Weekly Messages
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (5a)
"Service." One of the ancient skills necessary to live well in the environment in which our souls thrive. One of the ancient skills necessary to live in authentic spiritual community. But perhaps not for the reasons you might think. We come to the ancient Christian...
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (4)
"Confession." That's a word I hate to use because of the images I know it conjures up. If we grew up Catholic, we see images of boxes and priests telling us to say "hail-Mary's." If we grew up Protestant, we see ourselves telling our dark sins to the preacher or the...
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (3)
It's tough to put a name on skill #3 in this lesson... maybe "developing a tougher skin?" Maybe "being able to receive criticism?" No, neither of those are right. In fact, in this lesson I never give this skill a name. Probably closest would be "putting personal...
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (2)
Humility. As we saw earlier this year, humility is often misunderstood. It smacks of servility or insecurity. Not so. Humility starts with a profound understanding that we carry the image of God, and a settled understanding of what it means to be human - growing....
Spiritual Friendship: The Skills (1)
Skill #1: Growth. Stands to reason doesn't it? If we don't have a learning and growing posture, we don't grow into the skills, competencies, and emotional framework to do spiritual friendships well. Look around if you don't believe me. As a society, we feel deeply...
Spiritual Community in a Mid-Size Church (3)
Before the holiday break we were talking about how we, as we are becoming a mid-size church, can keep alive one of our core values - authentic spiritual community. Continuing that lesson today, we're talking about several related themes; today, some stories relating...
Labor Day Sunday 2012 (Listening to Fenalon)
We're in the middle of a lesson on authentic spiritual community, but it's Labor Day Sunday and many of us are traveling. So, rather than continue the lesson that's building one week on the next, I thought I'd just do a stand-alone, kind-of-related lesson. It's really...
Spiritual Community in a Mid-Size Church (2)
In our fiercely independent and individualistic culture, authentic community is tough. Authentic spiritual community... even tougher. Nevertheless, we're going to try and do it. As a mid-size, American church, we're going to try and figure out how to form networks of...
Spiritual Community in a Mid-Size Church (1)
Our community has doubled in size in the last three years, with a lot of that growth coming in the last 12 months. Community has always been a value of ours, but now, we leave small church behind us, and are becoming a mid-size church, we have to be very intentional...
Why Do Quantum Christians Forgive? (2)
We continue our look at how our ancient spiritual masters intuited that we are more connected than we believed - to God, to one another, to everything. We continue looking at the implication of that ancient understanding when we fracture our relationships. The...
Why Do Quantum Christians Forgive? (1)
We've been talking about the ancient intuition among our spiritual masters that told us we are more connected than we believed - to God, to one another, to everything. If we believe that; if that gets into our heads and hearts, it has profound implications for how we...
Can Quantum Christians Still Pray?
When our images of God go through an expanding metamorphosis, the kind or praying we used to do when we still had only one image gets challenged. For many of us, the only image of God we had was 'Our Father Who art in heaven." When this becomes one way of thinking...
God and Slave Traders
The idea of God exists at a deep, deep part of our reality. It is a bedrock of our sense of ultimacy. And this shapes our every action and reaction. There is an axiom we use around the church a lot: "you become like the god you worship." If yours is a punitive god,...
God as Superman… God as Dirt (dirt might work better)
"Dirt" actually has a derogatory connotation. Perhaps "Ground" would be better... maybe "Ground of All Being." Yes, that's better. Historical, even. Listen as we think about Psalm 139 from two vantage points. If we think of God as superman, we read the psalm one...
Be Present to Your Presence in the Present – Robin Camu
by Robin Camu John 15:4-5 (NASB): "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit,...
Conflict Resolution (part 2)
This is the second of two lessons on conflict resolution. In this lesson we learn the actual technique for resolving conflict. As you heard in part 1, and will have reinforced here, it has more to do with self-awareness and self-disclosure than resolving conflict....
3 Tips for Navigating Religious Upheaval
Today is campout Sunday. Most of us are out in the woods getting to know each other. I came into town to be present for visitors who show up, and the handful of folks who can't stand the great outdoors. So today is a review of principles. A bit about how to live well...
Conflict Resolution (part 1)
This is the first of a two-part lesson on resolving conflict. I (Doug) spend a lot of time helping people through conflict, and have learned through the years what a valuable, and spiritual thing it is... when we do it well. I have also found that there are a lot of...
On Sin and Zombies – Tripp Fuller
Tripp Fuller, moderator of the Homebrewed Christianity podcast speaks about sin (specifically original sin) and zombies. Augustine is one of the main authors of our current doctrine of original sin. Sin is when a free person makes a bad decision that he/she shouldn't...
Two-ness vs. One-ness
What kind of craziness is that? Jesus said some things that if we're honest, are absurd. Love your enemy? How is that going to work? In this lesson I'll suggest it's only possible if we radically alter our most basic ways of thinking about reality. It was an...
The Sacrament of Covenant
"The Sacrament of Covenant..." Doesn't that sound like religious mumbo-jumbo? Sure it does. But before you dismiss it out of hand, have a listen. It's a stand-alone lesson (holiday weekend) about a mysterious black-box process we go through. If we pay attention and...
Confession: It’s Good for the Soul (5)
We finish our look at the ancient practice of confession with the practical how-to's of making a confession. In this lesson I lay out six steps to making a thorough, fearless inventory of our souls, helping us develop the self-awareness necessary for a healthy soul....
Confession: It’s Good for the Soul (4)
On how to receive a confession. Before we can talk about the self-awareness required of making a confession, we need to understand the context in which we'll be making that confession. Trust, confidentiality, encouragement, and the affirmation of our basic Christian...
Confession: It’s Good for the Soul (3)
We human beings are in a protracted struggle with existential shame, but we have tool to combat that: confession. This week I want to share with you the practicalities of making and receiving a confession. Lest you think this is going to be a magic bullet process that...