Weekly Messages
Soul-Training: Kindness to Strangers (part 3)
by Doug Hammack We continue looking at hospitality as a soul-training tool, a way to both better the earth and transform our souls.
Soul-Training: Kindness to Strangers (part 2)
by Doug Hammack We continue looking at hospitality as a soul-training tool, a way to both better the earth and transform our souls.
Soul-Training: Kindness to Strangers (part 1)
by Doug Hammack As we're talking about the ancient paths that tend to the well-being of the soul, we turn to the early practice of hospitality. From the time of Abraham, this has been a central theme of spiritual people.
Soul-Training: The Welcoming Prayer
by Doug Hammack In this lesson we look at a very practical way to turn our prayer less into words, and more into awakening to the awareness of what God is already up to. It's a contemplative practice for daily use called The Welcoming Prayer.
Soul-Training: Praying Differently (introduction)
by Doug Hammack Many have abandoned prayer as irrelevant, incomprehensible, or useless. Sadly, there is good reason why they have done so. In this lesson we talk about how prayer has devolved into talking, talking, talking, and the underlying unspoken assumption...
Soul-Training: Making Peace
by Doug Hammack At first glance, making peace doesn't appear to be a discipline for training one's soul... Have a listen!
Tending Our Souls (Introduction)
by Doug Hammack Today we lay a foundation for a series of lessons about tending the gardens of our souls. To become the kind of people other people want to be around, indeed the kind of people we ourselves want to be around, requires attentiveness to spiritual growth....
Difficult People
by Doug Hammack Today we listen to the wisdom of one of the wise men of our Christian heritage. His name was Francois Fenelon. He lived about 400 years ago, and wrote spiritual letters, many of which have survived. In the letter we look at today, he writes about...
A Talk With a Precious 12-Year Old Little Girl
by Doug Hammack This week I (Doug) had an appointment with one of the 12 year old girls in our community. Her mom brought her by to talk about question she has about God. She'd just been diagnosed with Crohn's disease and was asking a variation of an ancient trouble...
NRCC Community Meeting
by Doug Hammack Today we look at the pragmatics of our spiritual community; why we're here, where we're going, our future, our finances, and practical things we can all do to keep NRCC thriving.
A Living Letter: My Friend Jim Amundson
by Doug Hammack This week, my dear friend and a fixture in our spiritual community died. Jim Amundson was a letter from God, written for us to read. In today's lesson, I discuss Divine Grace, and my text will be Jim's life. Jim Amundson 1936-2009 A Living Letter...
From Theology to Spirituality: "In the Image of God" (part 2)
by Doug Hammack We continue thinking about the spiriutality that is built on the foundation we've been looking at for many weeks. In those lessons we did some rethinking of the unquestioned assumptions that often goes into the doctrines of our faith.
From Theology to Spirituality: "In The Image of God" (part 1)
by Doug Hammack For many weeks, we've been thinking about the theology of our faith, and how our unquestioned assumptions, and the things taught us often betray us and lead us into a sickened spiritual state. Today we begin to look at how rebuild a healthy...
Thinking About Thinking About Jesus (Appendix)
by Doug Hammack In the lesson we did before the summer break, there were two Stories about how we think about Jesus "dying to save us," that we couldn't fit in. I thought they were beautiful enough stories that they needed to be retold, so in this lesson I tell them...
Be The Apple – Scott Brown
by Scott Brown
The Third Way
by Scott Brown Jesus's admonition to love our enemies and turn the other cheek may be mis-interpreted due to the lack of cultural context he placed it in. Find out what Jesus may have intended it to mean by looking for a third way to react to an insult to you....
Thinking About Thinking About Jesus (conclusion)
We conclude our lesson on thinking about what the words "Jesus died for our sins" mean. Today we look at other stories that frame our understanding besides the "penal substitution" theory of salvation. We consider the Ransom Theory, the Christus Victor Theory, and...
Thinking about Thinking about Jesus (part 4)
In this lesson, we look at some of the problems with the most common way Western Christians think about salvation. The "penal substitution" theory of salvation was advocated in the 11th century by a man named Anselm, and while it was an excellent way of seeing things...
Thinking About Thinking About Jesus (part 3)
Having laid two weeks of foundational concepts, we turn in this lesson to some introductory remarks about what we think the words "Jesus saves us from our sins" mean. In this lesson, we begin looking at some other ways of thinking about this than the familiar...
Fighting for Freedom: Interior Freedom
by Doug Hammack In this 4th of July weekend message, we talk about the importance of Liberty, especially interior liberty. The freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights don't mean much if we don't have an attendant interior freedom to go along with them. Have...
Thinking About Thinking About Jesus (part 2)
In this continuation of last week's variation on our “Two Views” series of lessons, we continue laying the ground work for how we think about Jesus. by Doug Hammack Christians say that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was about more than just a good...
Thinking About Thinking About Jesus (part 1)
by Doug Hammack This would be a continuation of the "Two Views" series of lessons, and we would call it "Two Views of Jesus." However, over the course of this lesson, we'll encounter at least five historical views of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We...
Spiritual Allies for the Journey (part 2)
by Doug Hammack We continue our break from our 2-Views series of lessons, and revisit a central them of NRCC, spiritual friendships and community. We’re looking at the importance of having allies for the spiritual journey, and in this lesson, we look at how one acts...
Overcoming Spiritual Helplessness – Robin Camu
by Robin Camu The Theory of Learned Helplessness is a “theory in psychology which alludes to a human condition in which one has learned to behave helplessly even when the opportunity is restored for one to help oneself ”. Some of us have brought these tendencies into...