Ronnie McBrayer

"How often does a religious authority figure become the actual authority? How often do human-made regulations get inflated and inflicted as God-given commandments? How often do ancient traditions - traditions that may have worked very well for those who first conceived of them - outlast their usefulness - and grow into monstrous, shame-inducing, fear-mongering, finger-pointing, soul-crushing, hear...

“The journey ahead will be too much for you! God says to Elijah (See 1 Kings 18 and 19). For those who have been champions, for those who have felt like nothing but losers. For those disappointed, discouraged, despondent, confused, misused, and abused: The journey will be too much for you! Enough with the lie that 'God will never put more on you than you can stand.' That’s nowhere near an accurate...

"Come to me,” Jesus said, "I am the bread of life…Come to me and you will find what you need….Walk with me…learn from me,” he said. He offers his way, his words, his ethic, his very life to each of us. And in taking it, we find our daily bread to face each and every day: Not as a kind of spiritual vitamin; not a little pep talk for us when things are down; not a puffy, air-filled, processed bag of...

Ronnie says, "I only have three sermons. So I will be repeating myself again today. One - The only God I know is the one revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. Ask me who God is; what God is like: I will point you there. Two - This God loves you with an infinite, incredible, inexhaustible love. And three: It’s those people who have a profound sense of being loved by God; who have this internal, soul-washe...

From Ronnie's latest talk on the 23rd Psalm: "He 'maketh me to lie down.' The Shepherd gently - but deliberately - compels me to be still. It is the lying down; it is the quiet; it is the stillness that leads to restoration. The best translation from the Hebrew is: 'Bed down in the lush green grasses. Sip the cold, quiet, deep waters -of rest.' Cold drinks and nap time sounds like heaven! But most...

In this exploration of the biblical prophet Amos, Ronnie talks about what launched Amos' vocation, why the prophet's voice is one of such doom, and how to interpret and apply his words today. Ronnie says, "Amos, for lack of a better turn of phrase, invented the apocalyptic category. All the Hebrew prophets to follow - even the great ones like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel - are standing on...

Speaking of Ezekiel (Chapter 3) as an example for us all, Ronnie says, "Ezekiel persisted in his vocation for two decades.  Persistence more than progress. Stubbornness over success. Twenty years his hand is at the plow. Twenty years with hardly a convert. Twenty years among the thorns and scorpions of resistance...That is the pattern, but I think also that is the point. When one takes up the Chri...

From Ronnie's talk based on Lamentations 3: "I get to have these conversations about God with people. Invariably, someone will say: 'Well, I don’t believe in God.' And my answer has become, 'Me either!' Then  I give the person space to talk about the God they refuse to believe in; and it has never failed: I can’t - I won’t - I don’t - believe in the God they describe either! Because this God is us...

In this conclusion to his series on The Emmaus Road from Luke 24, Ronnie makes clear that sermons and talks come to an end, but the road goes on. "Faith will persist. The Spirit will lead. Your journey of faith never ends until you do," he says. And quoting James Hollis, Ronnie reminds the listener: "There is no home ‘out there,’ no Valhalla to attain; there is only the journey. The journey is our...

In this talk - part 9 of 10 in the series - Ronnie asks the listener to open his or her heart to the "Real" - with a capital R. He says, "I am of the persuasion that you can at once be a person who believes in contemporary science; and be a person of deep faith in God; that you can be analytical and empirical while remaining mystical and spiritual; that you can appreciate and value Newton, Einstei...

As Part 8 in this walk down the Emmaus Road continues, Ronnie observes how an honest, humble telling of our own faith experience can invite Christ to join the conversation: "These disciples find their friends. They begin to share their story with fear and trembling -  and Jesus arrives. It’s as if their speaking of him, invites him to join them...Meister Eckhart, a radical Catholic mystic from the...

"How do you tell someone, how do you share with someone, your own personal experience with God? Sometimes this will be sharing with someone who is seeking - seeking answers - seeking God. It might be sharing with someone who is on the brink of losing faith, or he or she feels that 'just believing' won’t work for them. And maybe you’ve had those encounters with someone who is ambivalent, even hosti...

