Netarts Friends Church Podcast

Luke 8:1-3 Who am I? What does it mean to be me? People wrestle with this question when they are young, in adulthood, through midlife crises, in retirement, and even at the end of life. We find ourselves trying to be someone we are not. Copying someone else. Believe our inner critic. Riddled by anxiety and self-doubt. Slaves to ego and pride. Bombarded by voices telling us that we are what we own,...

What do you do when your heart is in the right place despite your deficiencies, brokenness and flaws, but it isn't enough? Others are focused on your past. They only see the negative and what you are currently “getting wrong”. What do you do when your best isn’t enough? Credits & Sources: Kenneth E. Bailey, Craig Keener, Bruce Malina, Richard Rohrbaugh, David Wenham, Luise Schottroff, Edwin M....

But what about "goodnewsing"? There are a myriad of reasons that a lot of Christians don't intentionally practice any kind of evangelism, and there are many non-Christians who hope a Christian won't try to evangelize them. This episode explores the ways that regular people actually come to faith in Jesus. Credits & Sources: Brian Ross, Leonard Sweet, Brian Zahnd, Tim Geddert, Dallas Willard, S...

A lot of people want God to prepare the way for them. They want God to lead them. There is a kind of knowing, a kind of wisdom that God wants you to catch, but you can't catch it by standing still. This episode explores the way God prepares the way for us, and how we respond and catch what God is doing. Credits & Sources: Leonard Sweet, Justo Gonzalez, Fred Craddock, Walter Brueggeman, Alan Cu...

Why is it that we say one thing, but if we could peel back the layers of the onion, if we could look for the thing underneath the thing, if we could get to what is actually going on- We would find something else. Our deeper questions are often much more simply and much more vulnerable. Why is it so hard to say the thing underneath all the layers to begin with? What does Jesus do when you are prayi...

You long to be seen. You long for someone to feel the way that the world hits you. The way it hits your body. But people only partially see you. You end up having to explain yourself. You have to tell people what happened. You have to tell people how it feels. All of that can be so exhausting. Words fall so short of capturing the way it actually hits you. You can end up feeling like you have to ju...

Are there moments in your life that take Jesus' breath away? Are there moments in your life that cause Jesus' jaw to go slack, and cause him to marvel in the wonder of your faith? And...are any of those moments the times that you would expect Jesus to be impressed, or are they completely....other? What might it do within you to hear Jesus say, "You have such incredible faith!" Credits and Sources:...

The storms that knock you down come from unexpected places. Sometimes you are flooded by circumstances. Sometimes by emotions. There are storms you never imagined and weren't prepared for. Sometimes they are big. Sometimes they are small. Sometimes they pile up. Everyone gets the storm they weren't prepared for. This episode explores what Jesus has to say about your experiences of getting flooded,...

What do you do when the way you are showing up in the word is putting a bad taste in other people's mouth (and even in your mouth)? What do you do when the same struggle or problem keeps on coming up in your life over and over again? This episode helps you explore the things you are storing up in your heart and how they are affecting you. Credits & Sources: Steve Cuss, Bessel Van Der Kolk, Elv...

This episode will help you explore your own internal world, how you are thinking about the people you want to judge the most, how you relate to what Jesus has to say, and what Jesus might have to offer that could change everything. Credits & Sources: Steve Cuss, R. Robert Creech, Murray Bowen, William R. Herzog, Gerhard Lenski, Scot McKnight, Craig Keener, Donald Kraybill, Alan Culpepper, Ian...

Transactions are the bedrock of social functions. They are what make the world go around " Buy. Sell. Exchange. Barter. Trade. A Favor for a favor. I'll give you this in exchange for that." What happens when love is reduced to a favor for a favor, and do we even realize when this is happening? This episode explores how immersed our thinking, motivations, behavior and relationships are in transacti...

This episode will stretch you. No matter what you think about whether or not violence should be considered as a potential solution, no matter what you think about all of the problems in the world, if you would engage these words of Jesus seriously-they would change you. Credits and Sources: "Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed" by Philip Hallie, Preston Sprinkle, Holocaust Encyclopedia, Scot McKnight. For...

