Kindling Rhythms - A Podcast by Restore Houston Church: Recent Episodes
Restore Houston
In John 21, one of Jesus’ closest friends, Peter found himself in a low spot. He had let others down, and failed to be the person Jesus had called him to be. Yet, Jesus will not allow Peter’s shame to have the final word in Peter’s life. Instead, Jesus builds a kindling fire as a meeting place for Peter and it is around this kindling fire that Jesus restores Peter. He empowers him. He forgives him. He gives him purpose. The Kindling Rhythms podcast follows the same tradition of grace that Peter experienced around a kindling fire. And just like the fire Jesus built for Peter, Kindling Rhythms is a space where the love and grace of Jesus restores our hearts, defeats our shame and defines our purpose in life. We hope you’ll join us!
Did you know that the very first time Jesus ever spoke publically He declared that He had come to “set the captives free?” Justice for oppressed, marginalized, exploited people is central to His mission. We love Houston, but we are also starting a church in a city that is a hub for human trafficking. Men, women, and children created in the sacred and beautiful image of God are regularly and routinely exploited for sex and labor in our city. This injustice is so common that it is almost guaranteed to be happening just a few blocks away from where you work, or live, or even where your church gathers on Sunday mornings.
We are kicking off our anti-human trafficking initiatives at Restore Houston and are thrilled to be able to host Titus Benton and Elaine McGinnis Andino of United Against Human Trafficking on the Kindling Rhythms. The discussion is led by our very own Matt Garry. Titus and Elaine walk us through the nuances and complexities of the issue with grace and clarity.
If you are like us, knowing exactly what your first step is in addressing the issue can be overwhelming. Jesus beckons us to love our neighbor, but how do we love our neighbor who has been trafficked? The good news is, it is not as complex or difficult as you might think! As Elaine so gracefully suggests, loving our neighbor starts by developing a simple awareness of them. When we turn our hearts toward others around us, we see them, we become aware of their stories, their suffering, their pain, and even the injustices they may be enduring. We hope you’ll join Titus and Elaine as they offer some helpful first steps that you can take to participate with Jesus in His mission to set the captives free.
This week let’s wrestle with what it means to have the Holy Spirit guide every part of your life, including your theology, your home life, your marriage, your work life, your sex life, your everything – every part of your life!
Corresponding Sermon: How To Know God’s Will For Your Life
Text: Galatians 5:13-25
Why does it seem like there are so many rules around following Jesus when Paul claims that Christians live in “total freedom”? There are rules around sex! Rules around language! Rules around money! Rules around church! Rules around dancing! And family life! And marriage! It seems like there are rules around just about everything! But that is not the picture Paul paints for us in Galatians, and it isn’t what Jesus had in mind either. Jesus came so that we could be set free from rules and laws and be transformed by His Spirit into people that are free to love their neighbor as themselves. That’s it! Everything in the Christian life is centered around God softening our hearts and creating us to love one another!
Text: Galatians 5:13-6:1
Corresponding Sermon: How God’s Spirit Has Brought Us Total Freedom!
A lot of people think they don’t know enough theology to know who God is and what He is like. But Paul is actually incredibly simple with this – God is love and faith is something that is actively working itself out through love. Using love as our filter, we can understand a whole lot more about God, theology, the Bible, and doctrine than we think we can.
A lot of people think they don’t know enough theology to know who God is and what He is like. But Paul is actually incredibly simple with this – God is love and faith is something that is actively working itself out through love. Using love as our filter, we can understand a whole lot more about God, theology, the Bible, and doctrine than we think we can.
There are a lot of messages that we have believed about ourselves, about God and about His love for us. Many of those messages make God out to be smaller than He actually is, less loving than He actually is, less caring than He actually is, and less of our Father than He actually is. When this happens, our thoughts and hearts are led towards things not of Jesus’ gospel – anxiety, fear, anger, control, shame, guilt. In this episode of the Kindling Rhythms we will explore Paul’s letter to the Galatians. In it, Paul will invite the Galatians to stop listening to other messages they have received and to start listening to the One who loves them (1).
(1). 1. Roo Panes, Listen to the One who Loves You
Text: Galatians 1:1-7
Corresponding Sermon: Are you putting limits around God’s love for you?
Today on the Kindling Rhythms Podcast, Teaching and Research Intern, Phill Coselli, discusses with us why we need each other as a church and how we go about navigating these relationships.
Text: Ephesians 5:1-5
We all look to something to bring peace and fulfillment into our lives. And at Christmas time, it can even painfully obvious to us what we think we are lacking or missing in our life to have peace and happiness – a career, family relationships, success, love. Christmas hallmark movies are great, but sometimes we can get caught up in the “magic” of Christmas, thinking that it is love, family and romance that will bring about our ultimate source of peace. Many of us will find however, that none of those things will bring about our ultimate source of peace. This week on the Kindling Rhythms and in our Meeting Houses, we talk about what it means to look to Jesus as our ultimate source of peace. It may not be totally obvious how to do that at times, it might take prayer, and thought and vulnerability. But if we, just like the shepherds, are willing to enter into that space to look for peace in Jesus, we, like them, will find more humility, more grace, more love and more peace than we could possibly imagine.
Text: Luke 2:1-20
Corresponding Sermon: Have you found the Peace of Christmas?
A challenge to patriarchal values comes most fundamentally in the opening chapter of the Old Testament, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Gen 1:26), and provides an alternative vision of the relation of men and women to each other and God than that pertaining in a typical patriarchal culture…The New Testament too contains egalitarian texts that provide a theological critique of patriarchy. The Bible shows us not merely patriarchy, élitism, and nationalism; it shows us the fragility of these ideologies through irony and counter-voices…It is often the stories of women, those excluded from the public, patriarchal discourse, which challenge the dominant voice of the text. -E. Anne Clements, Mothers of Marginalization: The Significance of the Women in Mathew’s Genealogy
Text: Luke 1:26-55
Corresponding Sermon: Step Aside Boys!
