Netarts Friends Church Podcast

Use this short reflection on silence as an introduction to your own spiritual experience of silence and mediation. For more information or to support this podcast visit www.netartsfriends.org (1/29/23)

We all have things. Accumulating things is part of life. It's part of survival. Who's to say how much money you can have in the bank before it begins to destroy your soul? Who's to say how many pairs of shoes you can have before your heart begins to shrivel? Whether it's your vehicle, your home, or your bank account, we all have emotions underneath all of our "having". This episode explores these...

Planning. It's the fabric of our lives. Things can go so right, and so wrong. We all want to live in a world that we design, yet life is fragile. It can change in an instant. How does our drive to make plans, be consumers, and have cool experiences intersect with our spirituality? Credits & Sources: Herbert Kopp, Steven Runge, Pedrito U. Maynard-Reid, Elsa Tamez, Craig Keener, Gerhard Lenski,...

The way we feel about judgement certainly is a paradox. It's a contradiction. We long and ache for judgement. We want the wrongs to be made right. We don't want others to get away with things. We want to think of ourselves as "the good guys". And....we hate being judged. We hate people tearing down our character and assuming they know why we did what we did. We hate being spoken down to. Is there...

Life is full of mixed experiences where we want God, and we don't want God. This episode explores God's response when we are sending God all kinds of mixed and painful messages. Credits & Sources:  Herb Kopp, Craig Keener, Elsa Tamez, Pheme Perkins, Steven Runge, Peter Davids, Luke Timothy Johnson, Scot McKnight, John Stott, Craig Blomberg, Richard Rohr, Brad Jersak, Paul Young, Brian Ross, M...

Everyone handles conflict differently. We are all so different. How could it be possible to boil all conflict down to any root cause? This episode explores the ancient wisdom that finds a similar set of sources in every conflict. See if you cannot find these root causes within the latest conflict you have faced. Credits & Sources: Moises Silva, Steven Runge, Mort Fertel, Herb Kopp, Brian Ross,...

Life has a million new situations to navigate. Everyone wants to feel like they are smart and have a good plan. Everyone wants to tell themselves they are navigating with wisdom and expertise. But what if there are two different "wisdoms"? What if there is a wisdom from above and a wisdom from below? Sometimes what seemed like a good plan at the time turns lives into chaos and ruins community. Whe...

Words collect in us. They grow. They reverberate. They echo. They twist and distort our view of reality. We fail to realize the lethal and lifegiving power of words, and to treat them accordingly. Credits & Sources: Brad Jersak, Steve Cuss, Brian Ross, Richard Bauckham Mark Baker, Moises Silva, Pheme Perkins, Herb Kopp, Luke Timothy Johnson, Peter Davids, Scot McKnight, Ben Okri, Aida Spencer,...

You are on the path to spiritual maturity when you begin to recognize the gap between your stated values and your lived values. This episode explores this theme. Credits and Sources: Tanya Gazdik, Roger Dooley, Tom Stafford, Jack Loechner, Bob Smietana, Christopher Wright, Pheme Perkins, Luke Timothy Johnson, Scot McKnight, Peter Davids, Brian Ross, Steven Runge, Herb Kopp, Richard Bauckham, Aida...

How many times down through history have Christians been the ones responsible for discrimination, prejudice, and bias that has excluded and wounded vulnerable people? The ancient letter of James makes it clear that this tendency is nothing new, and that there is absolutely no substitute for loving your neighbor, and yes; everyone, every single person is your neighbor. Credits & Sources: Moises...

There's a popular meme/reel "Tell Me Without Telling Me..." You can find this meme/reel for all kinds of people: teachers, parents, millennials, weightlifters and on and on. What if you had to answer the meme, "Tell me you're a follower of Jesus without telling me." How would your answer line up with the way ancient and authentic followers of Jesus answered that question? Credits & Sources: Mi...

Some people seem like they will never change no matter what happens, no matter who begs them to change. Have you ever known someone who you thought would never change? What is it that causes a person to change? This story examines the aspects of who we are that are innate, inborn, native to our spirit that can eventually help us find the strength and motivation to change. Story by Aaron Carlson Cr...

