Neighborhood Church Podcast

For many, living in a human body feels less like a gift and more like a daily battle. Whether it is chronic pain, anxiety, or body image struggles, it is easy to feel betrayed by your own skin. This reality can leave you wondering if your physical self—limitations and all—actually matters, or if it is just an obstacle to endure. In Part 1 of our series Being Human, Forrest Jenan explores the idea...

Most of us walk into a new year with pressure to do more, achieve more, or finally “be better.” What if the biggest thing holding you back this year … is you — getting out of your own way and letting go of the constant need to prove, defend, and outperform? You can’t step into the new year if you’re still carrying the old you. In this message for the new year, Jordan Brokaw explores how forgetting...

What do you do when you can’t see what’s next—and the waiting starts to wear you down? Most of us carry a quiet how question into Christmas: How will this work out? How do I get through this? How long can I keep waiting? We don’t always say it out loud, and we’re not always sure who to ask. Yet that feeling of being disoriented, stuck, or unsure is more common than we admit. This Christmas Eve, we...

It is possible to survive the hardest days of our lives yet still feel lost when the crisis is over. When we are stuck in the past or weighed down by how we’ve been hurt, we might be physically present, but we aren't truly free. In Part 3 of The Way Home, Forrest Jenan looks at how Jesus’ way of love—often dismissed as soft or impractical—is actually the most powerful, pragmatic strategy for navig...

A life that feels meaningful, connected, and whole is something we all want—especially at Christmas. But somewhere along the way, relationships can fray, distance grows, and we’re left wondering how to fix what’s broken without making it worse. In Part 2 of The Way Home, Forrest Jenan invites us to see reconciliation as a way of life—one that restores what’s been separated, heals division, and hel...

Life rarely falls apart all at once; usually, we just drift until we wonder, "How did I get here?" Willpower alone often fails to get us back on track, but Christmas offers a different hope: help comes to find us. In Part 1 of The Way Home, Forrest Jenan explores the "quiet drift" of life and the Christmas promise of a God who comes to the rescue. If you feel lost or stuck, this message offers a p...

There are moments when we wonder why we keep tripping over the same patterns—repeating choices that hurt our relationships, our future, and even how we see ourselves. There’s a built-in drift toward self-destruction and shame that shapes more of our decisions than we realize But there’s real hope. Jesus doesn’t enter our lives to point out what’s wrong—He comes to lift the weight we’ve been carryi...

We all feel the pull toward what’s easier—avoiding the hard conversation, putting off the change we know we need, staying comfortable. Jesus understood this wiring long before science named it. In Part 3 of Hardwired, Forrest Jenan looks at the two paths we all choose between every day: the one that feels easy in the moment and the one that leads to the kind of life we deeply want. Why do we fight...

You probably know someone who needs to change but won’t—someone stuck, hurting, or repeating choices that damage their life and the lives around them. But we rarely stop to ask a harder question: what if we’re doing the same thing? In Part 2 of Hardwired, Brian Ross invites us to consider a different path—one where openness becomes the doorway to healing. Drawing from Psalm 95 and the story of a G...

Many of us move through life with a quiet ache for connection. Even with full calendars and constant activity, we still long to feel known and to belong — because we were made for it. The need for relationship is built into who we are. In Part 1 of our Hardwired series, we’ll look at the moment Jesus meets a woman who felt on the outside of everything and makes space for her with dignity and compa...

Most of us have tried reading the Bible and walked away thinking, “I don’t get it.” That’s because we all read the Bible through a particular lens — and sometimes those lenses make it harder to see what’s really there. In this message, we discover a better way to read the Bible — one that brings clarity instead of confusion. When you see it through the lens of Jesus, the story comes alive, and you...

We all have something we’re trying to stop—an unhealthy pattern, a habit gone too far, or a thought that won’t let go. Most of the time, we tell ourselves, “Don’t.” But no matter how strong our willpower is, the “don’t” cycle rarely works for long. It keeps us stuck, exhausted, and ashamed when we can’t hold it together. In Part 2 of How to Stop What’s Stopping You, Forrest talks about what to do...

