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
Reading the feed…
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 Pharaoh’s calls to harm embody the collaborative trajectory of liberation (to this day) when God’s people choose courageous mercy.
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...
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 the living imagination of the patient and loving God who still dreams reconciliation into being?
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 tests and commands, he provides and resurrects.
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 gardens of healing, peace, and hope.
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 places, even behind prison walls. The Spirit calls us to deep listening; recognizing the voice of God as one of unfailing, dignifying love.
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 shepherd’s loving voice our constant guide.
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, faithful experience of doubt. Join us in exploring this illuminating encounter with fresh eyes.
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 the tomb, we remember the enduring hope who emerged from that hopeless place, and the story still being written. It’s not a war story, and it’s not a horror story. It’s a love story.
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 own sake, but for the unbinding of one another. Also, why does Pastor Mike have a mustache?
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” and “them.” A story we need now more than ever.
“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 becomes the unlikely, fertile soil of resurrection.
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 consider the “follow me” which that same Divine Love whispers into our lives today. Even now, he stands upon the shoreline…
The long-awaited Messiah descends into the waters of the Jordan, God declares that belovedness precedes fruitfulness, and hope cascades outward as a ripple over all the nations.
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, we discover how God meets us in the midst of the stories we didn’t ask for.
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 notions of power and strength.
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 recognize the “end”… or rather, the One who makes a new beginning from every ending.
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 troubling misinformation, how is this new and fragile people to discern and stand firm in truth?
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 maintain a vision of hope glimmering through the wrath of our age.
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 Jeremiah, and in Luke 17, a grievously afflicted group encountering Jesus on the road, we see how transformation happens when we draw near to God by fully inhabiting the space and moment in which we live, especially those we did not choose.
A “religious” leader emerges through the dark, seeking to understand this mysterious, troublemaking rabbi. The two share a nighttime encounter illuminated by a universe shifting claim, one which our world of outrage and malice needs more than ever.
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 face of injustice and neglect for those suffering under the many afflictions of our world.
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 God in co-crating the just, equitable, and loving alternative.
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 both; each strengthening the other. Prayer is not a static set of words to parrot, but an invitation into loving and honest dialogue wherein we gain new sight for God’s activity in the world and within our own hearts.
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 whom). May the blessed actions of the outsider lead us to lament and rethink more than simply our conditional definitions of belonging on earth, but the ways that we allow fear, self-interest, and need for retribution to extend that distorted view even into the afterlife.
