Sorting or categorizing the world into good-bad or in-out is a deeply ingrained human behavior, evolutionarily, meant for protection from danger. But this instinct can easily turn into scapegoating or exclusion. Is the religion of Jesus just another example of that? Or can living it out push us beyond the in-out mentality? (Art: book cover of Scapegoats, by Jennifer Garcia Bashaw)
Read MoreRecent scholarship suggests powerful parallels between today's Pride Movements and the resistance of violence and domination and exclusion in 1st and 2nd century Imperial Rome by some early Jesus communities, namely how they both push the boundaries of gender.
Read MoreOne tension it feels we must hold to live life well is (on one side) pursuing ideals, and (on the other side) choosing to embrace what is true right now and maybe can't be ideal. Hayley and Kyle discuss how to do that well without losing our minds or succumbing to cynicism.
Read MoreIn relationships, it’s experiences above all that build trust. The same is true for relationship with God, so we want to consider together: what personal experiences have shown you God might be all-loving? If you grew up religious, you may have been taught that you can’t trust your experience, because you’ll just make God in your own image, and that’s why you need a strict set of beliefs. We hope to show you otherwise!
Read MoreEven though he didn’t grow up spiritual, Vince found himself experiencing faith in a powerful way as he reached college age. But he slowly started to feel like a cultural outsider in churches. That led to some tension… until he discovered a new way to think about faith.
Read MoreNo… End of talk… Just kidding… But maybe asking about why life is or isn’t fair is the wrong question in a lot of ways. Kyle wonders if underneath questions of fairness is the human tendency toward comparison, and offers some suggestions on what we can do about that and some examples of prayer that might help.
Read MoreLiving to prove ourselves is exhausting. St. Paul and modern psychological research on shame & vulnerability both demonstrate this. The better alternative is one of the great tasks of life to learn to live out, but it can change communities from the inside out.
Read MoreIn a jumble of plenty of negative experiences with church, there has been a noteworthy thread through Kyle's life of experiences of feeling unconditional loved by something outside of himself. What has that taught him? What can that teach us?
Read MoreConnection with people different from us is something we think matters immensely if we want the deep, full life Jesus modeled and taught. But how is that is even possible in today's world without ending up "standing for nothing"? We think it's by standing for the Respectful Conversation.
Read MoreHow exactly do we behave as a community as we pursue our big dream? St. Paul's famous "fruits of the Spirit" list helps us think about that: by dialing down anxiety...
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