Pastor Chris invites us to consider honestly what God is revealing in us through the challenges of this season. Self-awareness is not self-absorption, and is vital for us to discern both the gifts God has given us, and also our opportunities to repent and renew, as together we navigate this troubled time. We hope you will continue to join us through whatever these weeks may hold. You are beloved.
Corona Conversations: Paul Unsworth
Join Pastor Chris as he continues his series of conversations with friends serving around our nation and around the world, discussing the common call we share in response to this global pandemic, and exploring in depth some challenges that may be contextually unique. Today Chris speaks with Paul Unsworth, founder of Kahaila, a unique combination of cafe, church, and charity in east London.
Quarantine Made Sacred: Finding Keepers
Are you sensing that you need your friends and deeper friendships more now than ever before? Maybe you find yourself appreciating your existing relationships in ways you never thought you would. The scriptures call us to a kind of loving and relating with one another that is expansive and beyond what most people know and experience. In times of distancing, we need one another more than ever. Maybe the opportunity in this season is for you to lean in to bolder, deeper, more rewarding friendships.
Endless Easter
As we continue to gather online, here is the weekend audio for you to revisit as we continue rejoicing in this very different Easter Season. Pastor Sean considers what jazz has to do with the story of King David, and the ways we choose to either live within or fight against God’s rhythm in the world.
Corona Conversations: David Gungor
Pastor Chris continues his series of conversations with friends serving around our nation and around the world, discussing the common call we share in response to this global pandemic, and exploring in depth some challenges that may be contextually unique. Chris’s guest today is David Gungor, a long-time friend of Ecclesia living in New York City.
Quarantine Made Sacred: The God Who Holds
We live - and have lived for a long while - in an age and culture of fear. Right now, with every day bringing us more and more fear-inducing news, it's almost impossible to not be afraid. But how do we approach and handle our fear? With shame? With embrace? And how do we walk the people closest to us through their fear? In this episode, we come close to the hope of Easter while living with very human fears.
Easter Sunday: Keep The Questions Coming
We hope you were able to join us for our Resurrection celebration on Sunday. Here is the audio for you to revisit as you continue rejoicing in this very different Easter Season. Along with special messages from Sandra McCracken, Bob Goff, Propaganda, and David Gungor (& friends), we are offered an encouraging word from Pastor Chris. The truth of Christ’s Resurrection is beyond spacious enough to hold our questions and doubts; just ask believing Thomas.
Corona Conversations: Episode 3
Pastor Chris continues his series of conversations with friends serving around our nation and around the world, discussing the common call we share in response to this global pandemic, and exploring in depth some challenges that may be contextually unique. Today Chris talks with two friends from one of Ecclesia’s long-standing global partners.
Quarantine Made Sacred: Becoming Aware
We know more about more than ever before. We are constantly drawn to the busyness and hurriedness of life. All that busyness conspires to make us less-aware people. That lack of awareness is at the heart of disenchantment and relational distance. In the midst of a pandemic, with news constantly changing, we have never been more informed. But informed is not the same thing as aware. How often do we pause to consider what's right in front of us? What if a blessing of this really painful time is God's ability to bring forward our deep inattentiveness to the people God has given us to love and care for? What in your life would change if you were able to pay attention?
Palm Sunday: Ordinary Heroes
Though we remain in this season of physical distancing, we long to remain connected as a family, especially as we enter into Holy Week. On this Palm Sunday, Ericka Graham leads us with a timely word on Jesus’ not-so “triumphal” entry into Jerusalem, the faith we are called to summon in times of trial, and the ordinary acts of compassion that help us collectively to bridge the gap.
Corona Conversations: Elisa Moed and Christina Samara
Pastor Chris continues his series of conversations with friends serving around our nation and around the world, discussing the common call we share in response to this global pandemic, and exploring in depth some challenges that may be contextually unique. Chris’s guests today are our dear friends from the Holy Land, Elisa Moed and Christina Samara.
Quarantine Made Sacred: The Pace of Return
Ferris was right, "life moves pretty fast," until it doesn't. In the midst of a pandemic, one of the first things we notice is that life doesn't always move that fast. Maybe we've been trained to move fast, but what does that speed mean? What does it do to us? What if we have been living at a pace that fundamentally disconnects from our deeper wants, truer selves, and the people God has given us?
The First Course
Pastor Sean Palmer offers a needed reminder in this season of trial and confusion as we continue to face the fragility of the structures we have built as a people. We are reminded that in this life, we are granted only a foretaste of what we believe awaits; a taste which sustains us through any hardship and heartache. We pray that it is an encouraging word as we walk this road together.
For care and connection throughout the week, visit: ecclesiahouston.org/onlinecare
Corona Conversations: Marcelo Robles
This is the first installment in a series of conversations that Pastor Chris will have with friends serving around our nation and around the world. They will discuss the common call we share in response to this global pandemic, and explore in depth some challenges that may be contextually unique. Chris’s first guest is our dear brother Marcelo Robles, Pastor of La Mision Church in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Quarantine Made Sacred: Drawing Even Nearer
Around the world governments and health experts are urging people to #stayhome, and Shelter-In-Place orders are given every day. The world is facing a pandemic few of us were prepared to face. While we love our families, we are not accustomed to being with the same people 24/7. What if the greatest temptation is not what we think it is? What if the greatest temptation isn't being with one another, but to abandon one another even while we're in their presence?
Beloved Is Where We Begin
As the world continues to grapple with the vast effects of this pandemic, we are all learning to gather and care for one another in new ways. Pastor Chris invites us to consider our identity as God’s beloved children ; trusting that we will be provided for, and the ways in which we will be a part of that provision for others.
For care and connection throughout the week, visit: ecclesiahouston.org/onlinecare
Quarantine Made Sacred: Redeeming the Time
COVID-19 is presenting us all with challenges and obstacles we could never have imagined. We are now forced into new realities; relational, financial, emotional, and spiritual. For followers of Jesus, how do we hold this space with life, grace, and perhaps more importantly, peace? This week, we take a look at time, and how Israel’s greatest leader, Moses, can guide us.
Together At Home
Responding to the challenging and rapidly developing circumstances surrounding the spread of COVID-19, members of our family across the globe gathered largely in our living rooms as we came to worship and commune together in a new way. Pastor Chris invites us to consider how the church is uniquely called to step into this season: in the care of our neighbors, and those most vulnerable in our city and beyond.
For continued updates, stay tuned to ecclesiahouston.org/online
John 8: Setting Down Stones
Pastor Chris continued our series in the Gospel of John, exploring the story of Jesus’ encounter with a woman facing judgment and his challenge to the gathered crowd. We’re reminded of God’s compassionate presence lifting us from shame, and the crucial truth that righteousness is not to be wielded as a weapon.
Letting God Lead
It was wonderful to welcome back Ines Franklin; offering a deep and encouraging reminder of the Holy Spirit not as a distant abstraction, but as a relationship as tangible in essence as the flesh-and-blood person of Jesus Christ. We are grateful for the simple truth, often forgotten, that the Spirit of God knows the way. May God help us to trust in that truth, even when it feels we are driving in the dark.