Netarts Friends Church Podcast

I wouldn't call this talk a sermon or a teaching. It's a discovery and it's based on data. It's based on answers that the Netarts Friends Church family provided to questions about their own faith and doubts. We all have ideas about the best way out of or through our doubts. But like a mountain climber trying to scramble up an impossible ravine at the wrong place, we can end up wasting a lot of ene...

This episode introduces the things that have rocked the faith of Netarts Friends Church family the most. We will spend the rest of this series exploring various aspects of these doubts. Credits: Tim Geddert, Brian Zahnd, Greg Boyd, Adam Grant, Austin Fischer, Peter Enns, Moises Silva, and Chris Thyberg. All doubts shared by Netarts Friends Church family appear as shared unless slightly edited to h...

What if your life is mysteriously somehow a participation in the suffering death and resurrection of Jesus? How do you find your place in the various parts of the story? Music Credits: Tyler Chester and Michael Gungor For more information or to support this podcast visit www.netartsfriends.org (4/09/23)

The question is not IF you put God into a box. It is simply HOW you put God into a box, and if you are aware of the ways you put God into a box. We aren't all rigid in the same ways, but we are all rigid in some way. We do not try to keep the same kind of order, but we all have a drive to keep order in some way. In some way, we all put God into a box. God is always somehow bigger/broader/different...

We live in a world that expects educators and professionals to demystify the world and explain everything. We want to understand everything. We want the one right answer to every question. This episode invites you to explore the ancient path of learning that Jesus invited his disciples on. It invites you to embrace both the ancient and the new. Credits & Sources: Tim Geddert, Bruce Malina, Ric...

The stats say that the vast majority of people have nobody who they regularly confess their sins to. They are left carrying whatever sense of guilt, shame, and unforgiveness they carry alone. They are left to their own sense of forgiveness. Might we be suffering from that? What does it look like to imagine it differently? Credits & Sources: Justo Gonzalez, Brian Ross, Steve Cuss, Brian Zahnd,...

People's faith gets shattered on this stuff. Lives hang in the balance....and lives are changed and enriched positively by healing prayers. There are beautiful stories and tragic stories. This episode is not so much a declaration of the one way to understand prayers for healing in the midst of suffering as it is an exploration of what Scripture says and how God might meet us together in our variou...

It isn't a conservative thing or a liberal thing. It's a human thing. We tend to give our loyalty to systems and authorities. We want a home team. There are upsides and downsides (even dark sides) to blindly following the advice, suggestions, and instructions of those in authority. What does ancient Christian spirituality have to say about blindly following those in authority? Credits & Source...

We live in a world full of injustice. It's systemic, historic, personal, and private. It touches the food we eat, clothes we wear, financial systems, land we live on, and on and on. Facing injustice can be exhausting. It can be overwhelming. Sometimes you are caught in the middle of it. Sometimes you are looking on from the bleachers, from a position of privilege as other people's lives are torn a...

Use this short reflection on silence as an introduction to your own spiritual experience of silence and mediation. For more information or to support this podcast visit www.netartsfriends.org (1/29/23)

We all have things. Accumulating things is part of life. It's part of survival. Who's to say how much money you can have in the bank before it begins to destroy your soul? Who's to say how many pairs of shoes you can have before your heart begins to shrivel? Whether it's your vehicle, your home, or your bank account, we all have emotions underneath all of our "having". This episode explores these...

Planning. It's the fabric of our lives. Things can go so right, and so wrong. We all want to live in a world that we design, yet life is fragile. It can change in an instant. How does our drive to make plans, be consumers, and have cool experiences intersect with our spirituality? Credits & Sources: Herbert Kopp, Steven Runge, Pedrito U. Maynard-Reid, Elsa Tamez, Craig Keener, Gerhard Lenski,...

The way we feel about judgement certainly is a paradox. It's a contradiction. We long and ache for judgement. We want the wrongs to be made right. We don't want others to get away with things. We want to think of ourselves as "the good guys". And....we hate being judged. We hate people tearing down our character and assuming they know why we did what we did. We hate being spoken down to. Is there...