This week on the Kindling Rhythms we explore what it looks like to follow God into unknown territory. Sadly, many of us find our relationship with God stagnant and maybe even a little boring. We have become so used to “knowing” so much about God that we no longer expect to be surprised. We can restore the intrigue, the mystery and the wonder back to our relationship with God, but it will take some humility and some willingness to be open to what He may be doing in the here and now.
Text: Matthew 1:18-15
Corresponding Sermon: Bored with God? Advent through the Eyes of Joseph
Many of us have never thought of ourselves as priests. And even if we did, we aren’t 100% sure what a priest actually does or what that actually means for us! This week our Meeting Houses will walk through this incredible idea that God has fashioned each of us to be His priests – loving and caring for others, taking care of His creation and animals, and bringing about reconciliation, restoration and hope to everyone around us. This week we have an incredibly refreshing discussion with our Teaching and Research Intern, Phill Coselli. Phill challenges us to live out “priesthood” in every aspect of our life – the exciting, the mundane, the challenging and the unfamiliar. We explore what being a priest looks like during the ordinariness of life – washing dishes, changing diapers, reconciling spreadsheets, sitting through meetings and cooking dinner -and how everything is an opportunity to live out priesthood. We also explore how living out the priesthood can be uncomfortable at times – leading us to love and care for people who are different from us. It might not be our first choice, but God has called us to love all people! Regardless of their race, religion, nationality, socio-economic status, gender, sexual orientation, political affiliations, immigration status or anything else about them, God has called us to love all people as His priests. Let’s take that calling serious!
In this episode of the Kindling Rhythms, Justin shares some deeply personal parts of his own spiritual life, including some of the ways he has wrestled with guilt, shame and never feeling good enough for God. If you have ever struggled to feel good enough, spiritual enough, theologically informed enough or gifted enough to be used by God, then we invite you to join our Meeting Houses this week as we learn this one simple truth from the book of Leviticus – God meets us where we are at and He is not interested in accusing us of our failures.
Text: Leviticus 16:20-22
Corresponding Sermon: Does God keep track of your Screwups?
This week in our Meeting Houses we will get to explore something that we all wish was true but sometimes struggle to believe is true – God truly does care about the suffering and pain we experience in the world.
Text: Leviticus 16:1-19
Corresponding Sermon: Does God care about your Suffering?
This week our Meeting Houses will wrestle with a fundamental question we are all asking – is God here with me now?
Text: Leviticus 1:1-9
Corresponding Sermon: Does God want to be with You?
Praying is hard. It often feels like a one-way conversation with the ceiling. Sometimes our prayer life is stagnant because we pray with selfish or self-centered desires. Did you know that prayer was designed so that we could passionately, earnestly and eagerly pray for one another? That’s right! One of the primary purposes of prayer is to stand before God on behalf of your friends, asking Him to shower them with His grace, mercy and blessings! Believe us! Praying like this is way more fulfilling that you could possibly realize.
Text: James 5:13-20
Corresponding Sermon: Wholeness through the Prayers of a Friend
Praying is hard. It often feels like a one-way conversation with the ceiling. Sometimes our prayer life is stagnant because we pray with selfish or self-centered desires. Did you know that prayer was designed so that we could passionately, earnestly and eagerly pray for one another? That’s right! One of the primary purposes of prayer is to stand before God on behalf of your friends, asking Him to shower them with His grace, mercy and blessings! Believe us! Praying like this is way more fulfilling that you could possibly realize.
Text: James 5:13-20
Corresponding Sermon: Wholeness through the Prayers of a Friend
When you go to church to meet your friends, who do you generally think of? The people in your small group? The friendly people serving coffee? God? We bet that last one is probably a bit foreign to you! But God deeply desires a friendship with us. In fact, He will go to any lengths, even at great costs to Himself, to restore a friendship with you!
Text: James 4:1-17
Corresponding Sermon: Wholeness through Friendship with God
Our Meeting Houses are the life and soul of our church. They are the reason Restore Houston exists and they are where life-giving relationships become the presence of God in our lives. We are relational beings. God is a relational God. The three persons of the Trinity exist in a loving and giving relationship with each other while all sharing the same essence – love. We were designed to operate the same way. Let’s talk about it this week!
Text: James 4:1-17
Corresponding Sermon: Wholeness through Relationship
This week on the Kindling Rhythms Podcast, our Meeting Houses wrestle with the idea that humility is necessary to see the wisdom of God at work in the world. Jesus came in humility and God works through humility all throughout the story of Scripture. We must surrender our hearts to Him in a posture of humility if we are to receive His grace and His love for us. Even though both are always readily and eagerly available to us, pride can harden our hearts leading us to reject His love and grace and to deep fragmentation within our souls.
Text: James 1:19-27
Corresponding Sermon: Wholeness through Humility (Made to be Whole #2)
This week our Meeting House Network explores how suffering and darkness can expose what is truly important to us. While God never causes suffering, nor desires for us to suffer, our pain can become a pathway to discovering what is most important: belonging to God and finding rest in His love and care for us. Understanding suffering is never easy, and no point of view (Christian or not), will ever provide a complete understanding of suffering on this side of eternity. However, we do know that we follow a God that is in the business of making beauty out of broken things and that can provide comfort for us in the midst of pain and uncertainty.
Corresponding Sermon: Wholeness through Suffering
Text: James1:2-18