Redeemer Central

Solitude 05 - Q&A David, Armstrong, John Herron & Scott Witherick discuss the series on solitude and share some of their learning along the way. This took place on Pentecost Sunday and includes Prayers & Liturgies to celebrate and mark this day and the end of the season of Eastertide. Part of the Practicing the Way Series. For info and resources on this series go to redeemercentral.com...

Solitude 04 - Encounter with Our God Solitude is the place of encounter and ultimately, we go into the quiet to encounter God. We go because we ache for God in the deepest place in our being. We go because there is nothing like God’s presence. We go to listen for his voice, to hear him speak over us our identity and calling. In this fourth and final teaching we learn that this back and forth of sp...

Solitude 03 - Encounter with Our Self Solitude can be deeply refreshing, but just as often, it can feel like painful emotional surgery. We can get away from people, but we can’t get away from our self . And often what we carry into solitude is our pain. In the third teaching Stephanie Wilson encourages us to follow the example of Jesus by finding a quiet place and going to the place of pain becaus...

Solitude 02 - Encounter with Our Enemy In the second teaching John Herron looks at the goal of being alone with God in the silence: ultimately to hear God’s voice over all the other voices in our head, Jesus and his early followers fought battles in solitude. As we face resistance from three enemies of our soul — the world, the flesh, and the devil — in solitude, we learn to fight lies by listenin...

Solitude 01 - The Quiet Place Distraction is one of the greatest threats to spiritual health in the modern world. We all feel it — we’re bombarded by noise like never before. Jesus has an invitation for us: Step away from it all to be alone with him, for the sake of our souls and the sake of others.  In this first teaching David Armstrong looks at how Solitude is not a place but a practice, o...

The resurrection is not a happy ending. It doesn't depend on you or need your permission. The resurrection sees Christ standing in the garden alive on that Easter Sunday morning — having walked through the brutality & death of Good Friday and the forsakenness & silence of Holy Saturday — and he stands present and alive speaking your name, and a word of possibility laced with grace, love an...

David Armstrong teaches from Matthew 21 on the events of Palm Sunday. The arrival of Jesus and his disciples into Jerusalem for the Passover Festival is the moment that Jesus project goes public. Jesus entering the city on the donkey — the fulfilment of a 500 year old prophecy — is a form of guerrilla theatre that makes a mockery of the dominant forms of power displayed by the Roman Empire. In one...

Fasting 05 - Q&A David, Armstrong, John Herron & Stephanie Wilson discuss the series on fasting and share some of their learning along the way. Part of the Practicing the Way Series. For info and resources on this series go to redeemercentral.com/ptw

Fasting 04 - To Stand with the Poor “Give to the hungry what you deny your own appetite.” —St. Gregory of Nyssa In the West, many of us struggle with the problem of food abundance — having too much food to eat. Our cupboards overflow with snacks; we have so much food in our fridges it goes bad before we have a chance to eat it; apps on our phones can put any food we want just a few swipes away. Di...

Fasting 03 - To Amplify Our Prayers Fasting and prayer go together. Like two wings of a bird, together they take flight. You can pray without fasting, and you can fast without praying, but when you combine the two, there’s a noticeable amplification of our prayer before God. This comes as no surprise, since fasting is a kind of praying with our body. When the request of our heart is coupled with t...

Fasting 02 - Grow in Holiness Fasting is one of the most essential and powerful of all the practices of Jesus and, arguably, the single most neglected one in the modern, Western church. The Fasting Practice will train you in this ancient discipline, integrating your whole body into life with God. In Part 2 David Armstrong shares how fasting has many physical benefits for our bodies that mirror how...

Fasting 01 - Offering Ourselves to Jesus As powerful as the mind is, because we are holistic beings, we can’t simply think our way into spiritual maturity. Our discipleship to Jesus must take seriously our body, as it is “the temple of the Holy Spirit” — a home where we make room for God to dwell. Most of us are used to approaching our spiritual formation and life with God through the door of our...

Prayer 05 - Q&A Prayer is simply the medium through which we communicate and commune with God . The practice of prayer is learning to set aside dedicated time to intentionally be with God, in order to become like him and partner with him in the world. In Prayer part 4 David Armstrong explores the fourth stage of prayer: being with God. There comes a point in our spiritual journey when prayer g...

Prayer 04 - Being With God Prayer is simply the medium through which we communicate and commune with God . The practice of prayer is learning to set aside dedicated time to intentionally be with God, in order to become like him and partner with him in the world. In Prayer part 4 David Armstrong explores the fourth stage of prayer: being with God. There comes a point in our spiritual journey when p...

Prayer 03 - Listening to God Prayer is simply the medium through which we communicate and commune with God. The practice of prayer is learning to set aside dedicated time to intentionally be with God, in order to become like him and partner with him in the world. In Prayer part 3 John Herron helps us understand that prayer is not just when we talk but when we listen to hear his voice. As Jesus sai...

Prayer 02 - Talking with God Prayer is simply the medium through which we communicate and commune with God. The practice of prayer is learning to set aside dedicated time to intentionally be with God, in order to become like him and partner with him in the world. In Prayer part 2 Stephanie Wilson helps us begin to learn how to talk with God . Praying pre-made prayers is a beautiful way to pray. It...

Prayer 01 - Talking to God Prayer is simply the medium through which we communicate and commune with God. The practice of prayer is learning to set aside dedicated time to intentionally be with God, in order to become like him and partner with him in the world. In Prayer part 1 David Armstrong explores the first stage of prayer: talking to God. When the disciples asked Jesus, “Teach us to pray,” i...

David Armstrong finishes our Advent series looking at this season as a divine invitation and divine interruption. Note: This recording begins with a prayer led by Ian Ryans for Israel-Palestine, amid all the conflict and violence taking place there.

Scott Witherick brings a reflection on the season for our Advent series

Glen Mitchell begins our Advent series

Sabbath 04 - Worship In Sabbath Part 4 we look at how sabbath isn’t just a day to stop, rest, and throw a feast in community — it’s a holy day set apart and dedicated to God himself. For many Western Christians, Sunday has become what Eugene Peterson called a “bastard Sabbath”–the illegitimate offspring of the Sabbath and a secular day off. Whether you practice Sabbath on Sundays, Saturdays, or an...

Sabbath 03 - Delight Sabbath is a day of rest by which we cultivate a spirit of restfulness in all of our life . In Sabbath part 3 John Herron looks at the third movement of Sabbath– delight. Jesus himself said plainly, “In this world, you will have trouble,” but he also said his desire for his disciples was “that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” Sorrow is inevitable in this li...

Sabbath 02 - Rest Sabbath is a day of rest by which we cultivate a spirit of restfulness in all of our life . In Sabbath part 2 Stephanie Wilson explores the second movement of Sabbath–to rest. The idea of rest sounds wonderful, but in reality, rest is a radical, countercultural act of resistance to the powers and principalities of a world at war with God and his kingdom of peace. To practice Sabb...

We begin a new series — Practicing the Way — exploring 9 ancient practices of the way of Jesus that promise to help root us in the faith and deepen our experience of God as we serve our world. When practiced regularly these keystone habits can powerfully guide our journey of spiritual growth and help us become more like Christ, transformed into the people we were created to be. Each practice is ta...

A morning with our friend Jonny Clark exploring the relationship between faith and peacemaking and his own journey into the work of mediation, public theology and peace-building. Jonny Clark is the Program Manger of Public Theology for The Corrymeela Community. He is a facilitator and mediator working in political and inter-faith contexts and has devoted significant energy to the development of pe...