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This podcast are recordings of the sermons that take place each Sunday at BGMC.
Episodes & Posts
Episodes
Posts
13 MAY 2025 · Welcome to this final episode in our journey through Deconstruction as Discipleship by Michael Houston. Chapter 6, titled Towards a Flourishing Community of Re-forming Disciples, brings us to a hopeful vision of what lies beyond disorientation. Mike explores how faith communities can become safe landing spaces—places of grace and graft—for those navigating doubt and reconstruction. He challenges us to expand our spiritual worldview, decolonise privilege, and embrace the liminal spaces of faith with humility and courage. This chapter is a powerful call to nurture kindness, friendship, and candour in our churches—to create brave spaces where lament and doubt are welcomed as sacred acts. Houston invites us into a vision of the church not as a place of rigid conformity, but as a Christoform community—ever ancient, ever new—where reformation is ongoing and grace is abundant. Join us as we explore what it means to be a people always re-forming in the way of Jesus.
13 MAY 2025 · Welcome to this episode, where we explore Chapter 5 of Michael Houston’s Deconstruction as Discipleship, titled Surgery on a Malformed Faith. In this powerful chapter, Mike likens deconstruction to a necessary and often painful surgery—one that confronts harmful spiritual narratives and opens the way for healing. He identifies two core distortions in contemporary Christianity: the idolisation of certainty and the demand for conformity. These constructs, he argues, can damage authentic faith, stifle curiosity, and enforce exclusion. Drawing on stories, Scripture, cultural critique, and personal experience, Mike calls for a faith that embraces mystery, doubt, and diversity. This chapter is both prophetic and pastoral, challenging the church to move from rigid scaffolding to a flourishing garden of faith—where roots grow deep and wings are given to fly. Join us as we unpack what it means to let go of brittle belief systems and rediscover a Christ-shaped, open-handed way of following Jesus.
12 MAY 2025 · Welcome to this episode of our series on Deconstruction as Discipleship, where we engage with Chapter 4: Dismantling Two Faith Constructs. In this chapter, Mike explores two deeply ingrained yet often damaging theological frameworks: our inherited view of the Bible and our portrait of God.
Using the metaphor of cathedral scaffolding, Mike argues that many of us have unknowingly inherited distorted faith structures—false facades built around sacred truths. He critiques biblicism, the idolisation of the Bible, and unpacks how rigid doctrines and punitive images of God have shaped anxious, guilt-ridden spiritualities. Yet, this dismantling is not destruction; it’s an invitation to rediscover Scripture as sacred wisdom and God as radically Christlike. Through the lens of love and the cross, this episode encourages us to unlearn harmful ideas and reimagine a faith rooted in Jesus—the ultimate Word of God.
12 MAY 2025 · Welcome to this episode, where we explore Chapter 3 of Mike Houston’s Deconstruction as Discipleship, titled Provocations of Faith Disorientation. In this chapter, Mike unpacks what causes many to move from a settled faith into a place of questioning and disruption. Whether it’s personal pain, theological rigidity, or institutional harm, he suggests that disorientation is often the beginning of a sacred journey—one that can lead to deeper authenticity and a more Jesus-shaped faith. This isn’t about losing faith, but reimagining it through honest reflection, courage, and the hope of spiritual renewal.
12 MAY 2025 · Welcome to this episode, where we dive into Chapter 2 of Deconstruction as Discipleship by Michael Houston, titled The Syntax of Deconstruction. In this chapter, Mike explores how the language and metaphors we use shape our experience of faith transition. Drawing on the Psalms, he outlines a powerful framework—Orientation, Disorientation, and New Orientation—to describe the movement of deconstruction. Far from being just about loss, this journey can be constructive, poetic, and even creative. Using imagery from gardens, jazz, and cartography, Mike invites us to reimagine faith as a living, evolving process grounded in authenticity and transformation.
12 MAY 2025 · Welcome to this AI-generated podcast series, based on Deconstruction as Discipleship: A Credo for a Christ-like Community Wrestling with Faith by Mike Houston. Drawing from over 35 years of church leadership, Mike shares his personal journey alongside the stories of others who have walked with him. Through theological, biblical, and pastoral reflection, he engages with scholars, writers, and contemporary culture to explore the evolving landscape of Christian faith.
In this series, we distil the key insights from Mike’s paper, focusing on how faith deconstruction—often seen as a crisis—can actually be a sacred and necessary process. Mike argues that when approached thoughtfully, faith disruption can become a transformative path toward a “Jesus-shaped” spirituality and a more authentic, compassionate Christian community.
This first episode corresponds to Chapter One of the paper, where we explore the meaning and significance of the term deconstruction within a faith and wider context.
To request a full PDF version of the paper, please visit the contact page at http://www.bethnalgreenmissionchurch.co.uk/.
11 MAY 2025 · In the second sermon of Jesus' story of the 10 bridesmaids, we wrestle with Matthew's context, style of writing and emphasis to discover how they drive the parable's meaning. How is the Kingdom of God presented in a parable and gospel with so much judgment in it? And how does the delay of the Groom challenge our hope for the arrival of God's Kingdom?
4 MAY 2025 · It's safe to say that the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids is not one of Jesus' most loved stories. We have most likely heard it as a warning to be prepared for Jesus' coming, but this misses the nuances of the story, its cultural setting, and how Matthew has written his gospel. What if the parable offers us something far richer, more complex and which challenges our discomfort with the nature of the story and the outcome?
NOTE: The audio file of the recording of this sermon was corrupted; this is an AI-generated podcast of the source material from that transcript of the sermon.
30 APR 2025 · Exploring Faithfulness in the Fruits of the Spirit series is inspired by the online exhibition from the National Gallery. The exhibits are Orazio Gentileschi, The Finding of Moses (NG6684), early 1630s, oil on canvas and Soldi, Isabella, Duchess of Manchester, 1738, oil on canvas.
13 APR 2025 · Peace. A word used liberally by those across all Christian traditions. But how should we understand it as the third Fruit of the Spirit? In this episode of our Art From the Heart series, we take a look at what we can learn about peace from Monet’s Waterlilies.
This podcast are recordings of the sermons that take place each Sunday at BGMC.
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| Author | BGMC |
| Organization | BGMC |
| Categories | Christianity , Christianity , Christianity |
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