Walking with the Kings: Saul
The Practice Church Podcast
In this recurring series, we are walking in the story of scripture, noticing the intricate way God’s story is woven together and shines a light on our own stories. Last year we began our journey walking in (Genesis 1-11), (Genesis 12-50), , , and the . If you missed the previous series, you can check out the links above. In this series, we will explore the period of the kings from Saul through the fall of the Northern Kingdom and Judah. We will notice how the stories of these kings echo all the way back to the garden. How do the Israelites and their kings respond to that choice to...
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A Counter-Formational Political Practice: The Examen
The Practice Church Podcast
This guided practice is a part of our series . As we seek to untangle ourselves from the partisan liturgies of our culture, we are engaging counter-formational practices. In this practice of the Examen, we consider our political activity (the media we consume and our response, our conversations, the ways we serve our communities, and voting) and ask when our activity was centered on the partisan liturgies of our culture and when they were centered on the radical alternative of God's kingdom.
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The Liturgy of Politics: The Partisan Liturgy of Tribalism
The Practice Church Podcast
Aristotle said the purpose of politics is to create a people who are better than they would be without it. Politics has a way of shaping how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we should live in the world. Have you noticed how this is parallel to the task of the gospel? This journey of faith creates us to be someone better than we would be without Jesus. Jesus shapes how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we should live in the world. Is it any wonder our political activity has gotten so bound up in our understanding of the gospel? In fact, our partisanship and faith have...
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A Counter-Formational Political Practice: Breath Prayer
The Practice Church Podcast
This guided practice is a part of our series . As we seek to untangle ourselves from the partisan liturgies of our culture, we are engaging counter-formational practices. In this practice, we respond to the partisan liturgy of fear with the practice of breath prayer. With Jesus, we pray the words, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” This prayer reminds us, in the words of Pastor Mike Lueken, even if the worst we can imagine happens in this election season, “Jesus is still king. The kingdom is still real, and all shall be well.” And it reminds us that we are invited to join the...
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A Counter-Formational Political Practice: Welcoming Prayer
The Practice Church Podcast
This guided practice is a part of our series . As we seek to untangle ourselves from the partisan liturgies of our culture, we are engaging counter-formational practices. In response to our partisan culture which uses fear as a political tool, we offer a practice that can help us welcome the love and presence of Jesus into our fear so that we might be the kind of people whose political activity is marked by love.
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The Liturgy of Politics: The Partisan Liturgy of Fear
The Practice Church Podcast
Aristotle said the purpose of politics is to create a people who are better than they would be without it. Politics has a way of shaping how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we should live in the world. Have you noticed how this is parallel to the task of the gospel? This journey of faith creates us to be someone better than we would be without Jesus. Jesus shapes how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we should live in the world. Is it any wonder our political activity has gotten so bound up in our understanding of the gospel? In fact, our partisanship and faith have...
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The Liturgy of Politics: Crafting our experiments
The Practice Church Podcast
Aristotle said the purpose of politics is to create a people who are better than they would be without it. Politics has a way of shaping how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we should live in the world. Have you noticed how this is parallel to the task of the gospel? This journey of faith creates us to be someone better than we would be without Jesus. Jesus shapes how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we should live in the world. Is it any wonder our political activity has gotten so bound up in our understanding of the gospel? In fact, our partisanship and faith have...
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The Communion of Saints: Thomas Kelly
The Practice Church Podcast
From the very beginning of The Practice, we have always appreciated the important lessons we can learn from various Christian traditions throughout the history of the Church. This summer, we will spend time learning about our sisters and brothers, some you may know and others you may not. We hope to not only learn about them, but also to listen to what they might have to teach us in this day and age. This week, Ted Harro invited us to listen to an imagined letter to our community from the Quaker mystic Thomas Kelly. For additional resources, please visit our . If The Practice...
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The Communion of Saints: Ella Baker
The Practice Church Podcast
From the very beginning of The Practice, we have always appreciated the important lessons we can learn from various Christian traditions throughout the history of the Church. This summer, we will spend time learning about our sisters and brothers, some you may know and others you may not. We hope to not only learn about them, but also to listen to what they might have to teach us in this day and age. This week, Juliet Liu invited us consider the example of Ella Baker. In her life and work, Ella might show us how our contemplation to move us to action. She would teach us to take...
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The Communion of Saints: Harriet Tubman
The Practice Church Podcast
From the very beginning of The Practice, we have always appreciated the important lessons we can learn from various Christian traditions throughout the history of the Church. This summer, we will spend time learning about our sisters and brothers, some you may know and others you may not. We hope to not only learn about them, but also to listen to what they might have to teach us in this day and age. This week, Julian Davis Reid guided us in a reflection on the life of Harriet Tubman. He asked how we might follow Harriet as she followed Jesus, and invited us to consider two specific...
info_outlineWe have a tricky relationship with control. It is true God gives us agency, and we are responsible to steward that well. However, our agency is limited. We cannot control nearly as much as we would like. So we strive and cling to control, and when the illusion of our control is broken we either cling grasp all the more for power or we resort to deflated inactivity. This year in the season of Lent, we will experiment with surrendering control. If you were not with us last week, we invite you to make some time this week to listen to the teaching of Mandy Smith and craft an experiment.
This week, we looked at our tendency to grasp for control with ourselves. We asked what it might look like for us to surrender ourselves as living sacrifices, to lay down our lives for our friends, to love God and neighbor. How might we, as Jesus promised, lose our lives in order to find them?
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