PODCAST · religion
MGCLT Sermons
by Missiongathering Charlotte
Vision Statement: Missiongathering is a Progressive, Inclusive, and Anti-Racist Christian Church. Our vision is to be a space for healing, authentic relationships, and service to our local community. Our approach to faith and spirituality is less about doctrine or dogma, and more about living life fully and abundantly, which we believe to be impeccably modeled in the way of Christ. What we mean by Progressive: We embrace an open-handed approach to Christian theology. We interpret scripture through the lens of Christ-like love, empathy, and our continually evolving understanding of the world. Our community is a safe and welcoming space for wherever you might be in your spiritual journey, including those who are going through a deconstruction or faith shift. What we mean by Inclusive:We practice the inclusion and empowerment of all who have been historically excluded and disempowered in church communities, including women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQ+
Episodes
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Imaginary Resistance Week 4: The Table as a System
It is Pride month, and a lot of churches are very busy announcing how welcome the queer community is. This week we ask the harder question: what is the difference between welcome and belonging? Between being greeted and being known? Between a church that is friendly and a church that has become a...
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Imaginary Resistance Week 3: Radical Self-Love as Resistance
It is Pride month, and this week we are making the case that radical self-love is not soft, not selfish, and not spiritually suspect. It is resistance. We start with the mechanics of internalized shame — how domination does its most durable work not from the outside but from inside the people it...
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Imaginary Resistance Week 1: Dreams, Visions, Prophets, Servants
We're beginning something new. After a season of Rise Up — of getting free from despair, shame, isolation, and the false names empire assigns us — we have to ask the deeper question: what are we rising into? This is Episode 1 of Imaginary Resistance, a new series about holy imagination as public...
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Rise Up #7: The Spirit Fell On All Of Us
It is Pentecost Sunday and twelve hours of Christian nationalist theater are being staged on the National Mall. This week we go back to Acts 2 and ask what Pentecost actually is — and what it isn't. We talk about why the Spirit's decision to fall on everyone is a political statement and not just…
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Rise Up #6: There Is Enough Among Us
Welcome back to Rise Up. This is the podcast home of the sermons coming out of Missiongathering Christian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina — a progressive, queer-affirming, justice-rooted community trying to follow Jesus without the empire baggage. If you've been with us for a while, you know...
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Rise Up #5: We Belong to Each Other
Who taught you that needing people was weakness? This week we sit with Acts 2 — the earliest description of what Christian community actually looked like — and ask why we've made it so decorative when it's supposed to be so demanding. We talk about why community is political, why charity and...
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Rise Up #4: RECLAIMING THE IMAGE OF GOD
When you picture God coming toward you, what's the look on God's face? This week, we sit with the parable of the prodigal son, and specifically with the part nobody talks about: the moment the younger son realizes he can no longer imagine being loved, only useful. We explore where empire's…
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Rise Up #3:BEYOND THE NAME THEY GAVE YOU
What names are you still carrying that were never actually yours to begin with? This week, we go to the Jabbok River with Jacob, a man whose very name meant "deceiver," and watch him wrestle through the night toward something truer. We talk about how empire and systems assign us identities that...
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Rise Up #2:Reconstructing Faith, Reclaiming Power, Rebuilding the World
This week, we go one layer deeper past the external systems of empire and into the place empire actually lives: our own nervous systems. We look at the scene in John 20 where the disciples are locked in a room out of fear, and we ask what it means that Jesus shows up inside the locked room rather...
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This Easter Rise Up
This week, we're rereading the Easter story not as a sentimental holiday but as one of the most politically disruptive moments in the entire tradition. Mary Magdalene — a woman whose testimony wasn't legally valid in her culture — becomes the first witness to the resurrection and the first person...
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Unlearning Empire Part 12: Holy Saturday
Holy Saturday. The day between death and resurrection. The day nobody knew how the story ended. We tend to skip this day — rushing from Good Friday's grief to Easter's triumph. But the disciples didn't get to skip it. They sat in it, for a whole day, not knowing. Today we try to do the same. We...
