The Garden | San Antonio

Four Sundays a year, we invite a friend and ministry partner to discuss one of The Garden's four core values, which are really values for every believer and community in Christ. This weekend, we had the blessing of hearing from Jonathan Kagimu of African Renewal Ministries, who shared a word on our value of Perseverance , based on Isaiah 40. As Jonathan encourages, when the burdens of life bec...

Pastor Caleb continues For Glory and For Good with a look at one of the most infamous episodes in the Book of Genesis. In constructing a high tower at the center of their city, the people of Babel seem to be doing everything right – enjoying unity in their communication, labor, and culture. But the foundation beneath them proves far more brittle than appearances suggest. As God stoops down to see...

Our series  For Glory and For Good  moves to another key figure in the book of Genesis. When it becomes clear humanity is irreparably corrupted by its sinful pursuits, bringing the earth it was made to tend down with it, God is moved by grief to set things right. What is stained will be washed, in a great and terrible Flood, but where God looks down and sees what was good now evil, He also finds a...

Pastoral Resident Nate Garza continues For Glory and for Good with a consideration of work and rest – and more deeply, purpose and fulfillment. After Adam and Eve’s sinful decision, humanity would be burdened with work that could now crush body and spirit, and the horror of this consequence would be evident for them immediately after life outside the garden. The picture is clear. Left to ourselves...

Our series through the book of Genesis, For Glory and for Good , continues with the first instance of sin in history and its awful fallout. Adam and Eve are tempted to leave God’s created order, and in reaching for something outside of His abundant provision and clear warning, they discover the unbearable weight of shame. But here, too, we see the first instance of grace, as God covers them and pr...

Pastor Caleb continues our series through the book of Genesis, For Glory and for Good , with a question asked in the account of creation that has remained central to humanity since Adam drew his first breath: Will we accept that the Creator God is also the Lord God? Every truth in Genesis hinges on our answer to this question, and no amount of reducing the book to a single layer of meaning – as hi...

We kick off a new series through the book of Genesis, For Glory and for Good , with a look at the beginning of the world. As Pastor Caleb shows, though much has been made of interpreting the scientific and historical details of this creation account, Genesis is primarily a work of theological declaration. This God is different from all others, both in Israel's day and ours. Sovereign, eternal,...

Pastor Caleb closes our discipleship series, Walking Home , with a look at community. As we see the first church established in the book of Acts, we find in the Gospel's proclamation and its reception among an emerging community a truth that is easily obscured in our contemporary, individualist context: You can't seek the face of God without finding the body of Christ . Atonement and adopt...

Our good friend Amanda Gallegos joins us for our Walking Home series with a look at what happens when we live our lives by the rhythm of communion. Jesus' promise to his disciples in John 15 points to abiding with him as a blessed choice we get to make, one that frees us from the burden of growth and opens us to the joy of groundedness. ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ John 15:1-7 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (ESV)⁠⁠⁠ If...

As our series Walking Home continues, we move from the subject of pain to the subject of healing. Taking a look at Luke 9, Pastor Caleb considers what it means for disciples to know hunger as they're called to feed the hungry. In our lives of following Jesus, are we meant to serve others only when we're ready? Or can we minister even while we're mending? We see in the calling, equippin...

Pastor Caleb continues our series Walking Home with a look at the prayer life of a disciple. Throughout Scripture we see the people of God come to Him with boldness and honesty through the practice of lament. More than a doubtful complaint levied at God's character, prayers of lament represent pleas from the faithful for God to be who He has promised to be. These prayers represent a critical compo...

Our series on discipleship, Walking Home , continues with a look at what it means to practice our faith. Pastor Caleb turns to the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. What is a Christian? Many of us define faith by what is done, but if we start with activity before identity, we will miss growing into what we're called to be. The love of God, as Paul shows, is the ground of our being...

Pastoral Resident Nate Garza continues our series on discipleship, Walking Home , considering the topic of transformation. What does it mean to be made new? When the Spirit works in us, what is evidence of change? Looking at Paul's words in his letter to Titus, we discover the power of a heart regenerated to love like Christ and a mind renewed to think like Christ. ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Titus 3...

