Audio Ministry & Teaching

Fulfilling the Great Commission as we pass along the Faith in Jesus Christ through the harmony of Holy Scripture and the teachings of His Church

Current Learning Series

A Life of Responding to God

Communion with God is the very heartbeat of our creation and, thus, is the very core of our salvation. In this communion, God faithfully and lovingly reveals Himself and His ways to us. Mankind responds to what has been shared. In this series, Fr. James uses the writings of Fr. Zacharias, a monastic at St. John the Baptist Monastery in the United Kingdom, to help us delve more deeply into how our hearts may be opened to this precious communion and how our lives may most appropriately respond to the God Who has shared Himself with us.

Previous Series

From the Harrowing of Hades to the Ascension

In this series, we will look at Christ's ministry from the moment He gave up His spirit and descended into Hades to His glorious Ascension. We will begin with and in-depth look at His profound work of salvation known as the "Harrowing of Hades" and then make our way through Christ's post-Resurrection ministry. We will find along the way that what Christ accomplished in Hades, He continues to do in and for each and every beloved soul He has brought into Himself.

Awaking from our Spiritual Slumber

Spiritual despondency, simply stated, is the spiritual slumber of the soul that disconnects us from the beautiful and eternal value of the experience of God in the precious moments of our lives. When we are in a state of spiritual slumber, we can never recognize for ourselves just how asleep we really are or why we are in that spiritual slumber. We need the illumination of Christ to both reveal our spiritual slumber as well as to wake us up again so that we can truly live. It is time to regain the gift of moments with God in the little time we have.

God in the Midst of our Suffering

All of us in this fallen world will experience seasons of great suffering. Left to ourselves, if we take God out of the picture, suffering lends itself to further brokenness and dysfunction in our lives. But if we believe God is intimately with us in times of suffering and fully acquainted with our grief, everything changes. In this series we seek to learn how to approach God and present ourselves to Him in the language of lament. When we allow God to be intimately involved in our suffering, we find that God so faithfully redeems all things. And, in those times of suffering, we find that we have moved from knowing about God to truly knowing Him.

The Epistle of First Peter

St. Peter writes his First Epistle to Christians in the Northern Mediterranean Sea region. These Christians are suffering the beginnings of persecution by Rome under Nero, Caesar of Rome. The purpose of the writing is two-fold. First, it is to encourage the Christians with the truth that they may endure such times and trials. Secondly, it is to remind them of how to live in the face of persecution in such a way that the Resurrected Jesus Christ may be glorified in and through them. This Epistle is so appropriate for us today in America as we face a culture that seems to be more and more averse to Christ and His people. This teaching reveals to us how we must live in our current age both for our salvation and the salvation of the world.

Hebrews "Our Great High Priest"

The Epistle to the Hebrews has some of the most descriptive language revealing to us, even today, of Jesus Christ's eternal role as our Great High Priest. In these sessions we seek to see Christ for who He truly is as our Great High Priest. We pray that the wonder of what we see will draw us to Him and, perhaps, transform us in the way we live in and from Him.

Pre-Lent Retreat 2017

The Church is called to make disciples of all men according to The Great Commission. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ according to the Apostolic Faith of the Orthodox Church? This series teaches many aspects of what the Christian life looked like both in the Early Church as well as the continuation of that Church today.

By His Name

God gave His people many names by which they could come to know Him as it is the Divine Nature of God to reveal Himself to those whom He created. This series explores the revelation of God to us all "By His Name."

The Great Commission Dialogues

In these teachings we seek to answer the question, "What is The Great Commission?" Is it merely a command that we are to follow in obedience? Only in part. In reality, the Church teaches us that The Great Commission is an organic part of what it means to be the Body of Christ; the continuation of the ministry of Christ in the earth offering life to the world.

Orthodox Spirituality

The Gospel of St. John

The Gospel of St. John, being written some 30 - 40 years after the other three Gospels, contains some of the most wondrous theological revelations about the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is so important that we take into ourselves this theology which has been passed down from generation to generation since the inception of the Church at Pentecost.

Theology is defined by the Church as the expressed revelation of God to man revealing Who God is and all that He has done for the salvation of the world. We will study the Gospel of St. John reflecting on these truths. For without the revelation of God as to His very nature, we cannot hope to know Him and by the light of His countenance shining upon us be made whole.

Giving Answers to Our Faith

Orthodox Christians are asked many questions by those outside of the Orthodox Faith. It is important for us to be able to know how to answers grounded in truth and humility to the questions they ask us. This series has two purposes. One is to equip the faithful in the Orthodox Church to be able to express truth in answering these questions. But this series also is designed to help us take on the mind of Christ regarding our Faith so that we grow deeper with the most clear sight of our Lord and all that He has given us to encounter Him for our salvation.

The Undoing of the Deceiver in Our Lives

St. Paul has described Christian discipleship as being akin to the rigors of military life, athletic discipline, and compulsory servanthood. He has also made it clear to us that our contention in the Christian life, that for which we prepare and train ourselves, is against what the Church calls “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” According to Tradition, the real contention is against the temptations of the devil, who uses the world and the flesh to bait us to abandon our Christian discipleship.

An aspect of our “training” in the Christian life is discerning the devil’s machinations and learning how to respond to them. The Roman Catholic theologian and professor, Peter Kreeft, has written an excellent book, The Snakebite Letters, as a means to reveal how the devil conspires to tempt us, how we are apt to succumb to such temptations, and, by implication, how we should respond.

Using The Snakebite Letters as a sort of guide through these muddy waters of the spiritual life, we will look at what Kreeft (and the demonic) describes as the peculiar temptations of American Christians, how the devil tempts Christians in general, and what we are to do about it.

Our Vocation as a Kingdom of Priests

Examining the functions and responsibilities of the ancient Jewish priesthood, as well as the life and instruction of St. John of Kronstadt, patron saint of priests, we will attempt to glean the details of our roles as priests of creation, as mentioned in 1 Peter 2:5. We have all, by our Baptism, been ordained to be a Kingdom of Priests. This series will help us understand our role in this Holy Priesthood.

The Kingdom of God Is Near to Us

As we pray the Orthodox Prayer to the Holy Spirit, this truth is communicated to us, "O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth Who art in all places and fillest all things." As Christians, do we live in the truth that God is in all places and fills all things; that He permeates everything in in every aspect of our lives? Or, do we live a life that somehow compartmentalizes God; a life that believes in the experience of God when we are doing the "Christian things" such as prayer, worship, or ministry; but not so much at other times in the most mundane moments of our lives? The Incarnation brought the Kingdom of Heaven to earth for the experience of mankind unto the salvation of our souls. God is never distant and there is never a moment of our lives when we cannot fellowship and experience God and all of the benefits of His Kingdom now manifest in the earth. The purpose of this series is to assist us in living the true Christian life where the Kingdom of God is near to us.

Living in Remembrance

When our Lord Jesus Christ took bread and wine and blessed it, He told His disciples that whenever they were to gather together they were to "do this in remembrance of me." It was no mere intellectual or mental exercise that He was asking them to do. Rather, He was saying that when you do this and every time you do this I will be there in your midst.

When God's people gather together for Eucharist, there Christ and His Kingdom are made manifest for all to experience. In this series we start with this idea regarding Christian worship, but we must also look further. It is our Lord's desire that we take Christ and the Kingdom made manifest living our lives in such a way in this life that in all we do and everywhere we go, the King and His Kingdom are made manifest for the salvation of the world as He lives through us, His Church.