abigail dig into why Jesus tells this story directly at the Pharisees, what the chasm between heaven and hell actually means, how much theological weight we...

After the resurrection, the disciples still had the wrong question. They wanted to know when Jesus was going to fix the world — when he was going to restore Israel, right the wrongs, put the right people in power. And Jesus basically said: that's not your concern. There's a different kind of power coming.

In week seven of Foundations, Charlie walks through Acts 1 and 2 — the ascension of Jesus and the day of Pentecost — and unpacks what it actually means that the Holy Spirit lives in every believer. Not just the pastors. Not just the spiritually elite. Everyone.

A lo...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail tackle what might be the most confusing parable in the Gospels — the Parable of the Shrewd Manager in Luke 16. A property manager gets caught mishandling his boss's finances, gets fired, and then — before he's out the door — starts forging documents to reduce what people owe his master, so they'll feel indebted to him once he's unemployed.

And then Jesus does something nobody expects: he has the owner commend the manager for it.

Not for the fraud. But for the shrewdness.

Charlie and Abigail work through why Jesus...

We say it so often it starts to lose its weight: Jesus died for your sins. But what does that actually mean? And what changed because of it?

In week six of Foundations, Charlie walks through Matthew 27 — the crucifixion and resurrection — and unpacks three things that happened in that moment that most of us have never fully sat with. Jesus took the weight and consequence of our sin onto himself. The curtain in the temple — the barrier that kept ordinary people from the presence of God — was torn in two. And death, the last great enemy, was conquere...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail dig into Luke 12 and one of Jesus' most pointed parables — the Rich Fool. It starts with a guy in the crowd interrupting Jesus mid-sermon to settle a family inheritance dispute. Jesus' response: "Man, who appointed me your judge?" And then, just to make sure nobody's comfortable, he turns to the whole crowd and says: watch out for greed. Life is not about what you own.

What follows is a parable that sounds completely reasonable at first. A farmer has a great harvest, runs out of storage, tears down his old ba...

For four hundred years, the Jewish people waited in silence for a Messiah — and every expectation pointed to power. A warrior. A political liberator. Someone who would finally overthrow Rome and set things right by force. Instead, God arrived as a newborn, born to an unremarkable teenage mother, laid in a feeding trough because there was nowhere else to put him. In this message from our Foundations series, Spencer walks through Philippians 2:5–11 to unpack why God chose humility over prestige — and shares a personal story from a recent ER visit about what it means to have someone show up and sa...

Most of us have a working theory about how God operates: follow the rules, hope you've done enough, and maybe he'll come through. It's functional. It's familiar. And according to this sermon, it's not even close to what God is actually offering.

In week four of Foundations, Charlie walks through Exodus 19 — the moment God arrives at Mount Sinai and proposes something to Israel that would have been completely shocking: not a set of rules to follow from a distance, but a covenant. A relationship. The kind of deep, mutual commitment you'd make at a wedding, not the ki...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail dig into Luke 11 — where the disciples ask Jesus a deceptively simple question: "Lord, teach us to pray." Jesus responds with the Lord's Prayer and then immediately tells one of the strangest stories in the Gospels: a man knocking on his neighbor's door at midnight begging for bread.

It's an absurd situation. The neighbor is annoyed, the kids are asleep, and he's yelling from inside instead of just getting up. But the point Jesus makes is surprisingly sharp — if even a jerk like that will eventually give in, how much more will...

Most people have heard that Abraham is the father of the Jewish faith. Fewer people understand why — or what it actually means that God "chose" him.

In week three of Foundations, Charlie walks through Genesis 12:1–5 and takes apart one of the most misunderstood ideas in all of Scripture: the chosen people. God wasn't picking favorites. He wasn't rewarding Abraham for being especially good. Abraham was just a guy — one who couldn't even have kids — and God said, I want to build something through you that will bless the entire world.

That's not favoritism. That's a family b...

This week on Cultivate, Charlie and Abigail dig into the Parable of the Persistent Widow from Luke 18 and what it teaches about prayer, faith, and God's justice. They explore Jesus' story of a widow who keeps pursuing justice from an indifferent judge, unpacking what it really means to "always pray and not give up." This isn't a formula for getting what we want — it's an invitation to trust God's timing and goodness, even when persistence doesn't look like getting an instant yes. They also wrestle with bigger questions of injustice, patience, and hope when answers feel slow or unclear. Ta...

Most of us grew up with the rainbow and the animals. We missed the harder, richer story underneath.

In this week's Foundations sermon, Mark walks through Genesis 6–9 and takes the flood narrative seriously — the scale of humanity's wickedness, God's grief over it, and why a truly good God had to respond. Along the way, he reframes the question most people ask ("How could a good God do this?") into a better one: How could a good God just look the other way?

We also look at Noah — not as a hero who earned God's favor, but as...

This week on Cultivate, we explored the themes of sin, faith, and duty as found in Luke 17:1–10. Charlie Loften and Abigail Boone dove into Jesus’ challenging words about forgiveness—specifically, the call to forgive someone who wrongs you repeatedly, even seven times in a single day. We discussed what it means not to be a stumbling block in others’ faith journeys, and how Jesus reframed the apostles’ request for “more faith,” reminding them (and us) that even a mustard seed–sized faith is sufficient for great things.

The heart of the conversation centered on Jesus’ parable about the servant doing...

This week in our Foundations series, we discussed the beginnings of God’s story in Genesis 1–3 and what it means for our lives today. Charlie Loften walked us through the creation account, where God not only brings everything into existence but establishes that He is both Creator and Owner of the universe. We considered how being made in God’s image sets people apart within creation and gives us both purpose and responsibility. The story of Adam and Eve’s choice in the garden highlighted humanity’s ongoing struggle with boundaries, trust, and shame—and how quickly we try to hide from...

This week on Cultivate, we unpacked the cost of being a disciple and what it truly means to follow Jesus. Charlie Loften and Abigail Boone dove into Luke 14:25–35, where Jesus challenges the crowds with strong words about commitment—going so far as to say that following Him means “hating” even family and choosing a completely new way of life. We explored what Jesus’ hyperbolic language really means in context, and how counting the cost of discipleship isn’t about earning grace but about fully embracing the new life Christ offers. The conversation highlighted the tension between God’s unconditional love and the w...