Denial has a way of keeping us stuck. It can damage relationships, weigh on our conscience, and quietly rob us of peace. What if the first step toward healing isn’t fixing everything, but simply being honest about what’s broken? In Part 1 of our new series How to Stop What’s Stopping You, Darrin Cantrell explores what happens when we stop pretending everything’s okay and finally step into the ligh...

Most of us know what it feels like to run on empty—busy, distracted, and worn out. We keep trying to catch our breath, but nothing seems to refill us for long. In the final installment of our Thirty Words series, Forrest Jenan talks about staying connected to the source of life itself. Jesus invites us to make our home in Him—not to try harder, but to live with a steady awareness that He’s with us...

Most of us know what it feels like to get burned by religion — the pressure to perform, the guilt that never quite lifts, the endless cycle of trying harder to be “good enough.” Maybe you’ve felt the weight of it, or maybe you’ve just watched how it can twist something beautiful into something heavy. What if the spiritual life you’ve been searching for isn’t about trying to reach God at all, but r...

We all feel the pull to have it our way—with our families, our schedules, our futures. But if we’re honest, even our best attempts at self-rule often leave us tired, anxious, or frustrated. Deep down, most of us long for a bigger story, a wiser way to live, and a community that helps us flourish rather than compete. In Part 4 of our Thirty Words series, we’re exploring Jesus’ most frequent topic—t...

Everywhere we look—headlines, workplaces, even our own relationships—we see patterns of harm that keep cycling. We call it brokenness, dysfunction, injustice, self-sabotage… but whatever the name, it leaves people trapped and hurting. Deep down, most of us sense there’s more to life than this and wonder if there’s any real way out of the damage we’ve caused or inherited. In Part 3 of our series Th...

Deep down, every person wonders if love can actually be trusted. We all long for a kind of love that isn’t just talk but shows up, steps in, and proves itself when it costs something. That ache for real, reliable love is at the heart of human experience. In Part 2 of our Thirty Words series, we’re looking at how Jesus embodies that kind of love. Forrest Jenan explores the claim that God came to sh...

Every generation longs for good news—something strong enough to break through fear, grief, and confusion. The Christian story begins with just that: God stepped into our world in Jesus to show us what He is really like. In Part 1 of our series Thirty Words, Forrest Jenan explore the simple announcement at the heart of faith and discover how thirty words can carry hope powerful enough to change eve...

There are few questions that unsettle us more than the one that surfaces in the quiet of the night: What happens when it’s over? Whether it’s sparked by a childhood prayer, a funeral, or visiting a hospital room, the thought of death leaves us wondering what comes next and if anything lies beyond the silence. This week in Staring at the Ceiling, we’ll listen closely to how Jesus spoke about life b...

At some point, most of us find ourselves staring at the ceiling, wondering if our lives really matter. We get caught in endless routines, distracted by busyness or numbing out with screens, but deep down we long to know that our days add up to something bigger than ourselves. That quiet question … Why am I here? …isn’t just about existence, it’s about significance. This week in Staring at the Ceil...

You try to live a good life. You want to make choices you can feel proud of. But the more voices you hear, the harder it gets to know what “doing the right thing” actually means. That tension of wanting to live well but feeling overwhelmed by competing voices can leave you lying awake at night asking, Am I doing the right thing? In Part 2 of our series Staring at the Ceiling, Jordan Brokaw talks a...

Regret has a way of keeping us up at night—eyes locked on the ceiling, replaying the past like it might finally give us a different ending. But it never does. Instead, the weight just sits there, asking quietly but relentlessly: How did I get here? In the story of Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends, we see that regret doesn’t have to be the end of the story. There’s a place where the past can re...

Sometimes the danger isn’t in doing the wrong thing. It’s doing nothing at all. Or worse, filling our lives with busyness that distracts us from what actually matters. Sloth isn’t just laziness; it’s the quiet decision to check out when something meaningful demands our attention. It can look like avoidance, apathy, distraction, or even hiding behind productivity. Either way, it slowly robs us of p...

You don’t need to turn green and smash things to know what it feels like to lose control. Maybe your outbursts aren’t epic, but they’ve left dents in your relationships and in your peace. Or maybe your wrath stays quiet, simmering just below the surface. Either way, the result is the same: emotional shrapnel and a nagging sense that your anger is shaping your life more than you’d like to admit. Wh...