Rooted and Growing: An Anniston First Podcast

What did Jesus mean when he told his followers to “be perfect”?

In this episode of Rooted and Growing, we continue our series on United Methodist distinctives by exploring one of the most misunderstood ideas in the Wesleyan tradition: holiness and Christian perfection.

Jesus calls us to a love that reaches beyond the people who are easy to love. He even tells us to love our enemies. Then comes the startling invitation to “be perfect” as our heavenly Father is perfect.

But Christian perfection does not mean becoming flawless.

For Methodists, holiness is about becoming mature in love. It is the continuing work of sanctifying grace, shaping us into people who love God and neighbor more fully and whose lives increasingly reflect the love of Jesus.

Holiness is not superiority. It is not withdrawal from the world. And it is not keeping enough religious rules to prove that we are good.

It is grace changing us.

The question is not whether we will ever reach a place where we make no mistakes. The deeper question is whether God’s grace is making us more patient, more merciful, more compassionate, more willing to forgive, and more capable of loving even when love is difficult.

Because holiness, at its heart, looks like Jesus.

Holiness is love.

Scripture: Matthew 5:43–48

Rooted and Growing is a podcast from Anniston First United Methodist Church exploring a faith rooted in the grace of God and growing into the life of Jesus Christ.

What does faith look like when it leaves the walls of the church?

In this episode of Rooted and Growing, Pastor Kyle continues our series on United Methodist distinctives with Jesus’ words in Matthew 25 and a challenging picture of faith that takes action.

Jesus speaks of people who are hungry and thirsty, strangers who need welcome, people without clothing, those who are sick, and those who are imprisoned. Then he makes an extraordinary claim: when we serve people the world so easily overlooks, we are serving Christ himself.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the story is that no one realizes it.

Those who showed mercy were not keeping score. Compassion had simply become part of the way they lived. Those who failed to respond were surprised too. Their failure was not necessarily spectacular cruelty. Often, it was simply what they walked past.

For Methodists, works of mercy are not an optional addition to the Christian life. Prayer, Scripture, worship, Communion, and other means of grace form us inwardly, but grace always turns us outward. Personal holiness becomes social holiness as love of God takes flesh in active love of our neighbors.

We do not serve others to earn God’s grace.

We serve because grace is already changing us.

Faith notices. Faith welcomes. Faith feeds. Faith visits. Faith stands beside those who suffer.

Faith does something.

Scripture: Matthew 25:31–40

Rooted and Growing is a podcast from Anniston First United Methodist Church exploring a faith rooted in the grace of God and growing into the life of Jesus Christ.

What if grace does more than forgive us?

In this episode of Rooted and Growing, we continue our series on United Methodist distinctives with Philippians 2:12–13 and Paul’s invitation to “work out” our salvation, trusting that God is already at work within us.

For Methodists, salvation is more than a single moment. God’s grace comes looking for us before we know to look for God. Grace forgives and reconciles us. And then grace keeps working, shaping our hearts, renewing our minds, and forming us into people who look more like Jesus.

We do not earn that grace. But we are invited to participate in what God is doing.

John Wesley called practices such as prayer, searching the Scriptures, fasting, worship, Holy Communion, and Christian community “means of grace.” They are not religious achievements or boxes to check. They are ordinary places where we make ourselves available to God’s extraordinary work.

God loves us as we are. But grace will not leave us alone.

It keeps inviting us deeper. It keeps producing fruit. It keeps forming us into people who love God and neighbor more fully.

Because grace is not content simply to forgive us. Grace intends to transform us.

Scripture: Philippians 2:12–13

Rooted and Growing is a podcast from Anniston First United Methodist Church exploring a faith rooted in the grace of God and growing into the life of Jesus Christ.

What if grace is something you can touch?

In this episode of Rooted and Growing, we continue our series on United Methodist distinctives by turning to baptism and Holy Communion, the sacraments through which God takes ordinary things like water, bread, and a cup and makes grace tangible.

On the road to Emmaus, the risen Jesus draws near to two disciples before they even recognize him. He walks beside them, hears their disappointment, opens the Scriptures, and finally becomes known to them in the breaking of the bread. It is a picture of grace itself: Christ comes near before we understand what God is doing.

