Weekly Messages
Reconsidering Prayer (part 3)
As we're rethinking prayer as opening ourselves to truth and freedom, we turn now to some of the foundations of the practice. We are easily distracted by small truths and by lesser concerns, to the point that we suffocate out the big thoughts, the life-making...
July 4th, 2010
Yes, we're in the middle of a lesson on rethinking prayer, but the 4th of July calls for some appropriate remarks. We're staying on the theme that will expand our understanding of prayer, but doing it in a 4th-of-July kind of way. God bless you. I pray your holiday...
Reconsidering Prayer (part 2)
We think of prayer as asking God to do something. That's not the kind of prayer we're going to be discussing. We're talking about prayer in light of Jesus' teaching that "we will know the Truth, and the Truth will set us free." It creates a very different perspective....
Reconsidering Prayer (part 1)
I thought about titling this message "Don't Waste Your Time Praying" (since I just did a lesson titled "Don't Waste Your Time Going To Church"), but that's not exactly what this lesson is about. When our images of God change as we progress on the spiritual journey,...
Love Isn’t Always Nice
Jesus gave two central commands on which to build the spiritual life. Love the Divine, pursue the Divine, prioritize the Divine with all your heart, and second, love people with the same passion you love yourself. In this lesson, we think together about what this...
The Great Upending: Toward a Better Earth
Listen to this prayer from Francis of Assisi. It sums up today's lesson. Have a listen. Doug. --- Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; ...where there is injury, pardon; ...where there is doubt, faith; ...where there is...
Longings for God – by Robin Camu
by Robin Camu What Do We Really Want? The deepest longing of the human heart is to connect with God. Yet, many of us go through lives unconscious of this fact. When we feel the yearning for Divine companionship, we often misidentify the sensation and grab for our...
Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (part 1)
Notice, I did not title this lesson; "Don't go to church. It's a waste of time." No, a better title would have been, "When you go to church, don't waste your time." (But it's not nearly as catchy, is it?) The exercises many Christians do on Sunday mornings have an...
Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (part 2)
Today, we begin looking at the exercises that in aggregate, constitute the Sunday morning Christian experience. Looking at the word "liturgy," we realize that what we're doing is closer to going to a gym-for-the-soul, than it is to many of our understandings of...
Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (part 3)
We're looking at the exercises we've been doing together on Sundays for centuries and centuries. As anything we do for an extend period, they can become rote, and we can begin to practice them without understanding or without a vested interest. So we're thinking...
Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (part 4)
We continue looking at the Sunday exercises, thinking about these ancient spiritual exercises. Today, we think about the exercise of invoking in one another, sensitivity to Spirit. Have a listen. Doug
Don’t Waste Your Time Going to Church (conclusion)
Today, we conclude this lesson on the ancient exercises we do together on Sundays. We look at the exercise that includes stilling our hearts, becoming attentive, interpreting, and discerning. This may be one of the only times you'll ever hear a minister tell you to...
Easter 2010
Any minister worth his or her salt, works very hard preparing the Easter message. But me?? I'm doing a version of last year's Easter message. What kind of sloppy work is that? Here's what happened... I was reading through a bunch of things I'd gathered through the...
The Spirituality of How We Think About God (2)
Today, we conclude this short, 2-week lesson looking at how we think about God. Our "God-as-Person" metaphor, we see, limits our spirituality. We're looking at a more expansive spirituality available to us when transcend our historical tendency to explain God with...
The Spirituality of How We Think About God (1)
Today, we begin a short lesson together (only two weeks) in which we look at what comes to our minds when we use the word "God." Usually, it's a super-big-and-wonderful Person, a King, a Parent, a Bridegroom, a Righteous Judge. These are all metaphors for God found...
Friends for the Fray: The Lost Art of Confession (part 4)
We conclude looking at the art of confession with this lesson on two themes... 1. what is penance, and what is it's value to our souls? 2. how do we receive a confession well? Have a listen. Doug
Friends for the Fray: The Lost Art of Confession (part 3)
So, after a few weeks championing the benefits confession affords our souls, we come today, to the practical "how-to's" of this ancient practice. We look at making a good confession in three parts, 1) self-awareness, 2) thoroughness, and 3) penance (Only some...
Friends for The Fray: The Lost Art of Confession (part 2)
After last week's digression to reinforce the importance of making for ourselves a healthy spiritual community, today we resume looking at the practicality of this ancient spiritual spiritual practice, confession. The themes of this lesson are very personal for me....
Friends For The Fray: A Digression to Reinforce
In this lesson, we digress for a moment before addressing the practicalities of the ancient art of confession (next week). This digression will expand what I said last week, and I'll spend the lion's share of our time telling you a story from my own life. It's a story...
Friends for the Fray: The Lost Art of Confession (part 1)
The ancient art of confession is lost to most Christians today. It is a loss that causes great peril to our souls. In this lesson, we talk about the importance of this ancient practice, and some of the reasons we tend to resist it.
Friends for the Fray: An Imperative
Solitary Spirituality and the Path to Anemia – Why You Shouldn’t Go It Alone "The Big Three," pride, lust, and greed, are a part of the human condition. Though we Americans have been schooled in individualism, and independence, solitary spirituality leaves us anemic...
Friends for the Fray: Challenging Pride, Lust, and Greed
by Doug Hammack The "Big Three" temptations of life have a long and storied tradition. The ancients called them "the lust of the eyes," "the lust of the flesh," and "the pride of life." We think of them as pride (an excessive focus on self), lust (an excessive focus...
Repent – A Changing of One’s Mind – Robin Camu
by Robin Camu Scientists are finding out that our minds are more “plastic” than we ever dreamed. They are finding that neural pathways can be changed resulting in minds being changed. Likewise, when Jesus commanded us to repent (literally, to change one’s mind), He...
New Year 2010 (part 2)
by Doug Hammack The New Year marks an annual invitation to personal renewal. Last week, we looked at how human beings best change. In this second lesson about personal renewal, we look at the unconscious resistance to renewal and change we often put up. We all have...