How prepared are you for God to change your world? Advent is a season of expectation and hope as we look towards the coming of the Messiah. Yet for many of us, waiting for God to show up and do something miraculous or unexpected seems implausible. Others of us have come to expect that our relationship with God is mundane, predictable or even boring. But looking at the birth of Jesus through the eyes of Jospeh can give us hope that there is more! More to knowing God than just showing up at church on Sundays and asking Him to bless the food we are about to eat! There is beauty, intrigue and excitement in knowing God and following His plan, if we will just have the humility to see it!

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.

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. Corresponding Sermon: Does God care about your Suffering?

Have you ever thought about how much God wants to be with you? This week on the Kindling Rhythms we will wrestle with that very question! Corresponding Sermon: Does God care about your Suffering?

James 5:7-11

Our Meeting Houses wrap their final discussion in our "Made to be Whole" series! Today we are joined by Kendra Veinotte. We happen to think she is pretty cool and has a lot of relatable, insight theological insights. We hope you are as excited to listen to her help us unpack this final week of James as we were to have her on!

James 5:13-20

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.

James 4:1-17

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!

September was suicide awareness month. As we move through this pandemic being aware of our emotional and mental health is very important. Have you been experiencing more anxiety, depression, or anger than usual? Do you notice that many of your old habits or addictions have resurfaced?

We want to ask you one simple question - "When was the last time you have eaten?" Not being aware of what our bodies and souls need right now can lead to despair and exhaustion. On this special edition of the Kindling Rhythms Podcast we invited counselor Todd Parish, ThM, MABC, LPC-I to share with us more about coping during the pandemic. With gentleness and love, Todd will invite us to slow down, take care of ourselves and ultimately to find our joy and peace in the love of God. The dark places of our souls are often exposed during times like these and Todd invites us to trust the grace of Jesus to heal us deep within our hearts.

James 3:1-18

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!