Stories of redemption tap into something deep in the human heart. Easter Sunday is all about redemption after regret, resurrection after death. Kyle shares what it has meant for him to experience not just healing from past hurts, brokennesses, or failures, but to experience those hurts, brokennesses, and failures be miraculously redeemed and actually bring good into the world.
Read MoreLove is such a different way to respond to failure than demanding retribution (demanding "someone else must suffer because I suffered"). Vince shares about his experience of being loved by friends and by God in the midst of failure, and how that opened him up to be transformed by failure, and not shut down by it.
Read MoreWhat is our assumed picture of God? Powerful? Glorious? Up in the clouds? With a quiver of lightning bolts? The picture of God that Jesus shows humanity is an inversion of this. What should our assumed picture of God be? One who lays down power to benefit others. That’s particularly hard for Americans to digest, but when we try, it can change us profoundly.
Read MoreSelf-sacrificial love is incredible. So many of the books and movies and tv shows that grab us are proof that it touches something deep in the human heart. The 40 days of Lent, which turn our attention to Jesus’ self-sacrificial love, are a wonderful time to lean into this. Vince suggests that, yes, in the age of the internet, there are more inputs than ever before to make us feel despair, but there are also more inputs than ever before to see Jesus through the story portrayals (and real-life examples) of self-sacrificial all around us.
Read MoreIf you grew up religious, the image of Jesus dying on the Cross may have been used as a tool to emotionally manipulate you into begrudging commitment or painful gratitude. Kyle’s journey of faith has helped him leave behind those feelings of manipulation when it comes to Jesus’ death the Cross, and find instead a God showing his heart to connect with all people and all cultures.
Read MoreIf Jesus’ death on the Cross is just a confusingly violent picture of a God that requires punishment for his plan to work, Vince feels unsettled. But if Jesus’ death on the Cross is a picture of a loving and self-sacrificial God that chooses solidarity with scapegoats instead of solidarity with the powerful, then Vince finds himself pulled out of his small life and into a big and inspiring story. And he needs that!
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