In Part 6 of "The Path Is Made By Walking, Ronnie quotes Janet Hagberg, words that serve as proper commentary to the Emmaus Road experience of Luke 24: “Now we surrender to God’s will, but with our eyes wide open…for we have been changed. We sense a looser grip on ourselves and all we have believed, because our confidence is in God - not what we think about God. Our primary motivation in life beco...

As this journey down the Emmaus Road continues, Ronnie speaks about the times when faith seems lost: "Before you change, you will be confused. It’s natural. It’s to be expected. Once you are on the road, you will encounter roadblocks - intense seasons of questioning; dark nights of the soul; arrows shot toward heaven that never seem to hit their target. Janet Hagberg rightfully calls it, 'The Wall...

With episode four of his current series, "The Path Is Made By Walking," Ronnie observes that Jesus challenged his fellow travelers on the Emmaus Road to do something almost impossible: To throw out what they had believed previously, and look at life, faith, and reality with a completely different point of view. He was invited them to change their minds - something so few of us are willing to do. ...

In this third installment of "Walking," Ronnie clarifies his hopes for this deep dive into the Emmaus Road story of Luke 24. "One: There’s always something deep, innovative, and wondrous beneath the surface of Scripture - it’s only 7 miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, but so much further than that. Two: Luke was not afraid to meet people right where they were, to speak their language, in order to tel...

In Part 2 of Ronnie's exploration of the Emmaus Road text from Luke 24, he takes a deep dive into the background of the story - a background that is more than 400 years old - but one Luke and his listeners would have known all too easily. From there, Ronnie gives a challenge to readers of the Bible to "dig deep," discovering the multiple worlds that are beneath our shallower readings of the text....

With this introduction to the Emmaus Road experience of Luke 24, Ronnie begins an ambitious series of talks entitled, "The Path is Made By Walking" (taken from a poem by Spanish poet, Antonio Machado - text below). Ronnie says, "This story has been given for every true believer, for every spiritual seeker; for every honest doubter, and every troubled questioner; it’s for every wanderer and wondere...

On his 90th birthday,  legendary local dentist Dr. Johnny Savage shares words with the congregation at A Simple Faith Church. See the Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzqFXaIIbAU Johnny's biography, written by Kathryn Hardy is available at online bookstores.  

"A garden is where it all began - a garden is where it is all headed - and a garden makes it all possible. The resurrection is heaven come to earth; life and life-giving spirit confronting and overcoming death. Jesus  is the man working in the garden - restoring the garden of life - does all that is necessary and possible for life to flourish. In the words of Robert Frost: “He has kept the pathway...

Power. Politics. Prophecy. Peace. And a little donkey carrying Jesus through the gates of Jerusalem. In this talk Ronnie focuses on the overlooked details and persisting challenge of the first Palm Sunday.

St. Patrick's Day fell on a Sunday this year, and I couldn't resist playing a few  Irish songs. This quintet collection of The Backsliders band features myself on guitar and vocals, Matt Miller on fiddle, Tim Ryals on percussion, Andy Stucky on bass, and Ricky Stanfield on mandolin. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

What's So Amazing About Grace? That's a question Philip Yancey asked with the title of his book that has become a Christian classic more than 25 years ago. It's a question that remains worth asking and answering - as Ronnie attempts to do with his latest talk (Based on Ephesians 2).

This is Ronnie's final talk in a series on the book of Ecclesiastes, using commentary from Viktor Frankl. "Today, I want you to be infused with holy, scrappy, heavenly resistance. I want you  spilling over with God-given chutzpah. Not arrogance; not violence; not ego or attitude: But humble, hopeful, resilient, defiance: For 'what can be overcome, must be overcome…God grant me the courage to chang...

This is Ronnie's fifth in a series of talks exploring the Book of Ecclesiastes alongside the work of Viktor Frankl. “If possible, we change our fate. If necessary, we willingly accept it…what can be overcome, must be overcome. What cannot be overcome, must be accepted. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” That sounds very much like words written...