Listening. It's hard work. We feel loved when others listen to us, and goodness, it's tough to give others the gift of our full attention! The even deeper layers dealing with our own ego and sense of right and wrong take the challenges of listening even further. In what way might the energy behind listening be connected to our experiences of God? Credits and Sources: Michael Frost, Herb Kopp, Bria...

We tend to either think of ourselves as good people who always do the right thing, or we beat ourselves up with shame. Do we ever really sort out what could actually help us find what is most lifegiving and sustaining for our well-being and the well-being of creation? Credits and Sources: Moises Silva, Lee Camp, Christian Miller, Thomas Merton, Brian Ross, Vern Hyndman, Ian Cron, Luke Timothy John...

Every culture has people who they elevate like mountains, and every culture has people who do not rise very far from the ground of society. There are those who are seen as impressive, valued, special, and unique. There are those who are set apart, marginalized, invisible, forgotten, denigrated, vilified, criminalized, and treated as less than. What does it mean to be a part of a counter-cultural c...

It's no longer just Bob Marley and Helen Keller telling us that our mind is a universe. It's astrophysicists and neurologists. But how do you navigate the universe of your mind? How do you find your North Star to navigate your own black holes and dark matter in the universe of your mind? Everyone wants to know "Who am I?" But your sense of "true self" is often a moving target. Can such a thing as...

There's a way to look at trials and endurance that is very American, and a way that is true to the author of the book of James. They are two very different approaches and the difference between the approaches can greatly impact whether or not local gatherings of Jesus-followers become who God intended for them to become. Credits & Sources: Luke Timothy Johnson, Nijay Gupta, Craig Keener, Herb...

We all have patterns of behavior we get into. We get focused on what the issue is. We miss the emotional processes happening underneath. This is where God asks us deeper questions. Credits & Sources: Steve Cuss, Murray Bowen, Erica Brown, Eugene Peterson, Phyllis Trible, Terrence E. Fretheim. For more information or to support this podcast visit www.netartsfriends.org (8/13/22)

As friends, parents, and loving humans, we change our minds many times every day. We are adaptive, responsive, and flexible. Unchanging love for others requires us to change. What about God? Does God's mind ever change? Credits & Sources: Thomas Oden, Greg Boyd, Terrence Fretheim, Phyllis Trible, Marvin R. Wilson, TWOT, Erica Brown, Scot McKnight. For more information or to support this podcas...

Does God have your entire life mapped out down to the tiniest detail? Does God have one right decision for you to make every time? One right way? One person for you to marry? One college? One job? One toothbrush to use? Is God like a controlling parent who plans your life out for you? What happens if you deviate from God's plan for your life? What other alternatives to this view are there? Credits...

We all need do-overs. We mess our life up. We mess other people's lives up. We struggle to recognize what parts we are responsible for and what parts other people are responsible for. We want God's help, but we aren't ready to face ourselves. We blame God. We blame others. We try to deflect. How can we even get clear on where we went wrong? We need the gift of a do-over, even before we have our li...

Have you ever found yourself weathering a storm of someone else's making? Suddenly the impact of their choices is affecting your time, finances, home, relationships, workplace, safety, or life? Sometimes the way they involve you in their situation leaves you with lose/lose decisions. They put you into a double bind. You are left making excruciating and complex decisions. After it all goes down you...

Your cover story includes some of the basic facts of your experience, but rarely does it tell the complete truth about your experiences and how they affected you. Words sometimes fail when the world no longer makes sense, when meaning collapses, when it feels like God might be on the side of your oppressors. This is why we need more than to "know" that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger,...

Have you ever felt that feeling down deep in your gut? A palpable truth. Reality. A feeling. A thought. An image. You know God is telling you something. It is comforting and full of empathy; and it is challenging, eye-opening, and scary. You want to run away, argue it away, sleep it away. But still, it is there, coming after you. Possibly swallowing you up. How do you determine what to do next? Ho...

The story of Jonah and the whale is fraught with questions of history, biology, archeology, and botany, etc. Some people avoid the questions, some people do mental gymnastics with the questions, and some people deconstruct their faith with the questions. All of these questions center around one big question: "DID THAT HAPPEN?" Is this the question that matters the most when it comes to the book of...