The Podcast of Genesis East: Recent Episodes
Genesis East
A multigenerational community committed to wrestling with God, encountering one another and joining God‘s work of cultivating new beginnings in all of us, everywhere.
May the wind of the Spirit blow on us, in us, and through us, bringing us into intimate spaces with the Savior. May we open every page of our story to him, and in that fully known place, experience unexplainable, miraculous do-over transformation so complete that it must be born of God.
May we become aware of the subtle ways in which we have been invited to live disconnected from the One who gives us breath. May the act of naming our brokenness not cause us to run, flee or hide, but rather to keep digging in the dirt with a new resolve to make all things beautiful.
May you welcome, and even search for, the experience of the mountain top where your life and faith are dripping with hope and light. But may you be on guard against the temptation that you can build your life there. You must walk down the mountain and into your ordinary yet sacred life.
In our traveling together may we not get wrapped up and occupied with arriving, conquering or going as fast as we possibly can. May we make room to hear. May we make room to re-learn what we think we already know. May God's voice, who guides us to life, be our way maker.
May we become acutely aware of the flavor we leave behind with those we encounter. May we become more diligent than ever in preserving God's invitation into a full life. And may our community shine in a way that it draws people in with its warmth and radiance.
May you go and live with the deep assurance that you've been invited to dwell on God's holy hill. Come all you peacemakers; come you grief stricken mourners, come hungry and thirsty children of God, come tender and mercy filled wanderers, come pure in heart, come those with no rope left. This, this is your dwelling place and together we shall see God.
May you step out into hope; a hope that catches you when you stumble, encircles you when you feel alone, fills you when have nothing left, and surprises you with beauty around every new bend of your life's landscape.
As you journey towards Jesus, the first beloved Son of God, may you give attention and care to the ways in which you are being disrupted. May you sit with and befriend the disruption trusting that it will lead you toward a more complete picture of who God is.
Go church, go and begin in your belovedness. For your belovedness, if you allow it, will turn to streams of justice. And justice will look like rescue from the darkness. And rescue and after rescue will turn into a hope so dependable that you can build a life upon it. Go church, go and begin in your belovedness.
May you dare pray for God to open your eyes to see your next new beginning. May you step with incredible intention, even into the places that are not yet fully known or familiar to you. May you trust that the love of God will lead you, guide you and always surround you.
God has asked us to wait. We can lament that, or see it as an opportunity. May you embrace God’s call to wait during this Advent season. And in that waiting may you see and engage the opportunity to grow in your walk with Christ.
May you awaken from your slumbered waiting and set your path for the mountain before you. May we say together, "Come, let's climb God's Mountain, He'll show us the way he works so we can live the way we're made. May you wait differently this year.
May we uncover the fears that lead to idle hands. May we confront the judgments that lead to idle hearts. May we always be moving towards what is good because we can and because we get to. Amen!
When God speaks your name may you find the courage to begin the work. May you trust the promise that God's very best and most beautiful work is that of the rebuild.
May you learn to see your cries of lament as the necessary foundation to a life of faith. May you position your life to stand watch, to wait, and to listen for God's voice.
May you come to know that the full expression of your life, the meaning of your name, and your heart's true desire are uncovered in the honest engagement and the sacred wrestling. And when, not if, you are wounded; may your woundedness help you journey home.
May we be the righteous, those who live by faith. Not a flashy and loud faith that deceives itself into thinking we've got this all sorted out. Not a bigger or better faith, not even a more right faith. Rather the tiny seed of authentic and honest faith that can move mountains and uproot trees, the kind of faith that is always asking us to begin and end with grace.
May you be awakened to the truth that your life is not only your life, rather it is deeply connected to the life of others; their death is your death, their living is your living. So get busy living by closing the chasm of how things are and how they could be.
May you look up from your life to notice what or who you have lost along the way. May you take responsibility for the losing and commit to the necessary steps; whatever they cost and however long they take, in order to pursue the work of wholeness and restoration.
May you remember that as your life presses in closer to the very heart of God in Jesus that you will be asked to leave more and more of yourself behind.
May you open your eyes and reach out your hands; so you might see and touch the breach, the very brokenness, both in our community and in your own life. As you wrestle with God through faith may you become known as repairers of broken down walls and re-builders of livable streets. This is the call that invites you forward.
May I submit myself to the necessary endings that have been building in my life. I will do this not in the name of giving up. Instead, I do it because I am desperate to believe that to make an ending is to make a new beginning.
May you faithfully tend the fire of hope that lives within you. May your faith and hope be woven together like a cord you can hold in your very hands. May you very life be a demonstration of your deep desire to step forward in trust.
May you see the reflection and imagery of God in yourself. May you see yourself as loved and pursued by God who is both mother and father. May we see the reflection and imagery of God in all people. May we see each other as loved and pursued by God who is both mother and father.
May you find new ways of seeing what it means to pray. May you find comfort in the ancient words given to us. May you find new language that uncovers your questions. May you be resourced with the courage to keep knocking and asking. May the presence of the Holy Spirit guide your every step towards coming alive.
