God begins to create for himself a new people, and this story begins with Abram and Sarai. Their chief qualifications? They were old and childless! And in this, we see for the first time how God often chooses to work — through people and in ways where no one can deny that it is God at work.

This message looks at the struggle of faith for Abraham and Sarah as they trust God, even when it seemed that it would be impossible for God to follow through on his promises. And at the end, we look at the "clue" that God had our redemption through Christ in mind all along — from the time he first called Abram. 

This podcast is a discussion of Chapter 1 — "God's Big Idea," from "THE STORY: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People." This week covers Genesis 1-11, including stories of The Creation, The Fall, Cain Kills Abel, and Noah and The Flood. The host is Dr. Rick McClain, Pastor of Christ Community Church, and guests are Daniel Edwards and Steve Hardesty.

Some movies begin with a "big bang," and if you miss the opening scene, it's hard to catch up on what's going on. The Bible is similar. If you miss the foundational themes in Genesis 1-11, it's hard to understand what follows.

This message covers the opening chapters of the book of Genesis (THE STORY, chapter 1): the stories of the creation, Adam and Eve's sin, the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, and the story of Noah and the flood. After looking at the stories, we look at the major themes that they contain that will lay the foundation for what is to come in the remainder of the Bible.

Over the next 31 weeks, our church community is going to read through the Bible together, using a resource called, "THE STORY." "THE STORY" is comprised of selections from the New International Version of the Bible. It is edited by Max Lucado and Randy Frazee so as to help us to read the Bible as one continuing story of God and his people.

Over these next 31 weeks, we are going to look at individual Bible stories, and we are going to see how they relate to the big story of what God is doing in our world. And finally, we are going to see how God's Big Story relates to our lives. This message helps us to understand how that process works.

I'll talk about how that process works, and then we will study "The Lord's Prayer" using this process.

This message describes THE STORY, a series that will take our church through the entire Bible in 31 weeks. We are challenged — DEAL OR NO DEAL? — to plug in in 4 different ways:

• Worship Services  
• Personal Reading  
• Family Time  
• Growth Groups  

And in a 5th "deal," we are challenged to align our lives to God's Story.