Life is full of mixed experiences where we want God, and we don't want God. This episode explores God's response when we are sending God all kinds of mixed and painful messages. Credits & Sources:  Herb Kopp, Craig Keener, Elsa Tamez, Pheme Perkins, Steven Runge, Peter Davids, Luke Timothy Johnson, Scot McKnight, John Stott, Craig Blomberg, Richard Rohr, Brad Jersak, Paul Young, Brian Ross, M...

Everyone handles conflict differently. We are all so different. How could it be possible to boil all conflict down to any root cause? This episode explores the ancient wisdom that finds a similar set of sources in every conflict. See if you cannot find these root causes within the latest conflict you have faced. Credits & Sources: Moises Silva, Steven Runge, Mort Fertel, Herb Kopp, Brian Ross,...

Life has a million new situations to navigate. Everyone wants to feel like they are smart and have a good plan. Everyone wants to tell themselves they are navigating with wisdom and expertise. But what if there are two different "wisdoms"? What if there is a wisdom from above and a wisdom from below? Sometimes what seemed like a good plan at the time turns lives into chaos and ruins community. Whe...

Words collect in us. They grow. They reverberate. They echo. They twist and distort our view of reality. We fail to realize the lethal and lifegiving power of words, and to treat them accordingly. Credits & Sources: Brad Jersak, Steve Cuss, Brian Ross, Richard Bauckham Mark Baker, Moises Silva, Pheme Perkins, Herb Kopp, Luke Timothy Johnson, Peter Davids, Scot McKnight, Ben Okri, Aida Spencer,...

You are on the path to spiritual maturity when you begin to recognize the gap between your stated values and your lived values. This episode explores this theme. Credits and Sources: Tanya Gazdik, Roger Dooley, Tom Stafford, Jack Loechner, Bob Smietana, Christopher Wright, Pheme Perkins, Luke Timothy Johnson, Scot McKnight, Peter Davids, Brian Ross, Steven Runge, Herb Kopp, Richard Bauckham, Aida...

How many times down through history have Christians been the ones responsible for discrimination, prejudice, and bias that has excluded and wounded vulnerable people? The ancient letter of James makes it clear that this tendency is nothing new, and that there is absolutely no substitute for loving your neighbor, and yes; everyone, every single person is your neighbor. Credits & Sources: Moises...

There's a popular meme/reel "Tell Me Without Telling Me..." You can find this meme/reel for all kinds of people: teachers, parents, millennials, weightlifters and on and on. What if you had to answer the meme, "Tell me you're a follower of Jesus without telling me." How would your answer line up with the way ancient and authentic followers of Jesus answered that question? Credits & Sources: Mi...

Some people seem like they will never change no matter what happens, no matter who begs them to change. Have you ever known someone who you thought would never change? What is it that causes a person to change? This story examines the aspects of who we are that are innate, inborn, native to our spirit that can eventually help us find the strength and motivation to change. Story by Aaron Carlson Cr...

Listening. It's hard work. We feel loved when others listen to us, and goodness, it's tough to give others the gift of our full attention! The even deeper layers dealing with our own ego and sense of right and wrong take the challenges of listening even further. In what way might the energy behind listening be connected to our experiences of God? Credits and Sources: Michael Frost, Herb Kopp, Bria...

We tend to either think of ourselves as good people who always do the right thing, or we beat ourselves up with shame. Do we ever really sort out what could actually help us find what is most lifegiving and sustaining for our well-being and the well-being of creation? Credits and Sources: Moises Silva, Lee Camp, Christian Miller, Thomas Merton, Brian Ross, Vern Hyndman, Ian Cron, Luke Timothy John...

Every culture has people who they elevate like mountains, and every culture has people who do not rise very far from the ground of society. There are those who are seen as impressive, valued, special, and unique. There are those who are set apart, marginalized, invisible, forgotten, denigrated, vilified, criminalized, and treated as less than. What does it mean to be a part of a counter-cultural c...

It's no longer just Bob Marley and Helen Keller telling us that our mind is a universe. It's astrophysicists and neurologists. But how do you navigate the universe of your mind? How do you find your North Star to navigate your own black holes and dark matter in the universe of your mind? Everyone wants to know "Who am I?" But your sense of "true self" is often a moving target. Can such a thing as...