For People with Bishop Rob Wright

Send us Fan Mail Redemption is an important theme in the Bible and in the world. It teaches us that people can come out of tough situations and that Good News can prevail. It can make brokenness new.  In this episode, Bishop Wright has a conversation with special guest Lawrence Bell, who served 30 years and 1 day in prison.  He began his sentence at the age of 14. They discuss Lawrence's life...

Send us Fan Mail There is no argument that the work of justice is hard, important, and meaningful. But how do lawyers and judges improve laws, and justice? In this episode, Bishop Wright talks with newly installed Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice David E. Nahmias. Chief Justice Nahmias shares his faith story, the connections between his legal service and faith, and his personal call to serve yo...

Send us Fan Mail There is a lot of power in consenting to God. It is about authority and using our agency to make the choice to follow God do God's work in our lives. In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright discuss what it means to give consent to God,  the maturity it takes in this choice, and what it can mean in our lives. Listen in for the full conversation. Before listening, read  For...

Send us Fan Mail This week's For People is based on a prayer by Howard Thurman.  “The concern which I lay bare before You today is:   Whatever disaffection there is between me and those who are or have been very close to me—I would seek the root or cause of such disaffection, and with the illumination of Your mind, O God, to understand it. I give myself to Your scrutiny that, whatever there m...

Send us Fan Mail This week's For People is based on the below excerpt from Bishop Wright's sermon for the Preaching Excellence Program.  Many preachers are scared of John the Baptist so they dither about with what he ate or what he wore rather than what he did. What he did was to co-create moments with God so hearts could change. What he did was refuse to placate people or reduce to pabl...

Send us Fan Mail Jesus But Not Jesus Clubs are groups of people that have used Jesus' name with little allegiance to his Name. This might look like churches or Christian associations that bear little resemblance to the founder of the movement but on the outside look very much like that of Jesus. In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright discuss this notion of JBNJC's, how we mature as C...

Send us Fan Mail Have you enjoyed God in these past 15 months of exhaustion, livelihood, and knocking out the daily to-do? It can feel never-ending! When you think about it, when is the last time you slowed down to simply enjoy God? In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright discuss the ways they enjoy God including nature, music, and the learnings of the pandemic of isolation that if we think abo...

Send us Fan Mail The bible names the Holy Spirit as many things: life-giver, helper, fire, teacher, wisdom, counsel, might, knowledge, power, freedom, truth, hope, belonging, fellowship increaser, healer, reconciler, forever friend, renewer, proclaimer, boldness maker, anointer, love refiner, maker of faithfulness, the resuscitator of dead things just to name a few.  In this episode, Melissa and B...

Send us Fan Mail Blessed! A word we hear often both in the church and in the world. But what does blessed mean? It isn't a magical state. It is about walking a particular path and it guides us clear from some things and towards some things. In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about the psalms and what blessed means and what it doesn't mean. Listen in for the fu...

Send us Fan Mail What does faith look like for a person working in politics? And what about tough issues that divide people? In this episode, Bishop Wright and Ga State Representative Mary Margaret Oliver discuss these very questions and other relevant topics.  It is a tall order in doing the tough work of reaching across the aisle to those we disagree with while remaining faithful to the higher c...

Send us Fan Mail Breaking news: Jesus speaks life from the garden.  That would be the headline if the Gospel read like the New York Times or the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  Sometimes Rabbi, sometimes wonder-worker, Jesus of Nazareth convenes a small gathering of day laborers and poor people to share God’s plan for the human family. In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation...

Send us Fan Mail Easter isn't over. And though we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection in our own lives, Easter isn't the absence of the valleys. By definition, valleys are "depressed areas of land-scoured and washed out by the conspiring forces of gravity, water, and ice." America feels like a valley. As Black, Brown, and poor people continue to be killed b...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Bishop Wright has a conversation with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, an Episcopalian in the diocese and member of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Athens, GA. They discuss being a person of faith as a public servant, how Georgia has responded to the pandemic of COVID-19, and the new voting legislation passed in Georgia just recently and the impact it will have on electi...

