Coming This Year to Chapel Hill…
By Ellis White, Senior Pastor
I got to be gone for an entire month this summer, and I don’t take that lightly. Thank you to Pastor Julie and Steve Maxwell, our COO, for leading our staff while I was away. Thank you to Pastor Julie, Caleb Bagdanov, and our guest preacher, Pastor Mike Moses, for preaching so well in my absence. And thank you to our staff and elders for giving me the chance to get away at all. A month is a long time for a pastor to be gone, and I came home grateful—not just rested, but changed by how some of that time was spent.
I had a routine every day while I was gone. I got up before everyone else, made coffee, and sat outside—the weather was unusually kind to us this trip. I’d pray, then read that day’s passages in my Bible in One Year plan. Then I’d get to work.
My assignment for those mornings: take the preaching plan for the next twelve months, which I had already sketched out in outline before I left, and work through it backwards—starting with next August, back to the Revival series we start this September—filling in detail, testing ideas, changing what needed to change. Nothing dramatic happened in those two hours. No lightning-bolt moments. Just quiet, unglamorous work, until the rest of the family woke up and the day became a family day again.
There’s a verse I kept in front of me the whole time, almost like a job description: “For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel” (Ezra 7:10, NIV). Notice the order—study first, then live it, then teach it. That was my plan for those mornings too. Preaching isn’t the first step. It’s the last one, and it’s only trustworthy if the first two actually happened.
So—with the disclaimer that everything below is subject to change between now and when we get there—here’s your trailer for what’s coming to Chapel Hill over the next year.
This fall: The Heart of Revival. Eleven weeks in Isaiah 40–66, asking the question every generation of Christians eventually asks: is revival something we plan for, or only pray for? We’ll move from a weary people’s longing, through the suffering Servant at the center of it all, to a vision of a church that actually looks different because of it.
This Advent: Heaven—Questions That Matter. A five-week series (plus Christmas Eve) tackling the questions people actually ask but rarely say out loud: what happens when we die, is heaven real, will we have bodies, will it be boring? Christian hope isn’t escapism—it’s confidence in a world God is going to renew, and we’ll spend Advent letting that hope reshape how we live right now.
In January: AI vs. You. Everyone’s asking some version of “if a machine can do my job, what am I for?”—this four-week series asks it out loud and answers it from Genesis all the way to Ephesians. You are not a function to be automated. You’re a masterpiece, with work only you were made to do.
Late winter: Rise Up and Build. We’ll trace Israel’s return from exile through Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, and Nehemiah—worship rebuilt, a people renewed, and a mission to reach our own region for Jesus that starts to feel a lot more possible than it looks.
In spring: Overwhelmed. A five-week series naming what so many of us are actually carrying—doubt, loneliness, temptation, screens, anxiety—and pointing every single week to the same place: Jesus, who meets us in the chaos and offers real rest.
Through early summer: The Good Life. A slow, verse-by-verse walk through the Sermon on the Mount. Our culture has its own definition of the good life—comfort, success, freedom. Jesus has a very different one, and this series lets him make his own case, one paragraph at a time.
Next August: How to Hear from God. A five-week series for anyone who’s ever worried about missing God’s will or making the wrong call. We’ll look at how our Good Shepherd actually guides his people—through Scripture, the Holy Spirit, wise counsel, and plain common sense—so we can walk forward with confidence instead of fear.
That’s the year ahead—Lord willing, and subject to all the usual changes life brings. I’ll be sharing more on each series as they get closer.
But this Sunday, we’re not there yet—we’re still in the middle of Come, Holy Spirit, and this week’s question is one of the most important we’ll ask all series: how does the Holy Spirit actually work? We’ll sit with the story of Nicodemus in John 3—a man who had every religious credential you could ask for, and Jesus tells him it isn’t enough. He needs to be born again. We’ll also spend time in Titus 3, where Paul makes it plain: this rebirth isn’t something you achieve, it’s something you receive.
If you’ve ever wondered whether your own faith is more religious performance than actual new life, this is a good week to be in the room. Join us at 10:00 am.
Pastor Ellis