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Unlearning Empire Part 11: Good Friday
Good Friday. For centuries, Christians have tried to explain the cross. Some of those explanations have done enormous damage — glorifying suffering, justifying harm, making violence look holy. Today we slow down and look at the cross honestly: not as divine punishment, but as imperial violence.…
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Unlearning Empire Part 10: Maundy Thursday
Maundy Thursday. The last supper. The foot washing. The garden. The arrest. This is the night that holds more tenderness and more dread than any other night in Holy Week — and we're not going to rush through it. We talk about what it means that Jesus washed feet instead of commanding armies, why...
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Unlearning Empire Part 8: Spy Wednesday
Spy Wednesday. While Jesus teaches in the temple, Judas slips away and makes a deal with the chief priests thirty pieces of silver in exchange for handing Jesus over. We've turned Judas into a cartoon villain. But what if that's exactly the wrong way to read him? Today we talk about how systems...
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Unlearning Empire Part 7: Holy Monday
Holy Monday. Jesus walks into the temple the religious, economic, and political power center of Jerusalem and flips the tables of the money changers. We've been taught this was the one moment Jesus lost his temper. What if it was actually the most precise and intentional thing he did all week? We...
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Unlearning Empire Part 6: Palm Sunday
This week, we're rereading Palm Sunday not as a sentimental religious holiday but as an act of political imagination. Two processions entered Jerusalem that day. One looked like an empire. One looked like something else entirely. We talk about what that means for those of us who are done with...
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Unlearning Empire Part 8: Fig Tuesday
Holy Tuesday. Jesus curses a fig tree for having leaves but no fruit and it withers. At first glance it's one of the strangest things he ever does. But when you look closer, it's one of the most personal. We talk about what it costs to perform faith instead of having it, why so many of us were...
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Unlearning Empire Part 5: Unbound
Lazarus walked out of the tomb still wrapped in grave cloths. Alive. But not yet free. That's the part of the resurrection story nobody talks about and it might be the most important part for right now. In Episode 5 of Unlearning Empire, our Lenten podcast series, we're asking the question empire...
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Unlearning Empire Part 2: Leave What's Killing You
Part 2 of our Lenten Series
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Unlearning Empire Part 4: Seeing What Empire Blinds
What have you been trained not to see? That's the question underneath John 9 — one of the most politically charged healing stories in the Gospels. Jesus refuses the blame narrative, heals a man the system had written off, and suddenly the authorities have a problem. Not with the blindness. With…
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Unlearning Empire Part 3: From Extraction to Encounter
The Unlearning Empire Lenten Series: You don't have to leave your questions at the door. Unlearning Empire from Missiongathering Christian Church is for the deconstructing, the doubting, the righteously angry, and the quietly hopeful. Each week we dig into Scripture with honesty about power — and...
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Unlearning Empire: Resisting the Myth of Scarcity
The first temptation was not hunger. It was distrust. This episode traces the lie of scarcity from Eden to empire to modern capitalism—and follows Jesus into the wilderness to confront it head-on. It explores fasting as resistance, mutual aid over charity, and what it means to trust God enough to...
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Unlearning Empire: All Empires Turn To Ash
Ashes don't just remind you that you'll die. They expose the lie that empire is eternal. This episode reframes Ash Wednesday as a communal, political, and spiritual act of resistance. It explores why lament is dangerous, why performative faith serves power, and why remembering you are dust is...
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Lament For Our Times
Before you continue, I want to prepare you for a moment of lament. This isn't about shock or spectacle—it's about telling the truth in God's presence. You'll hear grief named, harm acknowledged, and lives remembered. If at any point you need to pause, breathe, or step away, that's okay. Lament is...
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A Time To Tell the Truth and Get Moving
A Time to Tell the Truth A reflection on faith, grief, and moral responsibility In a season marked by loss, confusion, and deep questions about who we are becoming, Rev. Andrew Shipley offers a long-form reflection grounded in Scripture, theology, and pastoral care. This episode invites listeners...
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Will We Protect the Vulnerable
WEEK 3 — Will We Protect the Vulnerable? Who Evil Always Asks Us to Sacrifice Every system reveals its true values by who it protects—and who it doesn't. In this episode, Rev. Andrew Shipley explores the painful but necessary question of how religious communities have sacrificed the vulnerable in...
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Will We Tell the Truth?