Continuing our series on discipleship, Walking Home , Pastor Caleb looks at the other side of following Jesus. Looking at Luke chapter five, we see in Jesus' call to Peter and to Levi – two very different men who see the Lord and take him at his word – that to "come and see" we must "leave everything." The sick and the sinful find in Jesus hope for today and for tomorrow. W...

We begin a new series on discipleship, Walking Home , with a look at Jesus' invitation to follow after him, given to his disciples in the Gospel of John: "Come and see." His call helps us to set aside many contemporary misconceptions of following him, and we see in his words that a life of faith rests on a foundation of relationship, that no amount of activity or experience could com...

Our series through Jesus’ Beatitudes continues with a look at God’s promise to the peacemakers. Pastoral Resident Nate Garza shares the meaning of Jesus’ statement by walking us through the Old Testament story of Jacob and Esau. As we see in their separation and eventual reconciliation, the peace of God that comes to us is meant to flow through us as well. Being a peacemaker requires spiritual pre...

Continuing our series through the beatitudes, Kingdom Come , Pastor Caleb takes a look at two interrelated promises from Jesus. He tells his disciples that the merciful will find mercy and that the pure in heart will see God. Walking through the biblical witness, we find that God sees us long before we can see Him, and from His compassion flows mercy that clears the eyes of our heart to begin to w...

In part four of our series Kingdom Come , Pastor Caleb looks at Jesus' fourth beatitude, where he tells his disciples that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled. The context of Jesus' words involves a physical hunger, with many in his audience suffering from Roman oppression and the corruption of religious leadership, but the yearning Jesus is speaking to goes far de...

Continuing Kingdom Come , our series through the beatitudes of Jesus, our pastoral resident Nate Garza looks at the kind of meekness God blesses and what it means for followers of Jesus to rely on the strength of the Lord at work – in us and in the world he calls us to. ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Psalm 37:1-11 ⁠⁠⁠ (NIV)⁠⁠⁠ For more resources and ways to connect with us, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ thegardens...

Our series through the beatitudes of Jesus, Kingdom Come , continues with God’s promise to comfort those who mourn. Pastor Caleb walks through this vow, echoed throughout scripture, and shows how hope in the Lord yields comfort not just in a far off, eternal reward, but here now in the presence of a God who weeps and works for us. Even more, so abundant is the comfort we find in the depths with Go...

Pastor Caleb kicks off Kingdom Come , our new series through Jesus' beatitudes, with a look at what it means to be poor in spirit. Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount, a stunning and encompassing work describing the character of the Kingdom of God, with a promise to fill those whose only hope is the Lord. Jesus calls these poor in spirit blessed , and those who follow him can take comfort not...

Four Sundays a year, we invite a friend and ministry partner to discuss one of The Garden's four core values, which are really values for every believer and community in Christ. This weekend, we had the blessing of hearing from Jonathan Kagimu of African Renewal Ministries, who shared a word on the value of Presence , based on the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke. As Jonathan sho...

Concluding our series, Pastor Caleb looks at the final fruit of the Spirit Paul lists in his letter to the Galatians: self-control . Paul is not encouraging believers to greater feats of personal strength or moral performance. Rather, Paul defines this fruit as yielding the growth and guidance of the new self to the Holy Spirit. What we need to experience this kind of holy self-control is to put o...

Happy Easter! Our series through the fruit of the Spirit continues with a look at Gentleness on Resurrection Sunday. Before a crowd in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus does something in prayer that was totally unprecedented. He speaks of knowing the Father in intimate relationship, as His very Son and more, as the only means of seeing the Father. This claim of exclusivity and authority was considered...

Continuing In Season , our series on the fruit of the Spirit, Pastor Caleb looks at faithfulness – a timely subject for Palm Sunday, commemorating the day Jesus entered Jerusalem to a crowd welcoming Him in, just days before he would be put to death by Rome at the behest of a very similar crowd. We know today the value of faithfulness, of loyalty, but as this week in Jesus' story shows, we str...