The Invitation

Let's return to prayer, to longing and expectation with our strength during Advent. In this meditation, Josh offers a short meditation of praying with the soul. We attended to our bodies in the previous episode. We are bodies. We are also souls. This is the fifth of a six-part series of Advent meditations using the Invitation prayer guide, 40 Ways to Spend 5 Minutes with God. This prayer guide, fi...

Let's return to prayer, to longing and expectation with our strength during Advent. In this meditation, Josh offers a short meditation of praying with our strength, in and through our bodies. This is the fourth of a six-part series of Advent meditations using the Invitation prayer guide, 40 Ways to Spend 5 Minutes with God. This prayer guide, first written in 2015 has been substantially re-written...

Let's return to prayer, to longing and expectation in our MINDS during Advent. In this meditation, Josh offers a short meditation of praying with the heart. This is the second of a six-part series of Advent meditations using the Invitation prayer guide, 40 Ways to Spend 5 Minutes with God. This prayer guide, first written in 2015 has been substantially re-written with new prayer practices and Bibl...

Let's return to prayer, to longing and expectation in our hearts during Advent. In this meditation, Josh offers a short meditation of praying with the heart. This is the second of a six-part series of Advent meditations using the Invitation prayer guide, 40 Ways to Spend 5 Minutes with God. This prayer guide, first written in 2015 has been substantially re-written with new prayer practices and Bib...

In this episode, Josh offers the first of a six-part series of Advent meditations using the Invitation prayer guide, 40 Ways to Spend 5 Minutes with God. This prayer guide, first written in 2015 has been substantially re-written. You can download a digital copy of the guide at https://theinvitationcenter.org/downloads The Invitation is a spirituality center that creates time and space for God at t...

Josh and Greg explore Greg's discernment to divest his ordination, leave local church ministry to explore different creative approaches to healing racism. Previously Greg had described his mission in the three elements of the political, the contemplative, and the convivial. Here in part two Greg casts the vision of moving from repentance to reparations to reconciliation to repast. Start at @17:00...

In this episode Josh opens up a conversation with Greg Thompson about his book co-authored with Duke Kwon, Reparations: A Christian Call to Repentance & Repair. Yet in the process of attempting to create a conversation about healing the ravages of white supremacy, Josh is confronted with his own personal instability. Does he belong to himself enough to be able to steward for others conversations a...

Josh has a conversation with his best friend about their 30+ years of spiritual friendship since they met at summer camp in middle school. This episode is a co-release with the Awakening, a worship/arts camp for high school students based at Hope College. Promo vid: https://youtu.be/6-aewn-cgIo For more information about the Awakening: https://hope.edu/awakening/ To subscribe to the Invitation for...

Part II of the third conversation between Cami Beercroft Mann and Josh Banner for the series, the Forum on Spiritual Direction. We continue to tease out the meaning of the thesis of this series that spiritual direction can solve (almost) all of our problems.

Part I of the third conversation between Cami Beercroft Mann and Josh Banner for the series, the Forum on Spiritual Direction. We continue to tease out the meaning of the thesis of this series that spiritual direction can solve (almost) all of our problems. There are a few spots open for those wanting to spend time engaging the Forum on Spiritual Direction in a retreat format at St Gregory's Abbey...

This is our second full conversation of the Forum on Spiritual Direction where we continue to discern the focus question for discernment, "Can Spiritual Direction Solve (Almost) All of Our Problems?" Cami and I engage in an extended contemplative conversation to discern and tease out the dignifying nature of spiritual direction. This is to say we talk about the practice of spiritual direction by p...

Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems. Can it? This episode something of an experiment for the Forum on Spiritual Direction. As I have struggled to accept my own failures, I offer some of my weaknesses and questions with you as an opportunity to explore the focus question of this series: can spiritual direction solve (almost) all of the world's problems? This episode t...

