Redemption's Table with Robert Barge

It's intermission! The curtain has dropped on the first half of the movie. The band has stepped off the stage to take a break. The first half of this year's journey is about to pass the baton to the second half. It's the perfect time to re-examine where we've come from and fine tune where we're going. And all are encouraged to do just that. Let's all come to the Table and g...

Courtney Ellis is a bird enthusiast, a pastor, and an author. Her newest book is Looking Up: A Birder's Guide to Hope through Grief. She also hosts a wonderful podcast called The Thing with Feathers.     Today's episode is a whimsical, ornithological, and theological swoop through Jesus' beatitudes from His Sermon on the Mount.  I asked Courtney to pair a bird to match each of Jesus&#3...

I remember my family's first color television.  I came home from school one day as a boy and there it was in our den.  I sprawled out in the floor and watched the Sergeant Jack Show, featuring Dick Tracy cartoons, on Channel 42 out of Birmingham.   I was enthralled.  I was drawn in to the screen and would sometimes sit so close, I could see the hundreds of multicolored dots that made up the gr...

Consider your worship.  In the first 22 weeks of 2024, what worship moments have been most memorable to you?   Worship is an easy word to ignore.  It's wrapped in plain brown paper.  We imagine we could guess the content of today's Table without opening or listening.  Yet, it's the very thing that can calm and rattle your life at the same time.   God is ready to meet you right now wher...

Welcome to our 150th Redemption's Table!     I am learning how to host a podcast.  I now have 150 episodes of practice.  And I think the secret is to not take yourself too seriously while taking your guest and your subject very seriously.   Come join us for some fun as the host becomes the guest and I get grilled by three of the sharpest people I know.  Along the way, I'll share a little b...

I like the word navigate.  I like the images that come to mind when I ponder that word.  It falls into a category of simplicity, of a way of life that brims with more intensity, with more pure oxygen than any artificial substitute our culture keeps seducing us to embrace.   To navigate is to know where we are, and to know where we want to go.  Once those two points are established, we follow the w...

Eclipse.  Last month, millions in North America migrated both near and far to fall under the wonder of a moon shadow for a few, brief moments.  A total solar eclipse.   Calypso.  A musical style which originated in Trinidad, Tobago, and spread throughout the West Indies of the Caribbean.   Eclypso.  A combination of two familiar words to inspire a brand new thought.   Eclypso.  It's the song,...

Conversation with Special Guest:  Raymond Turner Recorded Live in Sparklefly Studio in CookChildren's Medical Center - Fort Worth, Texas.   We step in and out of sacred spaces every day, oft times unaware.  But every now and then, we are overwhelmed from the outside in and the inside out simultaneously, just by being where we are.     That's how I felt when I visited Raymond Turner at Spar...

A Very Special 5th Birthday Table Episode  Featuring Special Guest:  Chris McLane Originally Recorded July 19th, 2019 - Dinner and Conversation at Mooyah’s Burgers in Birmingham, Alabama.                                                                                          Originally Released July 22nd, 2019 Redemption's Table was launched 5 Years Ago today - April 22, 2019.  And since then...

Lunch and Conversation with Special Guest:  Larry Cobb Recorded Live at Salsarita's Fresh Mexican Grill in Montgomery, Alabama.   I believe my good friend Larry Cobb has discovered the secret sauce of fatherhood.  During today's live table over Salsarita's two taco special, Larry never uses the term "secret sauce," but I think he's found what it is.  He's a 3-D dad.  ...

Thomas was one of Jesus' 12 disciples.  He has unfortunately been labeled as a doubter.  He missed Jesus' first post-resurrection appearance to His disciples.  He had a backstage VIP pass to the greatest event in all of history and he didn't even show up.  One Sunday later, Jesus and Thomas finally came face to face.   Thank God for the oddball and the outlier.  Otherwise, we all would...

SURPRISE WIDE OPEN All around the world tonight the ultimate Table of Redemption will be remembered and celebrated.  The bread and the wine Jesus shared with His disciples would become the flesh and the blood sacrificed for all, less than 24 hours after they shared the meal.   It's Holy Week!  A week full of surprise.  Surprise wide open.   When it comes to the biblical accounts of Jesus, ther...

