Shows / Vessel Houston
Vessel Houston
Vessel Church HTX is a new Christian community in the SW Houston area, planting in the city of Meadows Place. We invite you to join us on a shared journey of healing and hope. vesselhouston.org
Episodes
Vessel HoustonThe Next Horizon
We consider the sudden death of Moses; the Promised Land, unresolved melodies, and our small part in God’s infinitely larger story. We can (and must) devote…
Vessel HoustonWilderness Mind
Within the disillusionment and overwhelm of wilderness, how can we continue putting on the “mind of Christ” to renew our trust that God still awaits on the…
Vessel HoustonEgypt on the Other Side
YHWH didn’t call upon Moses to lead the people out from under Pharaoh’s oppression only for them to rebuild empire on the far side of the sea. As a people…
Vessel HoustonPharaoh Can’t Do It Alone
Pharaoh is only capable of viewing people as tools or threats. The beginning of Exodus precedes the actions of Moses; the faithfulness of those who disobey…
Vessel HoustonLearning to Walk on Water
The ground beneath our feet constantly shifts, the winds blow, and Jesus walks from an unseen place of prayer to meet us in the middle of the storm… (sermon…
Vessel HoustonOnce Brothers
Before there were two nations, there were two brothers. Before competition, kinship. Will we continue living by the lies that seek to divide us, or join with…
Vessel HoustonSovereign Grace
It was a blessing to welcome guest preacher, Malia Palmer, who beautifully led us through the challenging story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22. When God…
Vessel HoustonThe Plentiful Harvest
In a world exhausted by violence, division, and fear, Jesus sends ordinary people into the wounds of their communities—not to build empires, but to cultivate…
Vessel HoustonThe Unscripted Spirit
On Pentecost, we’re reminded that the Holy Spirit cannot be controlled or confined by religious institutions, but moves through all people, and in unexpected…
Vessel HoustonOut From The Fold
I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. The blessed pasture to which God calls us is not hidden behind four walls, it’s out in the world; the…
Vessel HoustonStill Here
In an age where cynical charlatans perform certainty in the name of power and control, the true resurrection life travels directly through the honest, humble…
Vessel HoustonEaster Sunday: The Story We’re Still Learning to Tell…
Seeing resurrection can be a complicated thing amid the ceaseless crises gripping our human family. But as we return in the dark of the morning with Mary to…
Vessel HoustonDress Rehearsal
With Easter on the near horizon, we reflect together on another resurrection story as prelude. Divine Love is calling us ALL back to life; not merely for our…
Vessel HoustonThere Is No Them
We follow Jesus to a well on the “wrong” side of town, where radical, boundary-shattering love and the promise of living water upend our ever notion of “us”…
Vessel HoustonDancing Bones
“Can these bones live?” The season of Lent isn’t about self-improvement, but communal life renewal. We follow the prophet Ezekiel into a desolate valley, which…
Vessel HoustonLeaving the Nets Behind
Responding to the vaguest of invitations, four men become the first to follow Jesus. As we witness them suddenly depart from their families and livelihoods, we…
Vessel HoustonWater Makes Us One
The long-awaited Messiah descends into the waters of the Jordan, God declares that belovedness precedes fruitfulness, and hope cascades outward as a ripple…
Vessel HoustonFourth Sunday of Advent: I Didn’t Ask For This…
As this sacred season nears its culmination, we explore the compassion, trust, and faithful action of Joseph. From his unique perspective in the manger scene…
Vessel HoustonSecond Sunday of Advent: Lions and Lambs
A pair of prophetic voices; one, a pregnant teenager on the margins. The season dares us to re-imagine holy gentleness in a world structured around disordered…
Vessel HoustonThe End is the Beginning
Our entry into Advent marks the beginning of a new year in the Church. But before we step once more into the journey of anticipating Jesus’ arrival, we…
Vessel HoustonThe Truth About Lies
The Apostle Paul pens a second letter to a freshly planted church within a diverse and prosperous city. Amid the countless idols of the empire, and a wave of…
Vessel HoustonMind The Gap
Between doubt and faith, exile and home, sorrow and renewal, what is and what is yet to come; God is here. The words of the prophet Jeremiah help us to…
Vessel HoustonCharacter Starts Here
Even in Babylonian exile, even behind prison walls, God the “Director” has cast each of us in this ever-unfolding human drama. Looking to the prophetic word of…
Vessel HoustonStrangers in the Night
A “religious” leader emerges through the dark, seeking to understand this mysterious, troublemaking rabbi. The two share a nighttime encounter illuminated by a…
Vessel HoustonHoly Disobedience
A healing encounter on the Sabbath ignites a fury of backwards religiosity, reminding us that following Jesus often means embracing a holy disobedience in the…
Vessel HoustonJustice is Worship
Our world will never be transformed from a place of endless conflict and worry through greater control, but by communities who move toward the rupture, joining…
Vessel HoustonTeach Us To Pray
We resist prayer to the same degree that we resist relationship. As a herald of hope to a world in turmoil, Jesus calls us the Church to a deeper embrace of…
Vessel HoustonHell No
Revisiting the Parable of the Good Samaritan, we are drawn once more into the simplicity and endless mystery of this story which Jesus chose to tell (and to…
Vessel HoustonGreater Than Legion
It was a thrill to have our friend Ericka Graham join as our guest preacher this weekend, inviting us into a dense and evocative story. Across the sea, Jesus…
Vessel HoustonGod’s New Language