May we be a people who recognize what can be left undone, so that, we do not miss out on the holy encounters that await us. Teach us Lord what it means to be fully present; to You, to others, and even to ourselves. Amen!
Benediction: May we come near enough to the pain and suffering of those around us that our very own garments are soaked with tears and blood; knowing full well that once we see up close our only option is to show mercy.
Benediction: May you remember that your freedom comes through Christ; may you remember that He frees you from the bondage of sin and the indulgence of the flesh that is judgment; and may you use that freedom to serve each other and join God in his redemptive mission. Amen.
Benediction: May we be a people who can point our faces toward how God is forming us, and see hope in the brokenness of our lives. I pray that we see the scarcity is in us and abundance is in God.
Benediction: Before you she sits, waiting for you to bend your life low to hear the words of the Spirit. That God has always been and will always be about relationship and connection; that all things seen and unseen are held together by the very same mystery that takes delight in you. May you be held together by the mystery as the path emerges.
Benediction:May we be faithful to the hidden rhythms of our lives so that we might be present, ready and aware of the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit. We are sent remembering that the Spirit dwells among us and in us for the good of the world.
Benediction:Standing on your own desert shores, may you have the courage to experience your thirst for God; the God who desires and invites you. May finding your "yes" free you to step into the river of life that is right in front of you. Together may we journey deeper into the water as we let it refresh, cleanse, heal, restore, and carry us. We celebrate and echo with all creation; "Come, Lord Jesus!."
Benediction: God, we stretch out our arms and open our hands because we say yes to your question; we do want to be made well, to be whole. May we recognize and confront the patterns and theologies that have left us stuck, unable to move, grow and change. May we say yes to the first steps.
Benediction: Open our hearts to Your power moving around us, between us and within us, until Your nature is revealed in our love of both friend and enemy; in communities transformed by justice and compassion, and in the healing of all that is broken. Amen.
Benediction: When the oil has run dangerously low and you are afraid to light the flame of hope, may the God of renewal and provision meet you and surprise you in your faithfulness. May you remember above all else that you belong to God and nothing, absolutely nothing, can steal you away from His intimate embrace.
Benediction: May you learn to notice what you return to when you are afraid. And when fear places its familiar grip on your life may you cast your net in a new direction, trusting that Jesus offers a restorative forgiveness that sends you out to be a resurrected person.
Benediction: May we participate in the resurrection, reaching out to touch, see, and feel the possibilities of renewal. May we believe in life, and breathe peace to those around us.
Benediction: May we become aware of how God always enters the story in hidden and humble ways, ways that turn everything we thought we knew upside down. Together we cry Hosanna, even as we are just beginning to discover what that actually means.
Benediction: When you find yourself in a dry wasteland may you search for the pathway God is making. When your life is outstretched desperate for refreshment may you find yourself surrounded by a community of people who help you remember God's faithfulness to this point. May you find yourself filled with a soul-refreshing-hope that eagerly anticipates what God is up to next.
Benediction: May you dig your heels into the landscape of your life to uncover what you are desperately searching for. And whether you find yourself in a far off land or right where you've always been; may your coming home be met with the embrace that names you beloved.
Benediction: May you encounter the grace of the gardener who grants you time and space to grow, who stirs up the soil of change in your life, and who pleads for you to begin to live into your intention; to produce good fruit and to bless the world.
Benediction: May we be the people who find ourselves returning again and again to gather under the wings of God, that we might be surrounded and nurtured by the Love that asks us to face into death.
Benediction: May you awake from the slumber that has robbed you of God's radiance found in Jesus! May you become increasingly aware of your invitation to leave the mountaintop to help light up all of the shadowy places desperate for the brightness of God.
Benediction: May the Spirit of God go before you this week; surprising you with opportunities to display radical love to those who cannot love you in return. May your experience learning to love as God loves help uncover the new life that has been prepared for you. A life saturated in enduring peace and bursting with radical joy. Amen.
Benediction: When you find yourself under the weight of great suffering may your soul cling to the anchor of hope that's been promised; rest, provision, wholeness. And when life pours forth blessing after blessing; look up, look around, be shaken from your complacency, add some seats at your table.
Benediction: May you listen for the still small voice that whispers "try again" and fills your heart with the hope of possibility. May you find yourself lingering on the shoreline long after all the others have gone home so that you can bear witness to the miracles of God.
Benediction: May the very substance deep inside your bones be made new so that wherever you step you can be confident that love is leading and guiding you.
Benediction: You are the body of Christ; united and bound together by the unsettling grace of God. So go; live, move and breathe as that unified body; where grace holds us together and love is the oxygen that keeps us alive.
Benediction: May the first miracle of Jesus be your reminder that God delights in keeping the party going. May the sweet taste of the best wine be your reminder that with God the best is yet to come; for there is always hope.
Benediction: May you learn to trust the voice of God as it speaks over you and to you. May God's voice remind you that you have been formed, and therefore belong to the gentle hands of Love. May God's voice prove louder than all your striving as it declares that your belovedness is who you are.
