Vox Veniae Podcast

Vanessa Maleare leads us through a study of magical objects, Moses’s staff, and the movement from destruction to provision. In Exodus, the same staff once used to turn the Nile to blood becomes a tool for bringing life-giving water from the rock. What might this transformation teach us about redemption—and how might we discern our own place in bringing real, good change to the situations around us...

Lilly Ettinger explores Jonah alongside the prophetic tradition of bringing anger, disappointment, and protest directly to God. What if complaint isn’t a failure of faith, but part of a faithful relationship with God? Lilly considers how making room for honest complaint might expand our understanding of justice, restoration, and God’s surprising mercy. [Jonah 3:10-4:11]   Reflection Questions 1. W...

Eric Robinson notices that many of us have suffered heartbreak in our journey with God and the church, and asks how might this be an invitation to open us to living in a new reality?   Reflection Questions: 1. When are the times your heart has been broken in your faith journey? 2. Where do you see your life resonating with the story of Joseph? 3. How might God be inviting you to allow your heart t...

Lynn Osgood walks us through Luke’s story of the road to Emmaus where the risen Christ is present long before the disciples recognize him. This sermon opens a new series, God in Ordinary Places, by asking what might change if we looked at the world around us in the same way: not as places where we bring God, but as places where God is already at work.    Reflections Questions:   1. Where in your o...

Catherine Johnson reframes Jesus’ invitation to “lose your life” not as self-erasure, but as a release from the survival strategies we cling to for safety. Jesus models another way: to live from our deepest values even in the presence of fear and loss—to love what is mortal, hold it fully, and, when the time comes, let it go.   Reflection Questions   What survival strategy has helped protect you i...

With a new school year and new expectations approaching this fall, Lilly Ettinger notices that it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and on our own. God reminds us that we are not isolated human beings, but part of a community that helps us not to conform to hyperindividualism, but to lean into  being a part of the story of God and the world.    Reflection Questions Where in your life are you acting...

Vanessa Maleare Interviews Dr. Lynn Osgood, Vox’s new Scholar in Residence, as she explores our sense of calling through the theology of placemaking, asking how the physical places we inhabit shape us, and how our calling shapes those places in return.   Reflection Questions   When in your life have you felt a call? What did that call feel like in your body? What difference did you witness between...

Nic Acosta notices that with each passing year, we seem to get better and better at optimizing time management and reducing wait time. But what if waiting is a fundamental experience of being human and fertile spiritual soil that we're depriving ourselves of? What if God is offering to meet us in our moments of waiting and inviting us into the riches of living according to divine time? [1 Kings 19...

In honor of Christopher Mack’s last Sunday at Vox, Vanessa Maleare leads us through an exercise in discernment using the story of Esther and the Buddhist teaching of impermanence. [Esther 4:12-17] Practices: Listen and notice what/who is around you this week. Release the need for everything to be permanent. Take stock of what your context is. Where are you embedded? What is the need in the world a...

Christopher Mack shares his final message as a pastor on staff at Vox. He picks up Jesus’ Parable of the Wheat and Weeds to challenge ourselves personally and communally to participate in God’s wholeness. [Matthew 13:24-30]   Reflection Questions   When was a recent ‘aha!’ moment, when you awakened to Divine Presence already-present to your one wild, perplexing, challenging, and beautiful life? Wh...

Gena St. David glimpses in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, a hope that the nonviolence we see in the life of Jesus can grow “a hundredfold” in our own lives and world–creating ripples larger than we dare dream or imagine. [Matthew 13:18-23]   Reflection Questions   Where are you already practicing nonviolence–and what ripples do you imagine it could create? Where would you like to become more nonviol...

Each Sunday we begin our liturgy with “welcome to Vox as participants and hosts of our liturgy. Liturgy means the work of the people, and this morning we are all invited to care for and serve one another.” On this Sunday after Pentecost, Christopher Mack considers how we work out this “work of the people” in our being and in relationship to one another in a pace and posture that gives our faith le...

On this Pride Sunday, Amy Wolfgang invites us to consider “What Else..” in uncovering Psalm 100 for how we anchor to our belovedness and receive the message of liberation for which our hearts long.  [Psalm 100]   Reflection Questions: Where can you reclaim your right to make joyful noise this month? How can you enter the divine conversation with “What Else”? When you hear the phrase, “You are God’...

