Root + Branch Church

Prayer Pod is a short, guided prayer session of meditative practice, poetry, and music. Prayer can be hard! We hope this makes it a little more accessible and immersive. As our country reckons with its deeply embedded history of racism and violence, this episode reflects on lament and confession. Put on some headphones (this episode in particular will sound weird without them) and give it a listen...

Guest Preacher, the Reverend Elijah Zeyhoue (Calvary Baptist, DC) reflects on the history of racism against black people in America through the lens of the Cain and Abel story in Genesis 4. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain asks. For far too long White America’s answer has remain unchanged.

Prayer Pod is a short, guided prayer session of meditative practice, poetry, and music. Prayer can be hard! We hope this makes it a little more accessible and immersive. Put on some headphones (you should really use headphones!) and give it a try.  Episode 1 Poem: Elegy by Aracelis Girmay Music: By Tim Kim

Easter 2020. On a resurrected Christ who comforts those who mourn.

Lent begins with what else but a reflection on temptation and sin.

Pastoral Intern, Aneesah Ettress, on how spiritual practices help us do work in the world. 

Why is it so hard for human beings to change? 

What is Christian revelation? How does it work? How do we know it’s real? What should it do?

On war and the incarnation that may not look like us. 

Christmas 2019

From our Advent series.

Pastoral Intern Aneesah Ettress on gratitude and covenant. 

----more----From our series exploring the truth that not everything sucks. 

Form our series on fear and courage, Apocalypse When?

From our series on fear and courage.

We conclude our series on relationships with a talk on empathy. What does the Good Samaritan parable have to teach us about empathy? A lot less than you might think.

“Blood is thicker than water,” that old devilish saying goes. The meaning of this phrase is pretty straightforward: family (blood) relations are inherently stronger than any other kind of non-familial (water) relationship or bond. Right? Nah. This rendition of the phrase actually carries the complete opposite meaning from the original phrase: “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of...

This week we focus our attention on friendship. On one hand, maybe it's weird for a community of adults to talk about this thing which seems to hold diminishing importance for us as we move through the world. It is also not exactly the most famous of topics when it comes to Christianity and religion and spirituality in general. At the same time, adult friendships are important! Particularly so for...

There is this thing called the Great Commission, the last five sentences that close out the Gospel of Matthew. It says things like “Go out and make disciples of all nations,” for which it has become a rallying cry for all sorts of efforts to evangelize and convert people. That makes a certain sort of sense, but divine command mixed with human fallibility is formula for disaster, perhaps THE formul...

Easter 2019 - We talk about conspiracy theories and what it means to trust in the promise of resurrection. 

Kicking off a series of talks and conversations around sex, sexuality, gender, and such things, Tim shares a personal story, rails against dualism, and affirms the incarnation in all of us. 

While the Christmas story has all sorts of wild and magicals parts, we take a cue from Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she pauses for a second to take it all in. 

If everything you’ve ever known was turned on its head how would you feel? Probably not calm, confident, and comforted. But, distraught, uncertain, and uncomfortable. Yet, Isaiah’sprophecy ( Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God ) tells us that everything must change to prepare for Christ to come into the world. Valleys need raising and mountains and hills flattening. We’ve got to boldly sha...

Grace is kind of a big deal in Christianity. Yet, it often takes a massive back seat to things like faith and love (so boring). Why is that? Maybe part of the reason is that grace is like the beginning stages of a romantic relationship. All that “hi, I like you” stuff is really fascinating until you get married and have kids and blah blah and then it's like it was just a point on a linear line tow...

Did God create the world because God was lonely? By definition, God (omnipotent, omnipresent, yada yada yada) couldn't be lonely right? That would mean that God lacked something. But heresy aside, the image of God as little child with no one to play with, using a child-like imagination to make platypus' and big ass whales (as the story goes) is a compelling one. Because a kid's imagination, weird...