Benediction: May your life and all your senses wake up to the new beginnings that surround you. May you find a community to pour new wine with as you share stories of God. May you continue walking, chasing, running after the light. Amen!
Benediction: May you choose to enter the lowly stable fully aware of how you have arrived. May you reach out to touch the innocence and wonder of God and hold it firmly against your chest; allowing it to overcome you, heal you and transform you. Go in the Peace of the Lord, for God is with us.
Benediction: With each new step we take together we depend on the salvation of God for it is a well that quenches our thirst and heals our wounds. It binds our enemies and sets the table for the outcast and the forgotten. We rejoice that salvations fullest intent is communal and not individual.
Benediction: When the mountains have disappeared and the landscape around you is no longer recognizable, may you find God in the very last place you would have expected.
Benediction: May you choose this Advent to stay longer than you are comfortable in the poverty of waiting. May God surprise and delight you with the hope that is born in darkness. May you remember that none who wait for God will be put to shame.
Benediction: May we gather around the campfire to tell stories and speak out loud of the hope that resides deep in our bones. May our dreams for sacred community fuel the height of the flames. And if your last embers of hope have turned to smoke; come, warm your hands, heal, belong, try again. We're headed somewhere and we want you with us, this is the work of The Exodus, Amen!
Benediction: May you resist the urge to turn back. You have arrived at the other side. God has closed the road behind and opened up the road ahead. May you rest in the knowledge that even if your sin pursues you, even if you find yourself up against a wall, the LORD will fight for you. You are HIS. Go in Peace. Reclaim Shalom. Serve the Lord.
Benediction: May you be awakened anew to the light that shines in the darkness. When you feel a darkness that can be felt, may you experience the light that has no end. May you experience light from the scatterer of darkness and may the light of our good, good God emit from every pore of your being onto a dark and weary world.
Benediction: As you make the seemingly impossible journey to the throne of Pharaoh may you carry with you the promise of possibility. When you find yourself ready to name your Pharaoh do not cower in fear because of the new resistance you now face; rather, lift your voice, tell Pharaoh who he really is. Speak to your narrow place all that God has given you to say.
Benediction: May you be reminded that your rescuer goes before you; and beside you. May the direction you are sent draw a quiet and confident Here I Am from your lips because you know that the I Am Who I Am is leading to where He has called you.
Benediction: In the midst of your own chaos may your eyes and heart remain open to see, receive and nurture the fragile gifts of hope that spring up around you. May you find strength in the God who hears you, remembers you and acknowledges you.
Benediction: May your eyes and heart wake up to the land you are actually living in. May you notice all the places that continually leave you suffocated and oppressed. May you also confess the ways you have made life narrow for others. May the forgotten names and stories of shalom mark for us the path forward.
Benediction: May we look past our individual comforts and remember our communal identity. May we see how we might be where we are for such a time as this, and open ourselves to our role in the restoration of shalom. May we wrestle with how we might risk our privilege for the sake of others.
Benediction: May your experience of God break free from the limitation of gender. May you honor all of the voices that paint for you pictures of God. May you give yourself, and others, permission to embrace the divine beauty found in both the masculine and feminine.
Benediction: May you recognize all the ways you try to change God's plan, especially when you've been invited to walk the road of suffering. When love shows up and offends you; because it looks different than you had hoped, may you continue to trust that love know the way to wholeness.
Benediction: May you find the courage to dig in your heels, to stay and not go, to persist and not turn back; so that you might bear witness to the ground beneath your feet revealing that which has been there all along.
Benediction: May you remember that your power to choose will never be taken from you and when used, it can make all the difference in your life and also in the life of others.
Benediction: May your desire for more of God invite you to refrain from the bottles and bread that keep leaving you empty and hungry. May you make room at your table, and in your heart, for the cup and the bread you don't fully understand. In making room may you be surprised by nourishment, healing and hope like you've never known.
Benediction: May you learn a loyalty to one another that calls you out of darkness and makes curious every onlooker and observer. May the words you speak be dripping with life, so that you might discover the many who are desperate to sit at your table. May the way you love be extravagantly free of asking for anything in return. And when you lose your way, keep company with God, keep loving.
Benediction: In the famines of our lives, when we are convinced there is nothing left to give, may we present to one another a generous spirit of hope. May we come to see and understand that the invitation to leave the narrow place is always presenting itself to us.
Benediction: May you sift through all of the voices competing for your attention until your soul is stirred by the voice that has always known your name. May that voice lead you to find paths of righteousness where you will discover you have all you need. May you find yourself restored as you make your way back to the Good Shepherd and his flock.
Benediction: May you stop long enough to remember that the root of your beginning was love. May you take hold of the inheritance before you as an adopted daughter, an adopted son of God. May the mysteries of God continue to be revealed; both to you and through you. Amen.
Benediction: May we trade the tired old patterns of how it's always been for the new possibilities in Jesus. May we be witnesses to the miracles of God as we move towards belief. May we move deeper into the mission of being sent out for the sake of the world. Amen!