by Doug Hammack | Aug 3, 2014 | A Christian Church for the Quantum Era, Message Audio, Rethinking the Holy Spirit
Of all the religious-jargon sounding parts of our tradition, the term “The Holy Spirit” is right up near the top of the list. We know it’s religious (the words “holy” and “spirit” are right in it). But what does it mean?...
by Doug Hammack | Jul 20, 2014 | Guest Speaker, Message Audio
By Dr. Timothy Brock I want to talk about some alternative ways of “doing church”. We need a more healthy focus on relationships and how they grow us, support us and encourage us to be the person God wants us to be. Have a listen. ...
by Doug Hammack | Jul 13, 2014 | A Christian Church for the Quantum Era, Message Audio
The poet Shelly tells a story of Ozymandius, great Egyptian pharaoh whose inscription from the sands of the desert, “look upon my works and despair,” acts as a morality tale for the rest of us. Finding significance in accomplishment is a fool’s...
by Doug Hammack | Jul 6, 2014 | A Christian Church for the Quantum Era, Message Audio
At this moment in history, Western civilization is reinventing society – and religion – to match our newly emerging worldview. This lesson hits on a bit of how that looks for the Christian church. Have a listen, Doug ...
by Doug Hammack | Jun 29, 2014 | A Christian Church for the Quantum Era, Message Audio
We begin a new lesson today about how this moment in history is playing out in the Christian church. It will be a peek beneath the surface of what we can see happening, and will begin questioning why it is happening. Consequently, this first introductory lesson is...
by Doug Hammack | Jun 22, 2014 | Individual Lesson, Message Audio
Each first Sunday for the balance of the year, we are having a lunch after church to discuss tough questions about our religious life. The project coincides with my book, Rethinking Our Story: Can We Still Be Christian in the Quantum Era? Today’s lesson is...
by Robin Camu | Jun 15, 2014 | Enneagram, Guest Speaker, Message Audio
There are 9 Enneagram types and they are based on 9 sins (ways of “choking off the glory of God”). These have since been reduced to the 7 deadly sins. (Fear and deceit were left out from the 7 deadly sins) These 9 types are numbered 1 through 9 and are...
by Doug Hammack | Jun 8, 2014 | Christian Meditation, Message Audio
A lot of people don’t meditate because they think they’re not very good at it. Who among us likes to start the day failing at something every morning?! But meditation (the mindfulness meditation we practice at NRCC) doesn’t work that way. Turns out,...
by Doug Hammack | Jun 1, 2014 | Christian Meditation, Message Audio
My last child is about to leave for college (43 more days). As I’m getting him ready to go out the door, I feel a sense of “finals-week” pressure. I’ve got to review 18 years of really important stuff with him as he finishes up his last few...
by Doug Hammack | May 25, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Afterlife
We conclude our lesson rethinking the afterlife with this — if it is true that the texts on which we built our afterlife narrative were not what we thought they were — shall we keep the afterlife as part of the Christian narrative? Yes, we conclude, but...
by Doug Hammack | May 18, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Afterlife
If, as we have suggested, the texts we Christians have cited to construct our afterlife story — were not written about the end of time . . . Shall we abandon the idea of the afterlife altogether? Perhaps not. Have a listen, Doug ...
by Doug Hammack | May 11, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Afterlife
Have you ever heard Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats? If you have, there’s a good chance you thought it was a parable about the afterlife – the final judgment before we all go on to eternity. It might surprise you that that’s not what...
by Doug Hammack | May 4, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Afterlife
As we have been discussing, the Greco-Roman world view has influenced our thinking on the afterlife to separate the here and now from the here-after. It also made the afterlife a much more prominent part of our story than it ever was before. The message of Jesus...
by Doug Hammack | Apr 27, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Afterlife
We pick up from our lesson before Easter, building a foundation for rethinking the Christian story of the afterlife. How we imagine what happens after we die, has a great deal to do with how we live. If Christians are, in general, not behaving well these days (pretty...
by Doug Hammack | Apr 20, 2014 | Easter, Message Audio
Easter is the centerpiece of our tradition. In this time in which we are rethinking how we tell the Christian story, it would make sense that we’d do some rethinking of Easter as well. Have a listen, Doug ...
by Doug Hammack | Apr 13, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Afterlife
The story we Christians tell about the afterlife is deeply rooted in our psyches — so deeply in fact, that very few of us every think about it critically. However, it is certainly problematic, and may not be as “Christian” as we think it is. Have a...
by Doug Hammack | Apr 6, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Afterlife
The Christian narrative most traditional church folks learned growing up is pretty heavily weighted toward the afterlife. We look today, at Jesus’ central focus, the Kingdom of God. What we learn is that the afterlife was at best a footnote to the central...
by Doug Hammack | Mar 30, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Salvation
Have a listen, Doug https://media.blubrry.com/north_raleigh_community_church/s3.amazonaws.com/nrccaudio/2014/03-30-14_Sermon.mp3Podcast: Play in new window |...
by Doug Hammack | Mar 23, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Salvation
After some time looking at the unintended and negative consequences of telling the Christian salvation story in only one way, and ignoring the other historical ways, we turn now to imagining how we might tell the salvation story if we restored those ancient and other...
by Doug Hammack | Mar 16, 2014 | Message Audio, Rethinking Our Story: Salvation
The way most Western Christians have the story of salvation since the Enlightenment (the 11th century, really), has some unintended and negative consequences. As we saw at the beginning of this lesson, when we take our Christian doctrine of ineffability seriously, we...
