The Unorthodox Gatherings

The community in which you reside is one of the most sacred things about this life, and yet, we are being drastically pulled away from it. Each of us has a particular community, filled with specific people, plants, animals, and environments that are a balm for moments of chaos, and the fulfillment of what's most meaningful. Jesus called it The Kingdom of Heaven. How do we get back to it? This...

In today's episode we look at some localized stories of nonviolent action people have taken in response to tremendous violence we've seen in the world. We can fall victim the belief that if nonviolence doesn't solve big problems, it's meaningless, but nonviolent action is like grains of sand that alone seem insignificant, but when brought together create a tremendous, lasting force...

In this episode we're going to look at Martin Luther King Jr.'s principles of nonviolence as a way to explore the question: is violence futile? Our conversation on nonviolence gets into some of the struggle we have around the concept of redemptive violence. We've been raised to believe there are moments where violence is necessary and so the question remains: is it?

I'm going to say something as explicitly as I can. If you are going to call yourself a Christian, nonviolence is fundamental to that identity. The problem? As a nation, we are addicted to violence. And we've manipulated Christianity to adapt to that addiction for hundreds of years. We start a new series with this episode, not just looking at nonviolence as a fundamental of Christianity, bu...

We come to the last episode of our Last Week series and we talk about the penultimate question: what is the meaning of Easter? This series has meant to respond to that question from the first episode of the series to the last episode, because the gospel writer of Mark is clear: you can't answer that question without the full picture. Many of us were raised with the belief that Easter is about...

The Harrowing of Hell is famous in medieval paintings and depictions in some of the oldest churches across the world. Yet, it's not mentioned anywhere in the Gospels, nor in any of Paul's authentic letters. So where did this early tradition come from detailing the lone day between Jesus' death and resurrection? The origin is a lot deeper than one might guess, going all the way to the o...

One of the most accepted doctrines within Christianity is the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. But here's the thing: when you take Mark's gospel, the earliest of the 4 gospels, nowhere does Mark make this claim, and rhetorically, he is saying something The Church has gotten wrong for hundreds of years. Today's episode will look at how Mark answers the age-old question: Why did...

As we get closer to Easter Sunday, we finally start the story of Maundy Thursday. But here's the problem: most of this stuff comes from John's Gospel. John's Gospel doesn't have the last supper during Passover, nor does he have the words of institution. John seems to be making big theological statements that the Synoptic Gospels don't include. Which means our Holy Week Liturgy...

Fewer moments in the gospels elicit both misunderstanding and tremendous contrast of what the gospel means on doesn't mean than the woman with the alabaster jar. A moment that was twisted by the Church to turn this unnamed woman into a prostitute, a broken individual, a person who only prioritizes worshipping Christ over following Christ, all to detract from who she really is: The First True C...

Honestly, it's hard to imagine that The Church missed the point of Jesus' "Cleansing of the Temple" in particular and his last week in Jerusalem as a whole. The glaring point is this and it needs to be understood implicitly by all: worship is never a substitute for justice. In this episode we go through Mark's story of the cleansing of the temple and a plethora of stories tha...

Every Gospel writer has a purpose for their story beyond simply recounting details. Mark's gospel, the earliest of the 4, is the only one that details every day of Jesus last week, and there's a purpose to his story that The Church has missed for centuries. We begin a new series looking at this last week through the rhetorical lens of Mark, in the hopes of understanding how this story continues to...

Many people aren't aware of this, but there was a massive and intentional shift in the perception in which Christianity is centered in the early 20th century. Two oil magnates paid theologians to write what was known as the Fundamentalist Essays, creating the Five Fundamentals of Christianity, altering the way the word "Gospel" would be understood and used from then on. None of the F...

An ambiguous and oft used word or phrase thrown around by pastors and speakers is truth or biblical truth. We must all guard it, embrace it, and express it. But what is it? Rarely defined, but often used. A ploy to firm up the speakers own bias. However, our understanding of what truth is today comes more from Aristotle and Plato than it does the Bible. Today we ask that question together, What is...

You'll hear the preacher talk about standing firm in Biblical Truth, defending the Gospel, avoiding sin. You'll hear it so frequently, you'll be afraid to ask the question, What do you mean by that word? In Christianity words are used so frequently, it's as though everyone should know the definition of the word, but in reality, the word is used ambiguously, and this is on purpose....

The conclusion to our series on Process Theology is the best! How does this theology become applicable in our real lives, our prayers, our response to injustice, etc. This is a theology for today's world that knows the opposite of faith is certainty, but how do we navigate life with the divine in an uncertain world.

God is process, event, verb, relationship! This is the essence of Process Theology and it responds to God in our day. Today's episode highlights some critiques of the classical language of God and brings to light a new way of consideration and being.

We are all theologians whether we know it or not. We're meaning-making creatures and we go to many sources to make that meaning. For many of us, we left either conservative Christianity or Christianity in general b/c the classical doctrines of God no longer held up to the pain and suffering we saw. Today marks the start of a new series, lead by Erik Winn, on Process Theology, or the idea that...

It's hard to wrap up everything this series has explored, especially as it asks us to genuinely reflect on and make changes to ourselves. As we wrap this series, there's one question that I believe helps us get to the core in a unique way to each of us: If you had 24 hours left to live, how would you spend that time? I hope as you listen to this episode, you answer this question for yourse...

In this episode we talk about something that might be the most important aspect for an individual: How do we find resolve in the midst of despair and loss. Whether it's personal grief in our lives our it's facing an uncertain future with the climate, how do we find the resolve to not just curl up in a ball? The truth is, no matter what, beauty is everywhere and there's plenty to connec...

This episode really has two distinct parts. The first part rejoins the perspective of the Bible as texts written by indigenous people called to live in relationship with creator and land, and the consequences of straying from those paths. The second part moves into the emotions of the heart and calls us to face the death of the planet and/or life around us with the hope that the time we have becom...

It's easy enough to look at people who stand on the other side of the spectrum of climate data and say they need to remove their rose-colored glasses, but do we notice our own rose-colored glasses. Most of us still live in a world where we may intellectually know we live in an interconnected web, but are we truly in relationship with life around us? One of the best things we can do is read the...

Last Episode we talked about some pretty heavy stuff as we confronted the four scenarios to which data points the direction of our world. This episode we look at how our brains are wired to deal with crises like those scenarios, for better or worse, and then we move to the place that grief can play in all this, if we allow it. NOTE: There is a clip of the ending scene from Adam McKay's film, D...

Almost all of us have spent the last few decades coming to terms with scientific data around climate change and what the future holds. This series is not about convincing people with data, or looking at a plan of action for us not in national leadership positions, but how do we, as the every day person, find our community, find courage, find compassion to move forward, whatever that may be. This s...

We are lucky to have Alexis Donkin leading us in a series on World Religions. This week covers Christianity, the largest religion in the world. ***Unfortunately, we have not been able to record every episode in this series. We've missed Judaism and Islam. We will do our best to record the rest***

Honestly, the mark of the beast in Revelation 13 is just silly, and the way people have utilized this text to point to contemporary figures is even sillier. But this intensely misinterpreted part of Revelation has a significant enough effect on people today that it's important to use this as a great example of Biblical ignorance allied with power can lead to great harm.