Looking Ahead: Acts 8:1-25
Scattered, Not Silenced

Daniel Thomas • Lead Pastor
July 15, 2026

1 Minute Read

Stephen is dead. The church is under attack. Saul is dragging believers out of their homes.

If you were there, wouldn't you keep your head down?

They didn't. Acts 8:4 says the believers who were scattered "went about preaching the word" — not in spite of the danger, but seemingly without a second thought. What made ordinary people, staring at real risk, choose to speak instead of hide?

They didn't see themselves as refugees running from Jerusalem — they saw themselves as ambassadors of a King who sent them wherever they landed. Paul puts words to this later: "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors... God making his appeal through us" (2 Cor. 5:18-20). An ambassador doesn't stop representing the King just because the assignment changed locations.

That's the question worth sitting with this week: when your circumstances get disrupted, does your identity move with you — or does it stay behind?

This Sunday we're in Acts 8:1-25. Looking forward to gathering with you!!

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July 15, 2026 • 1 Minute Read
Looking Ahead: Acts 8:1-25
Stephen is dead. The church is under attack. Saul is dragging believers out of their homes. If you were there, wouldn't you keep your head down? They didn't. Acts 8:4 says the believers who were scattered "went about preaching the word" — not in spite of the danger, but seemingly without a second thought. What made ordinary people, staring at real risk, choose to speak instead of hide? They didn't see themselves as refugees running from Jerusalem — they saw themselves as ambassadors of a King who sent them wherever they landed. Paul puts words to this later: "We are therefore Christ's ambassadors... God making his appeal through us" (2 Cor. 5:18-20). An ambassador doesn't stop representing the King just because the assignment changed locations. That's the question worth sitting with this week: when your circumstances get disrupted, does your identity move with you — or does it stay behind? This Sunday we're in Acts 8:1-25. Looking forward to gathering with you!!

Daniel Thomas

Lead Pastor

July 8, 2026 • 2 Minute Read
This Weekend at ALG
This weekend we're walking through a passage I've personally found difficult. It's the bold faith and proclamation of the Gospel — but not from an Apostle. It's from Stephen, a man simply "full of grace and power" who ends up on trial for his life. Stephen is falsely accused. People who don't like what he's saying can't out-argue him, so they do what people often do when they lose an argument with the truth — they lie about him before the High Priest. So let me ask you: when someone lies about you with malicious intent, how do you respond? Does your face show joy, peace, contentment — does it "shine like an angel"? Or does it show frustration, bewilderment, anger? That's not a rhetorical question. It's the question this passage forces on us. Most of us won't stand trial for our faith. But all of us have faced the smaller version of Stephen's moment — the mischaracterization, the whisper campaign, the accusation that isn't true but sticks anyway. What comes out of us in that moment says something about what's been put into us long before it. This Sunday we'll watch how Stephen handled that moment — in the synagogue, and in front of the High Priest. What allowed him to show Christ-like character in the middle of his own destruction? Before Sunday, I'd encourage you to read ahead — Acts 6:8 , Acts 7:1-60 and Acts 8:1-3. Don't stop where our text ends. Stephen's story doesn't resolve neatly in a single sermon-sized passage, and reading the fuller arc will change how you hear it Sunday.

Daniel Thomas

Lead Pastor