Dan at Ecclesia Church: Our God of Many Names

We visited Ecclesia Church in Houston for a To Be Told conference last weekend, and Dan was invited to share the message for the weekend services. We can’t wait for you to hear it.

As Ecclesia is in the midst of a series on Story, Dan looked at the narrative of Abram, Sarai, and Hagar in Genesis 16. The story centers on two profound moments: a pair of simple, haunting questions—Where have you come from? Where are you going?—and Hagar’s life-changing declaration, “You are the God who sees me. I have truly seen the One who sees me.”

Hagar was able to name God in a way that God had never been named before. “I am so curious,” says Dan, “as to how your story has compelled you to name God.”

Where have you come from? Where are you going? These are questions that we need to ask over and over, and they require more than pat answers about birthplace and career trajectory. God asks these profoundly personal questions as part of the process of uniquely naming us. “Here’s the bottom line: God is kind, and God is curious.”

Just as God names us through our stories, our stories also name God. “What’s your name for God?” asks Dan. “Do you know His rescue? Do you know His kindness?”

The message also includes a hilarious story about Dan’s confrontation with bats in Montana, and a unique name for God that Dan learned from his son. You don’t want to miss it; listen here.

“May you come to name, may you come to bless, may you come to jointly share together the names that you have known of the God who has rescued you, so that we can share with one another the power of story and the power of the names that we have come to know of our God.”