That same grace meets us in baptism. God claims us before we can earn it or fully understand it, and we are welcomed into a community that promises to help nurture us in faith. At Christ's table, grace meets us again, whether we come with confidence, questions, grief, doubt, or simply a need to be fed.

The sacraments remind us that grace is more than an idea. It comes to us through water we can feel, bread we can hold, and a table where Christ welcomes us.

And having received that grace, we are sent to carry it with us into the world.

Scripture: Luke 24:13–35

Rooted and Growing is a podcast from Anniston First United Methodist Church exploring a faith rooted in the grace of God and growing into the life of Jesus Christ.

What does it mean to take the Bible seriously?

In this episode of Rooted and Growing, we continue our series on United Methodist distinctives by exploring how Methodists read and interpret Scripture.

Scripture stands at the center of our theological reflection, but none of us reads the Bible without interpretation. We bring questions, experiences, traditions, and the ability to reason with us every time we open its pages. The Wesleyan tradition gives us a framework for doing that work faithfully: Scripture remains primary while tradition, reason, and experience help us understand and apply its witness.

This way of reading does not eliminate disagreement. Instead, it calls us to something harder: humility, thoughtful discernment, conversation with the wider church, and a willingness to keep listening for the voice of God.

Because the goal is not simply to know what the Bible says. The goal is to allow Scripture to lead us more deeply into the way of Jesus.

Scripture: 2 Timothy: 3:14-17

Rooted and Growing is a podcast from Anniston First United Methodist Church exploring a faith rooted in the grace of God and growing into the life of Jesus Christ.

What if grace is bigger than forgiveness?

In this episode of Rooted and Growing, we continue our series on United Methodist distinctives by exploring one of the ideas at the heart of Wesleyan theology: grace.

God’s grace is at work before we recognize it, meets us with forgiveness and reconciliation, and continues shaping us throughout our lives. We call these movements prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace, but together they tell one story: God makes the first move, God welcomes us home, and God keeps forming us into people who love more fully.

Grace is not something we earn, and it is not simply a moment in our past. It is God continually at work in us, drawing us toward Christ and toward the people God created us to become.

Scripture: Ephesians 2:4–10; Romans 5:6–8; Philippians 2:12–13

Rooted and Growing is a podcast from Anniston First United Methodist Church exploring a faith rooted in the grace of God and growing into the life of Jesus Christ.

There are somewhere north of 47,000 Christian denominations in the world — so why this one? Opening a ten-week series on what makes United Methodists who they are, Tamm Jackson argues that the answer has to begin somewhere other than John Wesley, the Book of Discipline, or three centuries of Methodist tradition. It begins with Jesus. Preaching from an ancient hymn Paul quotes in Philippians 2 — where Christ, holding every right to power, empties himself instead — she traces what it means to "have the mind of Christ": a commitment to the way of Jesus so complete that nothing can pull you off it. Along the way she notes that Christian and Methodist both started out as insults, and that in both cases the people they were aimed at decided to wear them proudly. She also names the things that quietly compete for the center of a life — politics, money, status, family, comfort, and, not least, the church itself. A congregation can end up fighting harder for its traditions than for its neighbors. The correction, she says, is the willingness Wesley himself showed when George Whitefield dragged him out to preach in fields and coal mines: when we find we have gotten it wrong, we change.

Scripture: Philippians 2:5–11

In this episode: why 47,300 denominations is a smaller number than it sounds · "Christian" and "Methodist" as words that began as insults · what Paul's hymn says about power given away · Caesar is Lord versus Jesus is Lord · the things that compete to be the center · Wesley changing his mind about field preaching, and about women preaching · Methodist women, the temperance movement, and why you cannot legislate morality · Ruth the Moabite and the Ethiopian eunuch · seeing the world through Jesus-colored glasses.

Scripture: Luke 1:41-55

Being Present with Joy

Our Advent series is The Gift of Presence. Let’s talk about how to give the gift of hope as we are fully present with others this holiday season.

Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46

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"Laity Sunday Sermon" - Mike Stedham

Laity Sunday offers a moment for lay people of all ages to pause and consider their own unique call to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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