Part II of what we are now calling a "prelude" to our new series, The Forum on Spiritual Direction. We continue to discuss can direction solve (almost) all of the world's problems? In this episode we move from considering Josh to focus on Cami's story, how she came to the practice of direction and how her practice is especially trauma informed. You are invited to engage at least two zoom conversat...

Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems. Can it? This is the first part of two episodes introducing our new series, the Invitation "Forum on Spiritual Direction' where Cami Mann and Josh Banner invite you into a long conversation to consider the vital, healing need of contemplative listening especially today. In this forum Josh and Cami attempt to talk about spiritual di...

Josh offers some updates on the Invitation and shares more about what he is learning in and through the School of Prayer, how it is formed around what he experienced over the six years praying with a group of men in a prison while facilitating the Spiritual Exercises. Here Josh identifies how Christianity can function much more like a 12-Step addiction recovery program. For more info: https://thei...

Zach Winters surprised the Banner's with a little concert after sharing a meal with us. Zach's sung version of Psalm 23 has helped Josh and Susanna for several years. It was a gift to sit with him, with his music and share good conversation. Pt II will include Josh's continued conversation with Zach after the kids went to bed. Josh and Zach talk about the incredible help of music and the arts to c...

This is part seven of our series, "White People Talking to White People About Racism," a reading of Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance & Repair by Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson. In this episode the Rev Julie Van Til helps Josh unpack chapter three. Subscribe to the Invitation: theinvitationcenter.org/subscribe About our summer podcast series: theinvitationcenter.org/reparations-b…ok-discus...

Before we can actively be a part of healing the ravages of white supremacy, we have to learn to care, to be invested. This whole series, "White People Talking to White People About Racism, A Reading of Reparations: A Christian Call to Repentance and Repair by Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson," this is our chance to slow down, listen, pray, and grow in our capacity to care for the work of healing before...

The Rev Bryan Berghoef helps Josh unpack "Seeing the Reality of White Supremacy," chapter 3 of Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance & Repair. We are releasing this especially on the occasion of the 4th of July weekend because chapter two begins with Fredrick Douglas' speech on the 4th of July, 1852. Bryan Berghoef is someone Josh has been excited to get to know for some time. He is an Amer...

The Rev Kate Kooyman helps Josh unpack “The Call to See,” chapter one of Reparations. This call, this invitation to reparations is a discipline of seeing. Chapters one and two of our book this summer are intensive opportunities for us to see the white supremacy that pervades America, the church, and even our own families, homes, and careers. With the honesty and clarity of a spiritual director, Kw...

My wife, Susanna Childress, helps me respond to the introduction of Reparations. The idea is to let each chapter breathe a bit, to find ways to open ourselves to God in the reading and in the discussion. Susanna is especially able to help us think about how immersing ourselves in the writings of people of color can help us grow into people who will want to attend to the work of reparations. She is...

Josh and Dr Jesse Curtis touch on some of the big ideas in the introduction to Reparations, but mainly they admire the careful yet bold while also pastoral tone of the book we’ve chosen for our summer read and discussion. Jesse Curts begins his contribution by sharing from his own journey, how he learned from his early mistakes and learned the goodness of experiencing God in and through his steep...

To stay up to date with our summer series, "White People Talking to White People About Racism," please subscribe: https://theinvitationcenter.org/subscribe To learn more about the series: https://theinvitationcenter.org/reparations-book-discussion The Rev. Dr. Denise Kingdom Grier offers a bold, honest, and frank discernment of the racism in America and the white church. Her courageous testimony p...

Unedited audio of Josh’s conversation with Kenda Creasy Dean, the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Seminary. This content was created to support and deepen the Awakening, a summer week-long experience in the worship arts at Hope College that Josh serves as Director of Discipleship.

In this episode Josh Banner continues the Awakening’s collaboration with the Invitation Podcast as we further explore our focus question: what does a 16-year-old have to teach the church? Here, Josh borrows from a conversation he recently had with Kenda Creasy Dean, the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Seminary, to encourage parents and teens to share their true...