Spring arrived a little early this year.  It happened Tuesday night - March 19 at 10:06 pm CST. We crossed the equatorial line once again where day and night are everywhere on earth, for just a brief moment, of approximate equal length.  Of course, we didn't literally step across that line.  Earth glided across like a curling stone, and you & I - well, we're just along for the ride. Sp...

Today is March 14, 2024.  It's just an ordinary day.  It's not the Oscars.  Not yet the Ides of March or St. Patrick's Day.  A little too early for Spring Equinox or Palm Sunday.  It's just an ordinary day in your life.  Or is it? Do you know what happened on all the March 14ths of your life? Because what you can do today, you can do the other 365 days as well. Take a day - any ord...

Complete this sentence: I delight in ........   I posed this open-ended declaration to several of my friends.  And as their responses came tumbling in, I knew today's Table was gonna truly be something special!   Delight is a word most of us don't use often enough.  Gratitude is like the map of our entire journey; delight is the buried treasure.   So, come along with us as we get high on L...

All of us find ourselves in seasons where it seems our lives are struggling upward through the dark.   Angels Landing in Zion National Park is often considered one of the most dangerous trails in the National Park System.  I hiked it in the dark with rain in the forecast at a time when my climbing legs were not in peak physical condition.  I almost didn't, and if I hadn't. I would have mis...

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a curio is  "something considered novel, rare, or bizarre."   A memento is  "something that serves to warn or remind."   Today's light hearted episode encourages you to look around; go on a treasure hunt and search for curios, mementos, and everyday Ebenezers.  Don't know what an Ebenezer is?  We're glad you asked.   Toda...

Before you awakened this morning, God was in His kitchen preparing fresh, new recipes of steadfast love and mercy, and Jesus was already setting the table for your day as it began.  Don't miss the meal.  The greatest opportunity you may have to taste something unbelievably wonderful this week, could be the one you far too readily overlook.     Let Jesus set the table of your day with Himself. ...

Breakfast and Conversation with Special Guest:  Alex Hettinga Recorded Live at Vintage Cafe in Montgomery, Alabama.   It doesn't take long to hear the heart of today's special guest Alex Hettinga.  His conversation always weaves back to family and fatherhood.  Alex is a husband, a father of two children, a classical violinist and violist, and the Senior Manager of Fatherhood and Family Pro...

It is February and I am still singing Christmas songs.  One carol in particular I sing all year long because of two words in its title that deeply connect with my soul.  Wonder and wander.   "I wonder as I wander out under the sky."     Today's episode ponders three questions: - How often are you struck with wonder? - What evokes wonder in you? - Do you connect deep wonder and curios...

Soul down.  Not as in, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" ( Psalm 43:5) , but more like "Slow your soul down."  You are carrying way too much weight.  You are accelerating at way too fast a speed.  Soul down.  You will need a deeper anchor to navigate all you are called to do in any given day, as well as all the activities the world pitches your way.  Soul down.   Today's e...

A Conversation With Special Guest:  Steph Cherry   The year is barely begun and most New Year's resolutions are still being pursued.  How are you doing with yours?   I am delighted to sit down with Special Guest Steph Cherry.  Steph is a therapist, life coach, chef to the homeless, a well of deep wisdom, and my good friend.  And today we will be encouraging all our Table guests to choose words...

Twenty-five years ago, I came across an article about Taos Pueblo in Northern New Mexico.  Every year the Pueblo Indians who live around Taos observe "the time of being still."  From December 15th to January 15th, the pueblo shuts down from the normal hustle and bustle of everyday life and observes a whole month of silent contemplation.   Imagine an entire month to be still in the presen...

On Christmas Day, I found myself slipping into a booth at my local Waffle House and was immediately struck how it felt like slipping into a church pew.  The Spirit of Jesus was present amidst the eggs, bacon, and waffles. Where are the places and when were the moments when Christmas found you this year? What spoke Christmas to you, and what did it say when it spoke? Join me on a Christmas journey...

Tonight is the longest night of the year!  Winter Solstice!  This special seasonal episode offers three perspectives on this dark night.  First, there is the phenomenal wonder of nature that tonight is.  Something magnificent is happening in our ecliptic journey through space tonight.  Second, there is a personal story about the joy of this night for me and my family.  And finally, there is a deep...