The Brown Line Church Podcast

Today's prayer guide leads us in a self-reflection practice.

Today's prayer guide helps us listen to our bodies, hearts, minds, and souls.

Today's prayer guide is a practice in praying for others.

Today's prayer guide leads us in a breathing prayer.

Today our prayer guide kicks off featuring the song "Dust We Are and Shall Return" by the Brilliance

On the weekend of Valentine’s Day, Kyle and a panel of folks from our church help us relieve the pressure everyone feels about romance being what will complete us. (For single people, of course, but also for partnered people!) Unfortunately, churches have reinforced this pressuring message just as much as 90s Disney movies, pop music, Hollywood, etc, and just called it “Biblical”. But it’s not!

You are (or could be) exercising creativity more than you think. And that is more spiritually good for you than you think. Kyle, Rebecca, Isaac, and Maria share their experience.

Being with yourself is not always easy. But being with yourself and being with God are linked. This week, Hayley guides us through two common spiritual practices that many of us may use already in our hopes to more comfortably "be with ourselves", and equips us with a fresh prompt for the weeks ahead.

Felt connection with God (not just going through the motions of religion) can be fleeting and hard to find one's way into -- even when we're not in the midst of a pandemic and winter -- and even for people who have had a prayer life for many years -- and even for people who have experienced it in the past but don't currently. Vince shares about an approach to prayer that can help many and that uti...

First... a brief comment on MLK weekend. Then... most of the reading we do day-in, day-out is reactive: The news of what just happened or the latest takes and opinions on the world. And that’s not necessarily bad. But what we have to be more intentional about to work into our diet is non-reactive reading: Reading that forms us, inspires us, or challenges us, separate from our never-ending news fee...

We put on hold our scheduled topic for last Sunday in light of what we all witnessed happen at the Capitol. How do we respond as people trying to take their cues from Jesus? As people of faith and good will? As people trying to pursue justice and inclusion and truth?

Vince kicks off our new series by teaching us a spiritual practice called "Lectio Divina" -- reading with the intent to experience the divine (rather than reading with the intent to study or understand). We try it out with two passages from the Bible: a personal interaction with Jesus and a story of protest from the Old Testament.

Last Sunday we hosted a communal online experience meant to offer each of us some spiritual help in our individual journeys of leaving behind what constricts us and embracing promise for the future. Our sense is, as we turn the page on 2020, this past year has been full of chances for constricting lies, traumas, thoughts, beliefs, or vows to make their way into us and start to take up residence.

Full recording of our virtual kid-friendly take on the traditional Anglican Christmas Carols Service — carols, readings, a brief reflection, and prayer. (Art by Janet McKenzie)

For many of the problems we are personally navigating, there are no simple solutions. Because many problems don't come down to isolated issues, they come down to the systems of our society or religion or government (or family unit even) themselves. Special guest Cara Carothers, an advocate for educational equity, joins us to talk about how we can hope and fight even so.

The winter ahead feels certain to be long for lots of reasons: fatigue, disconnection, loneliness, loss. And the reactions we may have to all this are those often associated with grief: anger, denial, bargaining, and feelings of depression or defeat. Special guest Erica Coates, professional counselor and friend of BLC, offers some spiritual/mental health principles that can help us grow hope withi...

For some of us, America's political divide hits very close to home. BLC's Christina Culver and Kyle Hanawalt discuss how faith can offer a way to feel hope about the future even if we never experience someone changing their mind. When is it right to say something, and when is it right to not? What are healthy boundaries to protect that hope?

Optimism is great! It's what we feel when external signs point toward a better future. But hope is internal (spiritual even); it's not dependent on external good news. Hope is more resilient. Many Advent reflections point to two figures from the Bible who had profound experiences of hope being sparked inside them: Simeon and Anna. How might they encourage us this year?

BLC stakeholder Elizabeth reflects on finding comfort from God in the midst of grief. Part of our value on emotionally healthy spirituality is trying to provide meaningful experiences of ceremony or ritual for people who otherwise wouldn’t have that, so once a year we set aside a Sunday to remember and grieve loved ones lost by people in our community. Jesus, the God acquainted with grief, is an i...

We are not bad or faulty for needing to brush our teeth everyday; it's just good hygiene. Likewise, we are not bad or faulty for having to lay down the same burdens continually, for having to pray regularly for the same resolve again and again, for needing the same thing we did yesterday; that's just good spiritual hygiene.

What is caring for our spiritual health as a community that feels a mix of relief (that Trump did not win), moved (to have our first ever woman of color vice president), AND hurt or disappointed (that the message delivered by the election results was not as resolute as hoped)?

It’s no surprise that white American Christianity has chosen Donald Trump as its leader when for decades its prevailing use for Jesus on the Cross has been “motivation by fear of punishment from a strongman, violent God”. What an unhealthy, worthless picture of God! BLC stakeholder Abby Dye helps us discover Jesus on the Cross as a totally different (and inspiring) picture of God that models a tot...

With last week's news about so many families still separated on the US-Mexico border we feel a renewed need to educate ourselves on what we can do and find hope for change in Jesus, the God who identifies with outsiders. Special guest Sami DiPasquale, who works on the border in El Paso & Ciudad Juarez, is interviewed by friend of BLC Val Buchanan, as we continue try to shift the American narra...

#DefundCPD's message is "the safest neighborhoods have more resources, not more police." Yet, one day of Chicago's budget for police ($4 million!) accounts for 32 months of its budget for Violence Protection Programs. BLC stakeholders Laura & Leicester Mitchell share with us about "Jesus, the revolutionary" and their work with #DefundCPD, as we continue to try to shift the American narrative a...

Constant movement instead of strict adherence, defending those without power instead of those with power -- BLC's old friend Joey Rodil shows us how Jesus' descriptions and modeling of his own mission can help shift our narrative about faith (and our experience of it) away from typical white American Christian notions.