You are (or could be) exercising creativity more than you think. And that is more spiritually good for you than you think. Kyle, Rebecca, Isaac, and Maria share their experience.
Read More
Last Sunday we hosted a communal online experience meant to offer each of us some spiritual help in our individual journeys of leaving behind what constricts us and embracing promise for the future. Our sense is, as we turn the page on 2020, this past year has been full of chances for constricting lies, traumas, thoughts, beliefs, or vows to make their way into us and start to take up residence.
Read More
BLC's Hayley Larson shares with us from both her personal story and professional studies how feminist language, images, and actions help us see the God Jesus reveals more fully, and how relying exclusively on male reference points is dangerous to faith.
Art by Kelly Latimore.
Read More
As we try to centralize the perspectives of oppressed voices on God and faith, part of what we must do is de-centralize the voices that have been dominant. Kyle, one of our pastors, shares some turning points in his life learning about God and faith, which each saw him leave behind a "God of the Powerful" and move closer to a "God of the Oppressed".
Read More
If you want to be able to fight injustice and experience hope, resilience, and joy in spite of it, you need a faith and a God that are acquainted with suffering and oppression. Continuing our series “God of the Oppressed”, we learned this week from BLC’s Barbara Cunningham about oppression and the God who responds to it from a Chilean perspective -- a story of dictatorship, political suppression, and being told what and how to think.
Read More
In honor of the weekend many would have been participating in Chicago’s Pride Parade if not for COVID-19, Rebecca Janvrin joins Vince & Kyle to discuss queer insights on God and faith. This kicks off our new series of discussion: God of the Oppressed. We’ll be immersing ourselves, one at a time, in various different marginalized perspectives on Jesus and faith and the Bible. Really, we can’t come to a proper theology and understanding of Jesus at all if we’re not trying to do that from marginalized perspectives, because Jesus was a marginalized person.
Read More
Kyle and Vince get excited when they discover that certain Biblical references may not be about what they’re popularly thought to be about in American culture. Because, despite all of the damage that is done when the Bible is misappropriated, it is (properly treated) a treasure trove!
Read More
Kyle and Vince follow-up on last Sunday’s discussion on mental health, touching on the pros and cons of growing up more religious vs. less religious, concepts of sin, and how a theology of the Holy Spirit is especially helpful to avoiding one-size-fits-all recommendations on mental health.
Read More
Vince and Kyle continue the conversation of “Believing in God when bad thing happen” with a mailbag podcast responding to comments and question from last Sunday’s discussion.
Read More
With the coronavirus in view, but also any senseless suffering each of us might face, Kyle and Vince discuss the difference between a “Life as God’s Blueprint” understanding of believing in God and a “Life as a Battlefield” understanding of believing in God. The former is extremely common, but hurts many. The latter has helped them personally find powerful connection with God in the midst of hardship.
Read More