Notice, there's an asterisk on the title. We come as far as we think we can come, as far as we want to come, as far as we were told we could come, as far as we are able to come. This is where all of the real story telling happens. When we come, we show up with a history, a mess, with very human problems, and with everything that makes us human: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Credits and Sources:...

Life is full of forks in the road and choices. We pray and we choose. Sometimes it seems crystal clear what we should do, and sometimes it doesn't. What do you do when you pray your head off, and then make a choice, you invest, you love, you risk everything; and then everything that could go wrong-does go wrong? What do you do then? What do you tell yourself? Credits & Sources: Vern Hyndman, F...

Everyone wants their interpretation of Scripture to be THE interpretation of Scripture? It's a human tendency that is centuries, even millennia old. Who gets to interpret Scripture and actually has authority to say, "This is what this story means!" Credits and Sources: Edwin M. Yamauchi. D. Instone-Brewer, Ambrose of Milan, Mishnah, Richard Rohrbaugh,Bruce Malina, Justo Gonzalez, Greg Boyd, Fred C...

What do a gardener, a ghost, a distant observer, and a foreigner all have in common? And what does this silly little riddle have to do with the nitty gritty of real life? In what way do we find ourselves living in this silly little riddle all the time? For more information or to support this podcast visit www.netartsfriends.org (04/18/24)

What do you do when things feel too far gone? When you feel blocked from what your heart is thirsting for? When it feels like the snowball has rolled to far down the wrong side of the mountain? When you are just trying to survive, cope, and self-soothe? Credits & Sources: Mark D. Baker, Eric Miller, Robert Linthicum, Sherri Nozik, Moises Silva, Louw and Nida, Brian Ross, Eugene Lowry, Alan Cul...

This Easter episode explores the different kinds of stories that people tell about what's going on in the world. Credits & Sources: Brian Ross, Justo Gonzalez, Francis Spufford, N.T. Wright, Bessl Van Der Kolk, ACE Study, OHCHR,IDMC, The World Bank, World Poverty Clock, Lisa Cron, Kenneth Tanner, Jacopo Pasotti, Elisabetta Zavoli, Worldhunger.org, International Labour Organization. For more in...

Easter mini-series Part Two. We all have blind spots. We can't conceive of anything different. This episode walks you through the ideas about suffering that the disciples of Jesus could not begin to imagine differently, and also invites you to reflect on what you believe about suffering, and how that might be impacting your experiences of suffering. Credits & Sources: Moises Silva, David Stein...

This one includes an Easter challenge/experiment that I hope you will engage. It has been the practice that has opened many people's eyes to see Jesus, reality, Scripture, and this entire world in a whole new way. If you feel like your life story or this world's story isn't going where you wish it was going, this short series and the experiments suggested are worth your time. Credits & Sources...

Have you ever done something with the very best of intentions, but most people think you made a complete mess? Part of the human experience is feeling misunderstood and misinterpreted. Like nobody really gets you. If you have a friend who's super intelligent, but they can't interpret you, how deep can that friendship go? We all long for someone who interprets us, and can see what's under the surfa...

This episode explores many dimensions of the experience of ancient lepers. It also explores the ways that we think of "lepers" similarly to how we think of "leopards" or other zoo animals (as something exotic, endangered, or extinct) rather than thinking of them as the kind of person we will probably see every day of the week. In what way does this way of seeing the Gospels and the world cause the...

This isn't only Simon Peter's story. Your story is wrapped up in this story. Over and over in a hundred different ways the Spirit of Jesus beckons you: "Follow me." What does this mean to you? This episode isn't meant to "tell you what to do." It is intended to help you find your place in this story and listen to Jesus calling you to follow him today. Whatever happens next is up to you. Credits &a...

We all assess threats. We all have a limbic system. We all struggle to regulate our emotions and our bodies at times. We move into attempts to escape reality, or control reality. Either way we chose, the farther we go into these tendencies, the more our life happens at the expense of others. What way does Jesus show us out of this vicious cycle? Credits & Sources: Kenneth Tanner, Leonard Sweet...

Our world can explain almost anything. It doesn't matter whether you are wrestling with an addiction, a parenting struggle, financial struggle, weight loss, relationship struggle, or something else; you hear in a million different sound bites every day that whatever help you need can be found in yourself. "Just access these tools. You just need this information." Information is so important, and s...