On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came rushing down as wind and fire, reversing the “curse” of Babel, and calling all of humanity to the truth that we are made to…
Vessel HoustonWhen the “Rule” Says Reject…
Two strangers encounter one another along the road. By all religious and social custom they are not to interact, and yet they depart as siblings in Christ. To…
Vessel HoustonIt’s Not Over
In our first worship gathering since Resurrection Sunday, we reflect upon the conversion of a murderous zealot into one of the most influential figures in the…
Vessel HoustonEaster Sunday: Love Has the Last Word
Resurrection is far more than an abstract promise of distant reward, it is a new way of seeing and being in the world today. At a time in which many…
Vessel HoustonGod Had Dirty Feet
Given what little we know about Jesus’ precise activities preceding his unjust imprisonment, punishment, and death, we ought to take special note of the…
- Vessel Houston
Two Fig Trees
Jesus tells a story of a fruitless fig tree, and later encounters one along the roadside. In one case, we witness God’s boundless mercy, and in the other, see…
Vessel HoustonThe Quiet of the Wild
This week marks the beginning of our yearly pilgrimage through the “desert” of Lent. Jesus wasn’t the first biblical figure to spend forty days in the…
Vessel HoustonA Place On Earth: The Guest List
To begin 2025, we are utilizing a series of Jesus’ parables as a lens through which we might better see and live into God’s Kingdom in the messy here and now…
- Vessel Houston
A Place On Earth: The Samaritan
To begin 2025, we are utilizing a series of Jesus’ parables as a lens through which we might better see and live into God’s Kingdom in the messy here and now…
- Vessel Houston
A Place On Earth: The Little Things
To kick off the New Year we’ll be considering a series of Jesus’ parables, and how they invite us to see and live into God’s Kingdom in the messy here and now…
- Vessel Houston
A Place On Earth: looking the part
To kick off the New Year we’ll be considering a series of Jesus’ parables, and how they invite us to see and live into God’s Kingdom in the messy here and now…
Vessel HoustonWings Above the Manger
For the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we look to the elusive text of Revelation and discover an unlikely vision of Christmas hope. In our time of intense conflict…
Vessel HoustonWhat We Hear in Silence
During what can easily become the noisiest, most chaotic time of year, how might we embrace an intentional quiet to center our attention on the enchanted power…
Vessel HoustonWhat Comes Next
The season of Advent arrives once again to shake us from our spiritual slumber; to hear and respond to the desert call of our newborn King. Will our hearts…
Vessel HoustonThe God Who Weeps
The corrupt systems of worldly power would like nothing more than for you to believe that the “other” is your enemy rather than your sibling. In a time of…
Vessel HoustonGenerous Grace
Reflecting upon several core values we hope to embody as a community, we consider generosity through the encounter of Jesus and a disgraced tax collector…
Vessel HoustonThe Sower
In a culture obsessed with performance and comparison, it is easy to be misread Jesus' parable through the lens of judgment, fixated on the condition and…
Vessel HoustonA Higher Allegiance
Humanity has always desired a “king” to swoop into the mess of the world and fix everything for us, rarely considering the oppressive realities which often…
Vessel HoustonThe Beloved Ones
Even with the compassion of Jesus directly in front of him, Peter cannot help but let his attention be drawn into comparison with the so-called “beloved”…
- Vessel Houston
The Pace of Manna
Having been part of a crowd of five thousand fed with only a few loaves of bread, a group crosses the Sea of Galilee in search of Jesus, as their hunger has…
- Vessel Houston
The Blessed Curse of Power
In the Creation story, God empowers humankind to a shared vocation of care and service, which Adam rejects by separating himself from Eve in an act of othering…
- Vessel Houston
Second Sight
When Jesus heals a blind man in Bethsaida, it doesn't happen all at once, the full restoration of his sight only coming after a second pass. We either settle…
Vessel HoustonIn Defense Of Worry
As we inhabit a time of civilizational turbulence, the individual and communal experience of worry is inevitable. As Jesus shares wisdom from a hilltop, he…
Vessel HoustonYes, And
As the Savior departs, and his people await the promised arrival of the Spirit, this newly empowered community faces its first big decision “on their own”. How…
Vessel HoustonWitness: Try It
Through this series, we have engaged with several encounters initiated by Jesus in the days following the Resurrection. Peter bears the weight of shame…
Vessel HoustonWitness: The Other Side
A fishing expedition comes up empty until the stranger calls from onshore, proposing that they think differently. As a people called to cultivate communities…
Vessel HoustonWitness: The Scar Story
Thomas needed to see with his own eyes, and is met with grace and understanding. Jesus comes back bearing the marks to remind us that ours need not be hidden…
Vessel HoustonWitness: A Glimpse of Totality
Two followers walk the road away from Jerusalem in grief, and a stranger joins them on the road. In the midst of story, hospitality, and the breaking of bread…
Vessel HoustonResurrection Sunday: The Good News
Scripture & Quotations 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 Mark 16:1-8 Mark 1:1
- Vessel Houston
Three Days
We have made our entry into the Paschal (Passover) mystery of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. Much of the global Church will mark these days in the…
- Vessel Houston
Put Down the Sword
Scripture & Quotations Malachi 3:1-2 Psalm 35:1-4 Joel 2:5 Matthew 10:34-35 Mark 11:1-10 Luke 22:35-53