The ChurchNext Podcast

For many Christians, their great beauty has the power to elevate our minds into contemplation of the majesty of our Lord, the glory of the created universe, and our connection with the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us. The power of stained glass windows lies in their effects on the senses and the heart as well as the brain. Like a good story, stained glass windows speak to us on multiple...

Resources: Contemplative Knitting (2021) by Julie Cicora Knitting Into the Mystery: A Guide to the Shawl-Knitting Ministry (2003) by Susan S. Jorgensen and Susan S. Izard Knit One, Purl a Prayer: A Spirituality of Knitting (2011) by Peggy Rosenthal ChurchNext related courses: Praying in Color with Sybil MacBeth Developing a Rule of Life with Hillary Raining With Gladness: 5 Weeks of Holy Practices...

Sun. Soil. Water. Perhaps it's close communion with the elements of our earthly lives that gives many gardeners a deeper sense of God. In this episode, author, retreat leader, and gardener Christine Sine offers us dynamic insight into what the simple labor of a gardener has to do with the God who fashioned the first humans from the soil and made a home for them in a garden. Christine discusses God...

Susan Goff is a bishop, preacher, and teacher in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. If you'd like to learn more about Susan's work, visit the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia's website, http://www.thediocese.net/ . If you’re interested in learning more about seeking the resurrected Jesus in scripture and in culture, check out our other ChurchNext courses, What is Resurrection with Lucas Mix and, Viol...

To learn more about Hillary's work, visit https://www.hillaryraining.com/.  To learn more about ChurchNext, visit churchnext.tv If you’re interested in learning more about developing a rule of life, check out our other ChurchNext courses, Praying the Examen with Chris Anderson and Introducing Benedictine Spirituality with Laurel Dahill. 

Many believe slavery ended in the nineteenth century, but 40 million people across the world live in slavery today. As the Director of Church Mobilization for the International Justice Mission, Richard Lee knows a great deal about contemporary slavery -- why it is allowed to exist; how it thrives. Richard spends much of his time speaking out on behalf of people who cannot speak for themselves. In...

If you are interested in more of Maggi’s work, visit her website, maggidawn.net . Check out her books, including The Accidental Pilgrim , Giving it Up , and Beginnings and Endings . If you’re interested in learning more about Lent or learning through a Lenten curriculum, check out our other ChurchNext courses, Lent for Families with Kim Baker, A Spring in the Desert with Frank and Victoria Logue,...

It is the first and the shortest of the four Gospels, as most experts believe, and if you like getting right to the point, no other writer does it quite as well as St. Mark. The Gospel of Mark is the account of Jesus’ life and ministry that most influenced the other three gospels. In this episode we’ll learn: Who was Mark? To whom was Mark writing? What are the main themes in Mark? How should Mark...

Read When Breath Becomes Air (2016), neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi's memoir about his struggle with a sudden diagnosis of the stage IV lung cancer that eventually took his life. In this book, he describes his change from a neurosurgeon helping patients survive to a cancer patient confronting death. You might also try The Good Death (2016) in which Ann Neumann, a visiting scholar at the Center for Re...

We all have an eating disorder. These words are as startling as they are true. Food, for most of us, is more than just a way to feed our bodies, but it feeds us in a myriad of other ways as well. In this episode, priest, author, and teacher Martha Tatarnic, who wrote a book on the subject, leads us in a discussion of the spiritual implications of our modern diet.  This course is ideal for those lo...

Preparation and anticipation are in the air - and not just for gifts and meals - but for Christ to meet us anew in the holy season of Advent. Episcopal bishop and teacher Susan Goff leads us through a meditation on Christ who came, Christ who comes, and Christ who will come again. She invites us to take on some practical and inspiring disciplines in this season, and to contemplate more fully what...

Advent is a season of preparation and anticipation that readies Christians for the birth of the baby Jesus at Christmas and also for Christ's second coming. In this course we will learn not just more about what advent is, but how it can change our lives.

Forgiving others can be the most important activity of our lives. But it doesn't have to be. Author and speaker Rob Voyle knows a lot about forgiveness. In his books and seminars he argues that letting go of an offense is easier than most people think, if they're able to keep in mind some elemental truths. In this episode, Rob unpacks his ideas on forgiveness. Those who are looking to move past fo...

In this episode of the ChurchNext podcast, we're talking about fake news and how to discern spiritual truth as we live in an age of misinformation. In today's world of alternative facts, followers of Jesus must have a clear means of assessing what's real and what's not. Today we'll learn how we can do that.

The 2020 election may be the most contentious in modern history. Battle lines have been drawn and many people are convinced their party and their candidate are the only alternative to national chaos. Ray Suarez knows a lot about contentious political landscapes. He also knows a great deal about faith. As an award-winning journalist, college instructor, and outspoken Episcopalian, he has written a...

Chris Anderson lives by the Examen. He's written a book about the subject, and says the practice is super-simple to begin, offering a treasure trove of insight that can improve our lives.  This podcast will introduce you to the Examen and help you to deepen your prayer life.

For many people, no writing style touches their souls more deeply than poetry. This is why it is fitting to link poetry with our prayer life. In this episode, using poems from the biblical, classical, and modern genres, author and poetry instructor Dave Worster shows us how the words of poetry can bring us deeper communication with God.  

Learn about Benedictine spirituality and how writing a personal rule of life based on the principles of the Rule of St. Benedict can improve your life. The Rev. Laurel Dahill offers us background and practical advice on how to live in the world in a Benedictine way.

Reconciliation without repentance and reparation is simply not enough to bring about the gains in racial healing that so many Americans desire. In this episode, as well as in her popular book, Dear White Christians , her blog, and in her classroom, Jennifer Harvey, author and Professor of Religion at Drake University, argues that the popular 'reconciliation' paradigm needs to be replaced with one...

The journey toward resisting racial injustice in North America cannot be fully undertaken without a grasp of the theological implications underlying both its origins and development, says speaker, author, theologian and Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University, J. Kameron Carter. In this episode, Dr. Carter explains many of the theological underpinnings of racial injustice in the U.S.,...

Whiteness is more than a privilege in North America. It is a deeply seated obstacle to many. Removing it can lead to the racial justice for which so many people yearn. Learn about the history of whiteness and how the dominance and privilege of whiteness impact our desire to bring racial healing to society. The Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, Dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminar...

In our first episode in this series, author and pastor David Lose discussed looking at the cross and making sense of it through the context of our own experiences. In the second episode, he talked about the cross in the context of the four gospels and the different ways in which each of the evangelists presents the cross. In this final episode, David discusses three major theological views of the...

The most profound event of human history is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Far more people are puzzled about the Cross than would claim to understand it. In this second of our 3-part series on making sense of the cross, author, theologian, and pastor David Lose helps us unpack the most helpful information we need to make sense of this life-changing event. In this episode, Dr. Lose tal...

The most profound event of human history is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Far more people are puzzled about the cross than would claim to understand it. In this episode, author, theologian, and pastor David Lose inspires us to think deeply about what Jesus' cross might mean to you and me. David says that the best way to make sense of the cross is not through theories but through expe...

Perhaps the most dangerous attitude adopted after the Civil Rights era was that racial equality had finally come to America. That's what activist, author, and Duke University professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva contends. He was involved in the  Trinity Institute's 2016 conference, Listen for a Change: Sacred Conversations for Racial Justice . He says a new kind of racism has taken hold of American soc...