A Pastoral Word | April 2026

From Chris Price

April 11, 2026

Hi everyone,

Chris here.

I am writing to you on behalf of the teaching team to introduce our upcoming sermon series that will take us from now into the month of July.

We are going to spend several months studying The Letter to the Colossians.

About Colossae

Colossae was a first-century city located in the Roman province of Asia, an area that would now be modern-day Turkey. It was a city inland, nestled in the Lycus valley a hundred miles from the coast. Colossae was a city heavily influenced by Rome—Roman deities were worshipped, Roman theatre was enjoyed, and the symbols of the empier were omnipresent. Even the money bore Caesar’s image with an inscription claiming that he was the Son of God and the Saviour.

Alongside the ever-present empire was a pluralistic environment, filled with a lot of competing philosophies, religions, and ideas fighting for the hearts and minds of people. Colossae was a cultural hub, a stimulating environment, an exciting place to live and work for people in the first century. And it was here that a first-century Christian community was invited to live out a different reality, serve under a different king, embrace a different ethic and an entirely different way of being in the world.

The letter to the Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul to a small gathering of Jesus’ followers who were new to the scriptures, new to Jesus, new to a whole new way of life.

They needed instruction & encouragement, and truth in the midst of falsehood. They needed confidence that there was a name above the name of Caesar, and a vision for a counter-cultural community that would live for the common good of Colossae.

To meet these needs the Apostle Paul picked up his pen and wrote this ancient letter—and we can still learn from it today.

What does it mean for us?

Fast-forward to the 21st Century. Vancouver, British Columbia.

A global city. A world-class place to live and work and play.

Our world is different from the Roman Empire. Different and, yet, the same.

We too live in a pluralistic environment surrounded by and inundated with competing “isms” and ideologies—different ways of being in the world, different visions of the “good life," different pictures of spirituality—all vying for supremacy in our hearts. And yet, for Paul, and for the Christian faith, and for followers of Jesus in the here and now, nothing is meant to be above Jesus.

Jesus is:

God’s final revelation.

The heir of all things.

The creator of the world.

The radiance of God’s glory.

The exact imprint of God’s nature.

Jesus upholds the universe by the Word of his power.

He made purification for sins.

He is worshipped by angels

His rule will have no end.

He took on human flesh.

He destroyed the one who had the power of death.

He delivered us from the bondage of fear.

He will come a second time to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

He is the same yesterday and forever.

There is to be nothing and no one above Jesus.

The first Christians in Colossae were invited to live into that reality—and so are we.

Colossians will show us how to live into that reality with our money, our work, our irritation, our pain, and our prayer. With our marriages, friendships, and sexuality—with all of our relationships.

Our teaching team is excited to get into all of the above and more in our series on the book of Colossians.

See you this Sunday.

—Chris