Sometimes it seems like a bit of stretch to think of humanity as glorious. God might have set us a little lower than the angels, but between our white lies, supermarket trolley rage, and the amount of plastic in the oceans, we’re not exactly living up to our post. But God sees us a little differently. In this podcast, Matthew Maslin continues our Centering Psalms series, and this week it’s Psalm 8.

This is a really brilliant podcast from Newt showing how the New Year is an opportunity to see the psalms afresh and the compelling message these ancient texts offers to our lives today.

in this podcast, Newt will be kicking off a 4 week series on the Psalms. They might be halfway through the Bible, but the Psalms really are the perfect place to start a new year. Lots of us picked up a few dings and scrapes in 2018, and the Psalms are a refreshing acknowledgement of the realities of life and a brilliant reminder not to let our ideas about God shrink in the middle of it all.

In this podcast, Newt wraps up our Anticipated Presence series at our Christmas service.

As humans, we're always looking for anchors – things that remind us of the bigger story in play and help us to see beyond the day-to-day. In the book of Isaiah, the temple and Jerusalem were those anchors, reassuring people that God was with them and for them. When they were destroyed, things looked bleak, and the people of Israel started to question and doubt God's presence with them. In this podcast, Matt looks the resources Isaiah gives us that can help us grow hope in the face of doubt and despair.

Truth, goodness, beauty: wherever we find these three qualities, we find the presence of God. Truth speaks to our minds, goodness to our actions, and beauty to our desires. While conversations about the truth of God or the goodness of God can get tricky in our post-Christian world, beauty is a common language we all speak. In this brilliant podcast, taking Isaiah 2:1-4 as our touchpoint, Jon Hoskin will consider how God speaks to us through beauty – and how it can become a connection point to talk with others about Him.

Christmas is coming: hope your carols playlist is on full blast and candy canes are starting to make their way into your daily diet! As we walk toward Christmas together, we're joining with millions around the world (and through the centuries) in celebrating the season of Advent: this year, let's come with fresh hearts, with expectation, seeking Jesus' anticipated presence with us. In this podcast, Blake kicks off our Advent series with an invitation to consider presence during this season by looking at the ancient words of Isaiah. How does Jesus' presence change us now? What does it look like for us to be truly present to each other?

The defining feature of the early Christians was their outrageous generosity. They welcomed each other into their hearts and lives and especially showed gracious hospitality to those who were alone, exiled from their families or communities. In this podcast, Newt interviews Dave Atkinson, a creative and filmmaker who's recently spent time in Africa and the Middle East working with Syrian, South Sudanese, and Congolese refugees. We’ll delve into the refugee narrative together, asking the question "where is God in the midst of all this?" Dave is a close friend of many of us at Saint Augustine's and is a Parenting Place veteran – currently serving as Creative Director. He and his wife Phoebe have a young son.

Courage was a hallmark of the early believers. We've been exploring it over the past few weeks in the way they lived and prayed, often in the face of great physical danger. Although we don't currently face riots and death in our lives, living lives of faith today takes a great deal of courage as well. Join us in this podcast as Blake invites us to look at what inspired courage in the first disciples and how it can fuel our own courage as we seek to live out our faith now.

The life-breathing power of Jesus' teachings caught the hearts of people across the Roman world – they unrolled a truly new way of living. As believers worked out this faith in their communities, praying with courage and boldness empowered them to trek on and push deeper. In this podcast, Blake will lead us as we continue to explore the impact of prayer on the church's growth and depth – and how we can build it as a practice in our lives today.