Send us Fan Mail What is the opposite of love?  In this episode, Bishop Wright has a conversation with Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry, Primate of the Episcopal Church, about the opposite of love, where the church has thrived and been challenged in the pandemics and what has been hard on Presiding Bishop Curry and steps to take to nourish body, mind, and spirit. Presiding Bishop said it best whe...

Send us Fan Mail What's Easter and how does it work in the real world?  In this episode, Bishop Wright has a conversation with Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry, Primate of the Episcopal Church, about the Triduum. From the suffering of Good Friday, to the silence of Holy Saturday, to Resurrection Sunday, what does it all mean as followers of Jesus and people of a world more divided than ever...

Send us Fan Mail You have to have a Good Friday, and the silence of Holy Saturday, before you can have an Easter Sunday. We are Easter people - resurrection people, that must also remember the suffering of Good Friday. The darkness.  On that day and in how we choose to live our lives today, Jesus' love makes a lonely walk in front of us. A love as people shamed him, spat on him, and lynched h...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to a breaking news special edition of For People with Bishop Rob Wright. In this episode, Bishop Wright talks with Georgia State Senator Kim Jackson, who is an Episcopal Priest in the Diocese of Atlanta. Their conversation focuses on recently passed state legislation that made big changes to Georgia’s voting laws. Changes that drew applause from some and anger from others....

Send us Fan Mail If happiness is lavender, then joy has to be purple.  Why purple?  Because you make purple out of red and blue.  Love and sorrow. Joy lives at that intersection of heartbreak and ecstasy. Joy doesn’t live alone, she has four roommates, faith, hope, wonder and gratitude.  They need one another. Each leads to the other.   Scripture tells us joy is: a gift, an incentive, a companion,...

Send us Fan Mail How we stand for truth has everything to do with the truth we stand for.  For us, the most true thing in the universe is God!  With the most true thing about God being that "God is love."  We know that it’s impossible to actually love God without loving neighbor.  These two ideas are inseparable and irrefutable.  Our living out of these two truths is not contingent on th...

Send us Fan Mail Putting Jesus at the center of your life is learning how to love as God loves, which involves a willingness to sacrifice our preferred ways and outcomes in favor of Jesus’ way and his preferred outcomes. Spiritually, we haven’t grown up until we want God’s way more than we want our way! Life and relationships are so hard often because the love we have been taught and practice is f...

Send us Fan Mail What to do when God is silent, goes the question. But maybe what is really being said here is, ‘God is not speaking to me in a fashion that is convenient or dramatic enough to address my anxieties and hardships.’  Being the anxious creatures that we are, we might be conflating the idea of God’s silence with God’s abandonment or God’s non-existence.  But, as we get to know God we l...

Send us Fan Mail Self-examination means we pause and check-in with our soul. And we ask our soul two questions: What are my patterns?  And, do they increase well-being? Ultimately the practice of self-examination is a gift because it moves us from blindness to gaining new sight. In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a full conversation on self-examination, practicing it in our lives, and...

Send us Fan Mail It is hard to believe that Lent was just underway at the beginning of the pandemic this time a year ago. And we said "this is the lentiest lent we have ever lented". And a year later, meet lenty lent 2.0. So, here is a Lenten question. How has God drawn near to you? The church dedicates this season to examining our relationship with God and working on how we draw near to...

Send us Fan Mail Are we convinced that love is the way? And if so, what is love's cost to me right now? These questions are at the heart of this week's devotional based on St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians. And what St. Paul really writes is that love is of spiritual grown-ups. Those that have put away their childish ways and put love first. Spiritual grown-up love has a sufferin...

Send us Fan Mail A simple question: Have you met God more than once? In thinking about our lives, people might notice they have met God in multiples locations, settings of life, and when it was least expected. These rendezvous with God happen in our failing strength, fraying faith, and God's understanding and power. This is where God breathes and turns weariness into everlasting-ness. In this...