Redemption HOU podcast

Matthew shows us the unsettling heart of Christmas—a God who refuses to be confined by our expectations. Born in obscurity, made known to outsiders, and missed by insiders, Jesus is revealed as the king whose presence reshapes power, worship, and the whole of our lives. This Christmastide sermon invites us to consider a God who shows up in ways that resist our categories and reorient our lives. Ge...

You and your life have been taken up into Christ so that God can be with you. Generosity: https://www.redemptionhou.com/give

Into the darkness a light has dawned. Generosity: https://www.redemptionhou.com/give

The baby in the manger is the reigning Messiah, the very crucified Jesus who will come again in glory, that the one who is to be delivered up is the one who will dispose of all earthly power and authority with imperial ease. This very God who is not against us, but for us in an upside down kingdom. Additional Readings: Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 , Romans 1:1-7, and Matthew 1:18-25 Songs of Waiting: https...

In a world ruled by entropy, God promises a new world where desert wastelands erupt into flourishing life. But what do we do when we feel disappointed, discouraged, and even doubt that these promises will ever come true? Advent names our disappointment and carries our doubt, while training our eyes to see—right in the midst of our waiting—that God’s future is already invading our exhausted present...

Everything seems to be collapsing, our certainties are gone, and it feels like the whole world is on fire—so what now? Advent dares us to hope an incomprehensible hope—a dangerous hope. Not a hope rooted in our wins or losses, but in a relentlessly faithful God. In Isaiah 11:1–10, the prophet dares us to believe that God can pull peace from the wreckage, light from utter darkness, life out of deat...

Advent begins with Isaiah’s vision of God’s mountain—an unshakeable kingdom of peace inviting us to walk in the light of its God. Songs of Waiting - follow this link Generosity: https://www.redemptionhou.com/give

The Church offers the world the gift of knowing and being known by God—the gift of what it means to be a human fully alive. The Song of Songs reminds us that beyond all, the God who created the world is the God who delights in it–delights in us–and longs for all of creation to enjoy God together. Journaling Prompts What might it mean for you to enjoy God, enjoy others, and enjoy creation? Where mi...

God’s story ends not with rescue from the world, but with God making the world His home. Revelation gives us a picture of the world made new—a world with God. When we forget that ending, we forget who we are and what God is up to in and among us. Journaling Prompts Sit with the idea that God is the First and the Last, the Arche and the Telos, the source and the point, the means and the ends. Spend...

The God who refuses to be without us forms us into a certain sort of people—a subversive alternative to the world’s divisive norms, where Christ’s table becomes participation in holy resistance. In Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus, we glimpse God’s new world: the sinner becomes a site of salvation, and divine welcome initiates a new social order. Journaling Prompts The God who refuses to be without...

The story the Church tells is the story of a God who refuses to be without us—the poor, the helpless, even those who’ve made God our enemy. In the story of David and Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 9), we see the heart of God: a God of communion. And we realize the table God sets is a table of strange friendships. Journaling Prompts If God’s work in New Creation is all about communion, what kind of world i...

How’s your prayer life? If that question makes you sigh, you’re not alone. Maybe prayer isn’t something to perfect or dutifully perform. Maybe it’s the life-giving response to the God who is already with you. Journaling Prompts What portion of the Lord’s Prayer challenges you the most right now? What might it mean for Redemption to become a community that inhabits the Lord’s Prayer? What would thi...

How’s your prayer life? If that question makes you sigh, you’re not alone. Maybe prayer isn’t something to perfect or dutifully perform. Maybe it’s the life-giving response to the God who is already with you. Generosity: https://www.redemptionhou.com/give

In a world crowded with our words, preferences, and interpretations, Recovering the Bible means listening to the voice of the risen Christ who still speaks to us here and now. Journaling Prompts How does the idea of Deus Dixit—that God has Spoken—challenge your understanding of the Church, the Bible, and what God is up to in both? Has there been a time in your life where your engagement with the B...

What is the Bible for? Many of us have a complicated relationship with Scripture—it has been misused as a tool of exclusion, harm, and control. But what if Jesus is right, and the Word of God is actually a good gift meant to give us life? Recovering the Bible begins with receiving God’s word, not as a weapon, but as a locus of divine encounter where we are formed into a liberated people of hope. J...

In God’s gift of worship, we are caught up in a counter-liturgy that makes us a different kind of people — a political alternative to the world. Journaling Prompts Where have you seen the Church lose the plot of Jesus’ story in the way it shows up in the world? Where have you seen it offering a hopeful alternative? What might it look like to center “worship” on strange fire—forms of worship that s...

Recovering a vision for what Church is meant to be begins and ends with Jesus. Journaling Prompts When you hear the word worship, what pops into your mind? Where, if at all, does Christ being our High Priest fit into that picture? Consider why that might be. 
What is your relationship with “Church?” How does the claim that the Church is necessary as a worshipping community compatible or incompatib...

In the midst of manipulation and deceit, God sees Leah, hears her, and listens. God elevates the otherwise overlooked. Generosity https://www.redemptionhou.com/give

In a world devastated by famine the Widow of Zarephath shows us what it means to be in the care of a God of abundance. Prompts A World of Scarcity
Where does your life feel like it’s lived in a world of scarcity? Where do you feel stretched thin—stressed, afraid, or at the edge of what you can give? A God of Generosity
How does it strike you that God doesn’t just deal with scarcity from a distance...

Eve is best known as the Bible's Original Sinner—but she is also and more importantly the Bible's Original Believer. In the face of loss and hardship, she continues to recognize and testify to God's goodness and God's help. She names her son Cain, saying, "I have produced a man with the help of the Lord" (Gen 4:1). Generosity: https://www.redemptionhou.com/give

The little-known story of Zelophehad's daughters reveals a God who hears and responds to the vulnerable and overlooked. Journaling Prompts A God who sees, hears, and reconciles. How does this story invite you to believe that God sees and hears you—and is including you in the reconciliation of all things? Justice as relational wholeness. How does this shape your understanding of salvation and w...

It can feel as if nothing can stand in the way of tyrants and empires. Yet Shiphrah and Puah remind us that God sees the oppression, sees us, and invites us to join the emancipating God—even in small acts of resistance. Journaling Prompts Where and how do you see “empire” at work today? Where do you believe God is most present in what you’ve named? What are the “little bits of good where you are”?...

We like to think life with God is neat and quiet. But Tamar shows us otherwise. She refuses to stay in her place or accept her lot—and in the drama, the scandal, and the silence, God is with her, bringing about a story more redemptive than she could have imagined. Journaling Prompts What did it feel like to see a woman like Tamar featured in God’s story of cosmic redemption?
What assumptions or bi...

Money can be all consuming, a never ending cycle of desire. But Jesus invites us into a way of living free from greed, reflecting God’s divine philanthropy as the church. Journaling Prompts: “The alternative to the world of greed is a people capable of participating through worship in the love of the Father for the Son through the Spirit.” - Stanley Hauerwas Reflect honestly on your relationship w...

A Jesus centered life moves our concern from possessions to people. Journaling Prompts Moralism and community How do you see the idea of putting ourselves at the center of things giving way to moralism at play in your lived experience? What might this look like in a religious context? Transactional or loving community? In what ways are you tempted to approach church as a transactional community ve...