WEEK 3 — Will We Protect the Vulnerable? Who Evil Always Asks Us to Sacrifice Every system reveals its true values by who it protects—and who it doesn't. In this episode, Rev. Andrew Shipley explores the painful but necessary question of how religious communities have sacrificed the vulnerable in...
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Why Should We Be Timid In 2026?
Why Should We Be Timid in 2026? A Sermon from Missiongathering Every new year, we're told to be reasonable. To lower our expectations. To ask for less. To make ourselves smaller in the name of "what's possible." But the gospel has never been timid. In this sermon, Why Should We Be Timid in 2026?,...
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What Do You Fear Part 5: Good News Is Louder Than Fear
Good News Is Louder Than Fear Fear shouts. It dominates headlines, algorithms, and conversations. It tells us the world is ending and we are powerless to stop it. But the gospel has always insisted on something else. In this final sermon of the What Do You Fear? series, we proclaim a truth that...
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What Do You Fear Week 4: When You Are Afraid Give Me Your Hand
When You Are Afraid, Take My Hand Fear has a way of making us feel alone. Like we're the only ones trembling. Like everyone else has it figured out. But Scripture tells a different story. In this week's episode of What Do You Fear?, Ministry Intern Travelle Brown-Young joins us as we sit with a…
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What Do You Fear? Week 3 — Even in Our Fear, We Are Called Forward
Week 3 — Even in Our Fear, We Are Called Forward Mary, Jeremiah, and so many of our ancestors were afraid—and still, God called them forward. This week we look at the holy courage that doesn't erase fear but moves with it. We explore the quiet, daily, trembling "yes" that becomes the birthplace…
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What Do You Fear? Week 2 — When We're Running Out of Hope, God Is at Work
Week 2 — When We're Running Out of Hope, God Is at Work There are seasons when we feel spent—when our prayers feel unanswered, when the world feels too heavy, when hope feels like a candle burning down to its last flame. This week we remember that God is often most at work when we see it least....
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"What Do You Fear?" an Advent Series "In the time of Herod, we long for God to break in.
Week 1 — In the Time of Herod, We Long for God to Break In Fear is not new. In the time of Herod, the world was ruled by violence, intimidation, and empire. And yet—that is exactly where God chose to enter the story. This week we explore what it means to long for God's breakthrough in our own age...
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New Wine For New Skins: Becoming Good Ancestors
What if our discipleship was measured not by this Sunday, but by the next century? In "Becoming Good Ancestors," Pastor Andrew invites us to think beyond our timelines—planting trees we'll never sit under, telling truer stories, and building structures that protect the vulnerable after we're…
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New Wine For New Skins: God In Process
What if God isn't a distant, unmoved statue—but Love in motion with us? In "God in Process," Pastor Andrew draws on scripture and process theology to picture a God who feels, responds, persuades, and co-creates—never coercing, always luring creation toward wholeness. We explore how this changes...
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New Wine For New Skins Embracing The Future
The future isn't something that happens to us—it's something we practice. In "Embracing the Future," Pastor Andrew names our very real fears (change, loss, uncertainty) and then charts a hopeful, Jesus-shaped path forward: becoming good ancestors, stewarding our buildings and budgets like...
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New Wine For New Skins Interdependence
You were never meant to do this alone. In "Interdependence," Pastor Andrew traces a thread from the Body of Christ to ubuntu, disability justice, and ecosystems—showing how God's design is mutual care, not heroic self-sufficiency. We name the myths that isolate us (bootstraps, perfectionism…
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New Wine For New Skins Small Is All
Big change is born in tiny rooms. In "Small Is All," Pastor Andrew weaves Jesus' mustard-seed parables with emergent strategy's wisdom—what happens at the small scale is the large scale. We name how empire worships spectacle, while the kingdom grows through kitchen-table decisions, five-dollar...
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New Wine For New Skins Radical Economics
What if Jesus' good news is as practical as a grocery bill? In "Radical Economics," Pastor Andrew traces a biblical thread from manna and Sabbath to Jubilee, Acts-style sharing, and Zacchaeus—revealing an economy centered on enough, not extraction. We name how scarcity myths, debt, and consumer...
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New Wine for New Skins S1E6 Authenticity and Presence
What if holiness looks less like performance and more like showing up—honest, embodied, and here? In this sermon, Pastor Andrew contrasts curated religious personas with the vulnerable presence of Jesus. We talk about masks we learned to wear (perfectionism, niceness, certainty), the nervous...
