Weekly Messages
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...
Confession: It’s Good for the Soul (2)
We continue our introduction to the ancient practice of confession; rooted in the ancient virtue of humility. (Next week we'll get to the practical how-to's.) We human beings are in a protracted struggle with existential shame, and before we even get to the issue we...
Confession: It’s Good for the Soul (1)
For those present on Sunday, I didn't use the word "confession" until the last few sentences of the lesson. We have such a limited, skewed, and religiously ritualized idea of what it means, I wanted to tell a story first. I told the community about one of my own...
Easter 2012
Today, we celebrate this seminal day in our tradition. As always, we take some dimension of our Story, and rehearse it together. Today, we talk about what our early ancestors; those first to experience live-beyond-life. Have a listen, Doug
A God Big Enough Not to Bore Us (3)
We conclude this application of the ancient virtue of humility by thinking about God in a way that has less potential to bore us. As we've said, as soon as we reduce the un-reducible God to an image in our minds, we inevitably create a God that is not worthy of our...
A God Big Enough Not to Bore Us (2)
Continuing from last week... Humility is a precursor to awe and wonder which in turn, awaken us to a God too big to be reduced into a mental construct. This, it turns out, is a recipe for a religion that inspires us, surprises us, and draws us into the Way, Truth, and...
A God Big Enough Not to Bore Us (1)
Humility, it turns out, is a precursor to awe and wonder. Awe and wonder, it turns out, awakens us to a God too big to be reduced into a mental construct. This, it turns out, is a recipe for a religion that inspires us, surprises us, and draws us into the Way, Truth,...
The Art of Humility (2)
The word "humility" comes from the Latin word "humus," which means "dirt," or "earth." To be humble is to be connected to the earth; to our earthiness and creatureliness. Absent this, we end up carrying a load we cannot carry; it all! Rather than expanding our...
The Art of Humility (1)
If our souls were gardens, we just finished a lesson on weeding them. Today we turn to a lesson on fertilizing them. How do we nurture the true-self? I hesitate to use the word "humility" (as you'll hear), because of how it militates against our American...
Toxic Hurry: The High Price of the Unexamined Life (6)
As we conclude this part of our lesson on toxic hurry, we look again at how our American culture makes us vulnerable to the temptation Jesus warned us about in the parable we're unpacking. We conclude by a bit of review of these six weeks, but some concluding remarks...
Toxic Hurry: The High Price of the Unexamined Life (5)
Avarice... Impatience... Un-chastity... These words describe spiritual illness. We know that. What we often don't know is how our own history and society as Americans embeds these character flaws deep in our national psyche. We don't see how they drive us to the...
Toxic Hurry: The High Price of the Unexamined Life (4)
As we're unpacking Jesus' parable about people who missed Divine Life because they were in a hurry, we're looking at several ways our own culture trips us into unexamined hurry. There's a powerful economic engine vested in making you want things, and making sure you...
Toxic Hurry: The High Price of the Unexamined Life (3)
Philosophical pragmatism was hammered out by a bunch of really smart guys in Cambridge, Mass. in the late 1800's. It has become such a successful, American philosophy that it often bleeds out of the area in which it is so fruitful and effective, into other areas of...
Toxic Hurry: The High Price of the Unexamined Life (2)
Pragmatism: if it works, it must be good. Who would argue with that? However, when we think about making it the central organizing value in our lives (as many Americans do), there are some pretty negative, unintended consequences. If we want to not miss the party...
Toxic Hurry: The High Price of the Unexamined Life (1)
We begin a new lesson today that will take several weeks. We begin with Jesus' parable about a man who invited a bunch of people to the party of their lives, only to have them miss this golden opportunity because of pragmatic concerns in their lives. Unexamined lives...
What Kind of God Do We Have? (2)
Last week, we looked at how our different views of God affect the kind of Christianity we live. Today we take a deeper look at the implications for spiritual fervor in the emerging worldview. Have a listen, Doug
What Kind of God Do We Have? (1)
Scripture gives us mixed messages about God. On the one hand, it tells us stories of a God who is knowable and known. On the other, it tells us God is beyond our capacity to know, contain, or comprehend. For centuries, we Christians have given our focus to the...