Season: Lent: What We Need to ResistTalk: We Resist ScarcitySpeaker: Jonny RashidWhy is resisting a loaf of bread transformative? Jesus moves away from temptation, something as basic as a loaf of bread, in order to rely on God. There’s more to how Jesus saves us than the material wealth he provides us, Jesus’ resistance of the loaf symbolizes that he’s not just interested in feeding the poor, but undoing the system that perpetuates poverty. “When the values of Jesus’ upside-down Kingdom become our bread of life, the economic institutions of society lose their grip.”
Season: Lent: What We Need to ResistTalk: The Antidote to LonelinessSpeaker: Rod WhiteFor Lent, how about we face our loneliness, like Jesus out in the wilderness? Rod comes with the bad news that we will never completely get over being lonely. But he also has good news, that our restless longing keeps us on track toward home and toward being our true selves. He lays out how we are getting even lonelier in the postmodern world. Then he convinces us that Jesus and his church are an antidote to poisonous self-sufficiency. He finishes up by encouraging us to turn our loneliness into solitude, so we stay connected to God all the way home.
Season: Lent: What We Need to ResistTalk: We resist our appetitesSpeaker: Ben WhiteLent is about resisting the status quo--both personal patterns inside and oppressive forces outside. Lent is 40 days for slowing down so that business will not happen as usual. Jesus needed to do this at the beginning of his ministry, why wouldn’t we follow his example? In this message, Ben White focuses on Jesus’ hunger in Matthew 4:1-2. We too need to become hungry to see what we devour? On the personal level, it could be the people in our relationships, and the environment on a political level. If Jesus is enough at the center of us, we can let our imperfect intimates be “good enough”, and we can have the hope we need to keep saying “enough is enough” to the powers.
Season: Lent: What We Need to ResistTalk: We resist our appetitesSpeakers: Joshua GraceOur appetites can be normal and healthy. They can be warped and conditioned unconsciously. We can also allow God to touch them, making our transformed appetite into a great teacher. When resisting the appetites of voracious environmental destroyers, we can’t stop with resisting the drilling companies, we have to address the tens of millions of people who require fast, cheap energy to maintain our lifestyles. Fasting can help us get our appetites from being our boss to helping us connect with God.
Talk: Jesus submerged in usSpeakers: Rod WhiteIt is all about the WATER stage of the way of Jesus. In the scene of John's baptism of Jesus, it might be tempting to look up and receive the long-for affirmation of God while overlooking the fact that Jesus is still in the water with us. Jesus wants to be immersed in us as much as he wants us to be immersed in him. This talk ends with a call to get wet by finding new ways to invite the Lord into the deep and dark parts of us, even as we follow him in the spirit of his baptism, which moves into the deep and dark places of humanity.
Season: What's So Special About Jesus?Talk: He does the impossible, namely forgivenessSpeaker: Rachel Sensenig
Season: Let's do something newTalk: Stand firm, not aloneSpeaker: Ben WhiteOur political climate has generated a new awareness. Oh, we ARE part of something bigger. Oh, things can happen that are not the same? Christians have known this. We ought to be excited about this new awareness. We need recruits for our movement because there are even bigger fish to fry than the political potentates. There are forces of darkness that need the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17) and troops side by side to face it. Just one of the way that the powers of darkness are attacking us is by dividing us. Staying together, in each other’s lives, helping one another, horning in even, is our counter strategy. We do it best in cells. Our Sunday meetings also are an opportunity to stand firm together.
Talk: Re-wilding the WaySpeakers: Todd WynwardTodd Wynward shares about Watershed Discipleship. About Todd: Todd Wynward is a public school founder, small-scale farmer, wilderness educator and Mennonite organizer for watershed discipleship in the Mountain States region. He has been engaged in education reform and social change movements for twenty years, and has spent more than a thousand nights outdoors. He and his wife Peg founded a wilderness-based public charter school in 2001 and are now creating TiLT, a discipleship co-housing community emerging in Taos, NM.
Season: Let's do something newTalk: Be as different as you are.Speaker: Ben WhiteOur mutuality is hard won. Bring who you are to harmonize with us as Christ brings us together. In Ephesians 5:21-6:9 Paul is writing to a church as diverse as ours. He’s working out what it means to be in Christ even when slaves and masters are in fellowship! But Paul comes at this from under not over. Even if some of us are afforded more privilege by society, we are all subjugated to Christ who subjugated himself to us as a slave. If we start with mutual submission we have the means by which we can destroy all the boundaries that the powers are dividing us by. We can resist and restore in ways the world desperately needs.
Talk: BranchesSpeakers: Joshua GraceHow often in life do we look for new ideas/information/evidence to reinforce what we already think? What if our spiritual life was mostly like that? Jesus asserts that growing from him (the Vine) as branches—whether we feel like a natural outgrowth or grafted in—will keep us healthy and producing good fruit through love. Love helps us be lifelong learners. Love gives us what we need to be able to stretch and grow. Even seemingly conflictive situations can become opportunities to include, have dialogue, and develop. The Tree of 40 Fruit illustrates how the church can be an experiment in diversity and conservation—our root system and stock (the Vine) is powerful enough to bring all sorts of fruit together.
Season: What's So Special About Jesus?Talk: He Inverts PowerSpeaker: Rachel SensenigIt’s easy to feel powerless in the empire that is the United States—especially now. Many people feel consciously or unconsciously dominated by unseen forces they can’t control. Jesus and his people were no stranger to that reality under the mighty hand of Rome. And yet his life and message reveal that we actually have a LOT of power, especially when we give it away on purpose. We are most powerful when we serve others.
