Roots Church Sermon Podcast

In this message, Pastor T. C. continues Living Word series with the “Manifesto” of PAX’s Scripture StoryArc: We are given Scripture as a divine instrument to become like Jesus. 2 Tim 3:15-16 is a common text used to describe the role of the scriptures. What can this text (in addition to 2 Peter 3:16) tell…

In this message, Pastor T. C. kicks off the Living Word series by introducing the “Manifesto” of PAX’s Scripture StoryArc: We are given Scripture as a divine instrument to become like Jesus. In the Gospel of John, John the Baptizer is spoken of as testifying to Jesus in much the same way the Scriptures testify…

In this message, Pastor T. C. kicks off a new teaching series on Stewardship.

In this message, Pastor T. C. kicks off an Eastertide teaching series on the book of First Peter.

In this sermon, Pastor T. C. explores the episode in Jesus’s story when he is warned that Herod wants to kill him but he is defiant, unflappable. But it’s what Jesus says next that has echoed through history. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and longs to gather its children to himself like a mother hen.

In this sermon, Pastor T. C. explores the problematic concept of “missions” and reframes it as God’s dream for the world to restore Shalom. God tells Israel to “seek the peace of the city” in Jeremiah 29—and that city was Babylon. What if the mission Jesus sends his disciples on was never about “conversion” but about…

In this message, Pastor Osheta teaches on what Moravian history has to teach us about unity. We are united in our picture of God in Christ; united in our commitments to remembering our journey of faith, to being curious about the ‘other’, and to coming together around the Lord’s Table.

In this message, Pastor Osheta preaches on the “Journey of Faith” from the story of Jesus calming the storm.

In this message, Pastor T. C. homes in on another area of overlap between Roots and the Moravian Church: a Jesus-centered reading of the Bible.

In this sermon, Pastor T. C. teaches on the kind of community God is forming in Christ—a community of misfits. Jesus didn’t gather the best and brightest, he gathered the overlooked and underestimated. Jesus did this to demonstrate the nearness of God’s Kingdom to all, not just the religious elite. In fact, God’s election has…

Lament is a neglected aspect of Christian worship in the Western world and perhaps especially in the United States. In troubled times when it’s clear the world is not as it should be—God’s dream of shalom is disrupted—God’s people cry out to God on behalf of the vulnerable, the abused, the marginalized. Lament is an…

In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness. There he confronts the devil and resists three temptations. These three temptations aren’t just instructive for us personally, they also describe perennial temptations the church faces in relationship to society. They are: 1. Empire Economics; 2. Idolatrous Nationalism; and 3.…

Lent is a season of the Christian calendar in which we are once again invited to be formed by the pattern of Jesus’s life. In this series we will not only explore the personal application of Lenten practice, but also the corporate application. A framing passage for this series is from Isaiah 58: Shout it…

In this message, Pastor T. C. shares the ways he has had to rethink “heaven” and “hell,” particularly where traditional views have not lined up with what the Bible actually teaches.

“Church” might be the subject that evokes the most emotions for those “deconstructing/reconstructing.” Church is where the proverbial rubber meets the road when it comes to our faith. It’s also where flawed human beings steward the sacred mysteries of the faith. Church is the space where God’s Spirit inhabits our relationships in an unique way,…

In this message, Pastor Osheta Moore guides us through aspects of the deconstruction journey she’s been on as it relates to her experience and beliefs about the Holy Spirit. In a similar way to how the prophet Elijah looked for God to show up in overt manifestations of power, but God showed up in a…

What is the Bible? How did we get it? How are we supposed to interpret it? How do we understand the Bible and its role in our spiritual formation? In this sermon, Pastor Der Lor explores how we can discover the Jesus Way in our understanding of Scripture after deconstruction.

As we continue in our current teaching series, Emily Morrison delivers this sermon on Faith. In John chapter 6, the crowds that followed Jesus had many questions for him. In fact, Jesus’s disciples often doubted. Ultimately, Jesus didn’t explain the faith, he asked people to believe in him, to trust him. Emily shows us that…

Jesus compared his Way to a wise person building their home on a rock. However, there are many Christian belief systems and structures that have been built on top of the Jesus Way which should be rightfully deconstructed—they are foundations of sinking sand. Belief systems and structures that are built on fear, cultural assimilation, and…

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value,…

During the season of Christmastide, we give each other gifts in celebration of the greatest gift ever given to the world: Jesus. The advent of Jesus into the world is the greatest demonstration of God’s grace. However, we often misunderstand God’s grace when we think of it as a ‘one-way, unilateral donation.’ As we see…

The theme of Advent week 3 in the Making Christmas Meaningful Again (Advent Conspiracy) series is Give More. This sermon is by Pastor Der Lor.

What does it look like to make Christmas meaningful again? How do we resist the powerful forces of consumerism and consumption? In week two of Advent, Emily Morrison explores the theme of “Spend Less” with a sermon from I Timothy 6.