Southside Baptist Church Podcast

The Music of Christmas is a collection of 25 daily devotions designed to help readers cut through the noise of a busy, distracting, and often loud holiday season. It is our prayer that God will use these familiar passages as a reminder of His incredible love. We also pray that your love for Christ and His mission will be rekindled this Advent season.The Music of Christmas is available in print or digital formats.

The Music of Christmas is a collection of 25 daily devotions designed to help readers cut through the noise of a busy, distracting, and often loud holiday season. It is our prayer that God will use these familiar passages as a reminder of His incredible love. We also pray that your love for Christ and His mission will be rekindled this Advent season.The Music of Christmas is available in print or digital formats.

The Music of Christmas is a collection of 25 daily devotions designed to help readers cut through the noise of a busy, distracting, and often loud holiday season. It is our prayer that God will use these familiar passages as a reminder of His incredible love. We also pray that your love for Christ and His mission will be rekindled this Advent season.The Music of Christmas is available in print or digital formats.

The Music of Christmas is a collection of 25 daily devotions designed to help readers cut through the noise of a busy, distracting, and often loud holiday season. It is our prayer that God will use these familiar passages as a reminder of His incredible love. We also pray that your love for Christ and His mission will be rekindled this Advent season. The Music of Christmas is available in print or digital formats.

The table has become the centerpiece of our Thanksgiving celebration, and for good reason. Not only does the table (and the food on it) represent God’s provision, but scientists have discovered that the human mind attaches significant memories to the sense of smell and taste. As you eat, you are literally rehearsing memories associated with those tastes and smells. Remembering God’s faithfulness in the past is an antidote to fear of the future and helps build our faith. Join us for the final message in the Psalms of Thanksgiving series where we will consider Psalm 34 as we taste and see that the Lord is good.

Living in a social media society causes us to live our lives in constant comparison to others. Always watching what other people have and are doing will cause us not to value what we have. This lack of appreciation and thankfulness can often lead to anxiety, restlessness, and even depression. Keeping our focus on the life and path God has set out for us, “staying in our lane,” can help develop an attitude of gratitude, which will allow joy and thanksgiving to permeate all aspects of our hearts and lives.

The Bible says that Christians are to be thankful in all circumstances. That sounds good until we consider some of the most difficult circumstances of life. How can we practice gratitude in the midst of sickness, injustice, pandemics, and social unrest? Join us for part one of Psalms of Thanksgiving where we will explore how gratitude counteracts doubt and despair and makes us more resilient.

The Declaration of Independence lists the “pursuit of happiness” as one of our “unalienable rights.” Unfortunately, this has been misunderstood by some as a guarantee of happiness rather than the right to pursue it. Because happiness is a feeling based on circumstances, it can be an elusive and subjective goal. Many people spend their lives pursuing happiness according to the world’s direction only to find themselves frustrated and disappointed. Join us for the final message in Jesus 2020, as we learn Jesus’ secret for pursuing and finding true happiness.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…” The Declaration of Independence is based on the understanding that our rights and freedoms come from God. That idea was revolutionary, but it wasn’t original to Thomas Jefferson, it came from Jesus. Long before the establishment of the modern democracy, Jesus’ followers were champions of a freedom that no government can give or take away. Join us online or on campus for part three of Jesus 2020, as we learn about our freedom and the responsibility that comes with it.

Many campaigns in America have degenerated into contests to see which candidate can make more people afraid of his or her opponent. They do all they can to portray “the other guy” as evil, unfit, and bent on destroying life as we know it. Jesus warned His followers not to be deceived by “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Join us for part two of Jesus 2020 as we uncover the real enemy of American, why politicians are powerless to save us, and the identity of the only leader who can.

Jesus assembled a politically diverse group of followers to serve as His first disciples. Not only did He call Matthew -- a Roman tax collector and sympathizer -- but He also called Simon the Zealot -- a hard core Jewish nationalist and revolutionary. These two men had about as much in common as Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump! How was it possible that two people with starkly different ideas both followed Jesus and even gave their lives for His cause? Join us for part one of Jesus 2020 where we will learn the secret to remaining united despite our political differences.

“Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world!” Did you ever sing that song in church? If you did, and if the church you grew up in was like most churches in America, you probably didn’t see as diverse a group of people in your church as was described in that song. It has been said that the most segregated hour in America is on Sunday morning. But how can that be? If God’s love crosses racial, ethnic, and cultural barriers, why is His church still so divided by race? Join us for the final message in Tightrope where we will explore the importance of diversity and unity, and learn how the church must begin to pursue greater diversity if we are going to fulfill Jesus’ mission.

When Jesus set about to accomplish His Father’s mission, He could have done it in any number of ways, but He chose to do His work through ordinary people. Men and women who were flawed and weak and often ignorant. He sent His disciples out two by two, and later told them to “go into all the world.” This small band of brothers grew and grew and within one generation, the mighty Roman Empire was being impacted by Jesus’ followers. God has and will accomplish global transformation through the faithfulness of groups of people who are fully devoted to Him. Join us for part four of Tightrope where we will explore Southside’s commitment to kingdom expansion through small groups multiplication. 

Does God want us to retreat from the world and spend all of our time seeking Him in prayer and solitude, or has He called us to go into the world as ambassadors of His coming kingdom? The answer is, “Yes!” For many believers, and most churches, the choice between practicing a prayerful, contemplative faith is always held in contrast and opposition to practicing an active faith. But Jesus not only called us to both, He spent His earthly ministry modeling the importance of each. At Southside, we believe the character of our prayers determines the character of our ministry. Join us for part three of Tightrope as we continue to explore our core values and how they shape who we are and who we hope to become.

Before leaving His disciples, Jesus gave them one commandment to obey and a great mission to accomplish. His Great Commandment was to love God and love others. His Great Commission was to go into all the world to make disciples. These verses are among His most often repeated words. At Southside, we believe a great commitment to the Great Commandment and the Great Commission will build a great church. If we are going to follow Jesus, we must do both. Join us for part two of Tightrope where we will consider the important tension that exists between these two directives and the dangers of doing one without the other.

Maybe you grew up in an environment where the answers to all of your hard questions began with the words, “The Bible says . . ." Those answers probably satisfied many of your questions, but perhaps there were other times when you still wondered. It is no surprise that a core value for this and many other churches is a commitment to the reliability and authority of the Bible. Unfortunately that value, apart from an understanding of the Gospel, can lead to legalism and a distortion of Jesus’ teachings. Join us for part one of Tightrope where we explore the healthy tension between being biblically grounded and Gospel-centered.

While not many people have experienced being exiled from their country and carried into captivity, most of us have had to leave places we didn’t want to leave to go to places we didn’t want to go. Circumstances may have forced you to change jobs, relocate, change schools, and leave people you love to be with people you don’t even like! How should we respond to being exiled? Is it possible that God uses times of exile to draw us closer to Himself? Join us for part 7 of Jeremiah: A Prophet for the City as Pastor Gary looks at Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles and explores what it means to live in exile with God.

God told Jeremiah to record His words on a scroll and deliver them to the king, but the king cut up and burned the scroll and then went after Jeremiah and his scribe for treason. While we may not take scissors to the pages of the Bible today, we often cut out the parts we don’t like by ignoring them. We may not engage in book burnings, but our refusal to acknowledge God’s Word is no less dangerous. Join us for part 6 of Jeremiah: A Prophet for the City as Pastor Gary Webber explores what Jeremiah has to teach us about the nature of God’s Word.

Jeremiah was part of a religious revival in the nation of Judah.  People were feeling good about their country and their public displays of religious commitment.  While Jeremiah was growing increasingly suspicious of this movement, another preacher was embracing the moment and riding the tide of popular public opinion. Join us for part five of Jeremiah: A Prophet for the City where we will discover that a prophet who is truly for the city doesn’t simply smooth things over, but rather, seeks to make things right.