Season: Let's do something newTalk: Discipline Your DesireSpeaker: Jonny RashidOur church is like the root system of a tree, or a few trees—the half that we don’t usually see. Their gnarly roots, full of hairs, connect through networks of nutrient sharing networks and symbiosis through the fungal networks. The apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome to allow love to transform their problems into hope, and faith as access to grace. We are rooting into grace, and helping more people have access because of the ways we splay out of our cells and Sunday meetings, embodying God’s good ideas in the face of adversity, injustice, and oppression.
Talk: Jesus isn't trying to be special; he's relating.Speakers: Rachel Sensenig
Season: What's So Special About Jesus?Talk: He's a MirrorSpeaker: Ben WhiteWhat’s so special about Jesus? He’s a mirror. A much better mirror than the ones we have available to us. From pop culture, to technology to the narcissistic image projection that plagues our society, we are often stuck in looking at ourselves in a very critical light. When we look at Jesus we escape the image loop because he looks back at us and sees us for who we really are in him. Our reality is deeper than any reflection. Jesus gives people the space to know this by knowing him as he knows us fully. Letters to the Corinthians from Paul and Blind Bartimaeus’ story in Mark 10 help us feel this in Ben’s message at 1125 S. Broad St.
Season: Let's do something newTalk: Give what you're givenSpeaker: Ben WhiteEveryone has trouble do something new. You’re not alone. Our resistance to change, our lack of hope for change, our failed attempts to change, are something we share in common. Rather than trying to make some life transformation by your own power, you can make a small change now. Do what you can do now. Give what you have been given. God is ready to help you continue down your road of transformation, you only have to begin it. But even realistic goals require a long faithfulness. Jesus gives us the place to start from: God’s love as He revealed it. Be rooted and established in love (Ephesians 3:17) and move from there.
Season: Way of JesusTalk: The Way is NarrowSpeaker: Gwen WhiteWhen Jesus observed that the way to life is narrow (Matthew 7), he wasn’t setting up a standard that he thought most people would fail to achieve, but he was noting that people generally don’t pay attention to their spiritual lives and instead float along the surface of life and miss God’s invitation to something much more. We need to pay attention and to engage life vigorously in order to avoid missing the invitation to squeeze through a narrow place. It takes practice to love in the face of all the damaging systems that press in on us and influence us in unconscious ways. Our nation has undergone a shift in public discourse that only emphasizes the truth of this. Relationship researcher, John Gottman, has identified four patterns of relating that are particularly destructive to human relating. The new president of the U.S. engages openly and triumphantly in all of these destructive patterns. All of us can fall into them if we do not look for the invitation to the narrow way of love.Here are some quick definitions of these damaging patterns of relating:Criticism – verbally attacking personality or characterDefensiveness – seeing yourself as the victim in order to ward off attack or reverse blameStonewalling – withdrawing as a way to avoid conflict and convey disapproval; to distance or separateContempt – attacking the other’s sense of self with an intention to insult or psychologically abuseInstead of engaging in criticism as most people do when their feelings are stirred by interactions, we could pause to notice our true feelings and pray for eyes to see the narrow way that doesn’t block or condemn our feelings/view of our experiences, but allows for a deeper reckoning with ourselves and the ways we are tempted to react unkindly based in past experience that unconsciously shapes our current perceptions and often cuts us off from others in the present. We can practice alternatives to destructive patterns in our relationships daily. So we might consider these “antidotes” to the broad way of unconscious reacting. Instead of criticism try “kind complaining;” instead of defensiveness, try taking on what you identify as truly your own responsibility; instead of stonewalling, try a self-check in; instead of contempt, try to name your needs and nurture gratitude. Challenging practice, but we need not fear condemnation should we fall into these board patterns. We can keep practicing and keep learning to see and take the narrow way.
Talk: RootsSpeakers: Joshua GraceIn his letter to the church in Rome, the apostle Paul says faith gives us access to the grace in which we stand. Likewise, consider the church as a living organism with its funky roots thriving in the nutrient-rich soil. Those root systems have symbiotic relations with organisms and other things like the fungal network called mycorrhizal that transport and share good things with the forest. Building healthy support structures—like healthy cells and vibrant Sunday meetings help Jesus, our Mother Tree, to offer expressions of wisdom to the powers (Ephesians 3) that come in many expressions—like several we had last week around MLK Day and the Women’s March. Faith in this context is about connecting—including receiving and passing on grace that God is offering.
Talk: SeedsSpeakers: Joshua GraceFaith is a spiritual muscle that we work out, used for connection and transformation.
Talk: EpiphanySpeaker: Jonny RashidGod’s our friend. My oldest daughter was learning that the other day. I think that might be the summary of God’s work in the world and the culminating reality of Epiphany. God wants to be relatable to us and he wants his death-conquering ways to be relatable. He shows us how in John 2 when he turns water into wine. Eternity starts now, the wine isn’t going to run out. Death is defeated. The Magi aren’t protected from death despite their excess, they need to worship the baby savior. What do we need to do to be more relatable?
Talk: The Whole World's StorySpeaker: Ben WhiteWe, as a culture, are not very good at looking for a long time at anything. From multitasking to media, we are distracted and generally over stimulated. In Circle of Hope we cultivate spaces where we can go deep and look at our lives together. It takes a long time to learn how God is showing up, or to learn about ourselves and other people. When we find something new, which we inevitably will if we look long enough, we can call that epiphany, a manifestation of God. Jesus is revealing himself all over the place, but we won’t see unless we look for a long enough time, like the Magi who looked long enough to know when Jesus’ star was new.