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New Wine For New Skins S1E7 Radical Community
Church isn't a club; it's a covenant. "For Radical Community" imagines a people bound together by shared care, accountability, and joy—especially at the intersections of difference. Pastor Andrew names the habits that erode belonging (gossip, hero worship, scarcity) and the practices that build…
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New Wine For New Skins "The Noise"
We are drowning in voices telling us who to be, what to fear, who to hate, and how to prove we're enough. In "The Noise," Pastor Andrew names the spiritual exhaustion of swipe culture, 24/7 outrage, religious hot takes, and ancestral shame scripts buzzing in our heads. Drawing from scripture and...
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New Wine For New Skins "Love Beyond Atonement"
What if God's love was never a problem that needed fixing? In this episode, Pastor Andrew unpacks how sacrificial atonement theories—"Jesus had to die so God could stand us"—have distorted the character of God and harmed so many of us, especially those already carrying trauma, shame, and...
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New Wine For New Skins "Original Blessing in a World of Accusation"
So many of us were handed a story that starts with our failure. What happens if we start where scripture actually starts: "very good"? Pastor Andrew explores "original blessing" as a healing alternative to fear-based theologies that frame God as suspicious of our bodies, desires, and questions....
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New Wine For New Skins
What if the problem isn't the gospel, but the containers we've tried to pour it into? In this opening message, Pastor Andrew unpacks Jesus' metaphor of new wine and old wineskins as a call to release exhausted church structures, shaming theologies, and empire-shaped expectations. This episode…
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This Is How I Fight My Battles: Building Up
In today's episode, we continue our series "This Is How I Fight My Battles," where we explore how organizing, standing up for justice, and living out our faith are acts of resistance and healing. We dive deep into the ways we build beloved community and the power of standing firm even when it…
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This Is How I Fight My Battles: Standing Up
In today's episode, we continue our series "This Is How I Fight My Battles," where we explore how organizing, standing up for justice, and living out our faith are acts of resistance and healing. We dive deep into the ways we build beloved community and the power of standing firm even when it…
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This Is How I Fight My Battles: Speaking Up
This Is How I Fight My Battles — Truth over fear. Love over hate. Justice over silence. Join us this May as we learn to resist like Jesu
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Everything In-between: Acceptance and Resistance
As Jesus dies on the cross, one thief resists him and the other accepts him as Messiah. Jesus resists the empire but accepts his fate. We also are called to resist systems of power and oppression, and yet we ultimately have to accept that Jesus dies—and one day we will too. We have to discern…
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Everything In-between: Power and Humility
In his final hours, Jesus redefines power through acts of humility, including sharing a final meal with his closest friends and those who will soon betray him. After breaking bread, the disciples argue about who is the greatest, but Jesus tells them that the greatest must be the least and the...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Vision Statement: Missiongathering is a Progressive, Inclusive, and Anti-Racist Christian Church. Our vision is to be a space for healing, authentic relationships, and service to our local community. Our approach to faith and spirituality is less about doctrine or dogma, and more about living life fully and abundantly, which we believe to be impeccably modeled in the way of Christ. What we mean by Progressive: We embrace an open-handed approach to Christian theology. We interpret scripture through the lens of Christ-like love, empathy, and our continually evolving understanding of the world. Our community is a safe and welcoming space for wherever you might be in your spiritual journey, including those who are going through a deconstruction or faith shift. What we mean by Inclusive:We practice the inclusion and empowerment of all who have been historically excluded and disempowered in church communities, including women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQ+
HOSTED BY
Missiongathering Charlotte
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does MGCLT Sermons have?
MGCLT Sermons currently has 212 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is MGCLT Sermons about?
Vision Statement: Missiongathering is a Progressive, Inclusive, and Anti-Racist Christian Church. Our vision is to be a space for healing, authentic relationships, and service to our local community. Our approach to faith and spirituality is less about doctrine or dogma, and more about living life...
How often does MGCLT Sermons release new episodes?
MGCLT Sermons publishes regularly with 212 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to MGCLT Sermons?
You can listen to MGCLT Sermons on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts MGCLT Sermons?
MGCLT Sermons is created and hosted by Missiongathering Charlotte.
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