We regularly begin our liturgy with “welcome to Vox as participants and hosts of our liturgy. Liturgy means the work of the people, and this morning we are all invited to care for and serve one another.” On this Sunday after Pentecost, Christopher Mack considers how we work out this “work of the people” in our being and in relationship to one another in a pace and posture that gives our faith legs...

On this Pentecost Sunday, Vox Veniae celebrates its 20th Anniversary. Pastor Vanessa leads a panel of Sarah Chu, Parker Short, and Gina Bastone to reflect upon our rich history of being a voice of grace in Austin, first near UT campus, and then in East Austin. We remember the rich roots that have inspired, liberated, and formed us over our first 20 years. We also dream about how these roots call u...

On this Ascension Sunday, Rev. Jenna Sullivan ponders the strange story of Jesus' dramatic ascension back to heaven forty days after the resurrection. Jesus' last words evoke questions and disorientation for his disciples and they can do the same for us today. They can also inspire us to look for Jesus in new forms and get to work living out his teachings. This story gives us permission to ask Jes...

Nic Acosta contrasts the temptation of creating god in our own image with the God revealed in Christ and proclaimed in scriptures. We are challenged to live into God’s Story rather than trying to live life the other way around. [Acts 17:22-32]   Reflection Questions: When in our lives have we felt the warmth and love of God, whether or not we recognized it at the time? How might someone in my life...

Christopher Mack explores how Stephen’s life of re-telling God’s Story stripped from our lens of the myth of redemptive violence allows us to behold Divine Love and resist the real world oppression of death-dealing forces and their stories. [Acts 7:54-60]   Reflection Questions:Glimpsing the Heavens, Resisting on Earth What’s a realistic way for you to practice the presence of God this week? How d...

Eric Robinson examines M Scott Peck’s non-linear stages of pseudo-community, chaos, emptiness, and true community through the lens of the early church in Acts. He wonders what it would look like if we were okay with seasons of necessary chaos and intentional emptying to experience true community. [Acts 2]   Reflection Questions: What communities in your life are in chaos right now? Where might God...

Vanessa Maleare explores the diverse terrain of our souls, and the friction and invitation to flourishing we experience in community. [John 20:24-27]     Reflection Questions: What is the complex landscape of your soul at this moment? What is needed for your soul’s continued flourishing? Is it challenging to imagine yourself evolving alongside others in our individualistic society?

Christopher Mack acknowledges the Jesus Movement has given us many reasons to leave, while encouraging curiosity around reasons we might choose to stay, and ultimately invites us to include and transcend the different stages of faith we have experienced as we participate in Jesus’ calling to love neighbor and love God by forming Beloved Community.       Reflection Questions: Where does your heart...

On Easter Sunday, Christopher Mack contrasts the fear that caused the agents of empire to fall like dead men to the fear and great joy of the women at the tomb who go forward to tell of the vindication of the Jesus Way over the way of empire’s death dealing destruction. We are encouraged to listen to the conversation resurrection life is having with our own, listening to our sorrows, while we sing...

On Palm Sunday, Vanessa Maleare confronts the feelings of sadness, disappointment, and frustration we experience when something is different than we anticipated. Jesus didn’t act like the violent warrior king many of the people anticipated. What do you do when you face unmet expectations? Vanessa invites us to choose how we respond by realizing that “I can change what I do next.”   Belonging in th...

On the fifth Sunday of Lent, Christopher Mack acknowledges we live in times where nerves can easily get fried and hope can seem in short supply. Everywhere we turn, it seems the world is on fire. The Hebrew people also wondered if the chaos engulfing their world would ever relent and give way to new life. A valley of dry bones seemed to offer evidence of a sealed and gruesome fate. Yet for Ezekiel...

Belonging in the Wilderness: The Wild Bone Dried On the fifth Sunday of Lent, Christopher Mack acknowledges we live in times where nerves can easily get fried and hope can seem in short supply. Everywhere we turn, it seems the world is on fire. The Hebrew people also wondered if the chaos engulfing their world would ever relent and give way to new life. A valley of dry bones seemed to offer eviden...