Episodes
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Season 6: Episode 3 | Active Practice
Jesus was a practical guy, and his practical approach to spirituality seems to easily lost in the midst of contemporary theological and theoretical debates. This episode invites you to take a very practical approach to your spiritual life by asking the question, "What should I do?" And rather…
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Season 6: Episode 2 | Contemplative Practice
This season we are discussing three main areas of Christian practice. First stop: Contemplative Practice- what is it and why does it matter? What's the difference between meditation and contemplation? Who was Guigo II and why should you care? Is there still a case to be made for regular bible...
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Season 6: Episode 1 | Following Jesus is a Practice, Not a Belief
Many of us with evangelical "roots" were handed a belief system called Christianity, and much of that system has been called into question in recent years. The current crisis of faith that many are experiencing could rightly be called a crisis of the failure of belief systems to deliver the...
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Season 5: Episode 5| Some Questions and Difficulties
I wish I heard more people talk about the spiritual life in such plain language! Evelyn, in her final chapter of the book "The Spiritual Life" addresses some of the biggest and most common challenges presented to those pursuing the spiritual life (at least in the early stages) in the shortest...
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Season 5: Episode 4| Cooperation with God
In this episode we are looking at the active life - all the things we do in a day - and asking, "How can we cooperate with God in the middle of all this?" What does my mundane life have to do with divine reality? Is spirituality simply seeking contemplative experiences and disregarding everything...
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Season 5: Episode 3| Practical Implications
In this episode, I attempt to get as practical as possible when talking about connecting with God. What is the difference between doing religious or spiritual activities in a way that connects us to God versus doing them in a way that disconnects us. The Pharisees (as recorded in the gospels) are...
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Season 5: Episode 2 | Connecting With God
Let's think about what we mean when we talk about connecting with God. In this episode I am using Evelyn Underhill's second talk in a series of four on the Spiritual Life to help us, and I think her description is prescient for the situation we find ourselves in today. I hope this discussion is...
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Season 5: Episode 1 | A Wider Life
In this season, we will be using Evelyn Underhill's book "The Spiritual Life" as a guide for provoking us to think bigger about Christian spirituality. As always, we will try to bring a very practical approach while dealing with such big ideas. In this episode, we ask the question, "What is the...
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The Kingdom (6): Conclusion
This is my attempt at wrapping things up by tying the concepts together from the last 5 episodes! I hope you have enjoyed this series, and that it has in some way enlarged and excited your vision for life within that plane of existence Jesus called the Kingdom.
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The Kingdom (5): Freedom
If we are hoping to get a sense of what Jesus means when he uses the phrase "The Kingdom of God," we might not find a better word than freedom. It essentially means freedom from coercion and control, and freedom to be whatever and whoever we truly are. But controlling and dictatorial pressures...
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The Kingdom (4): Relationship
What is it that makes human relationship possible and sustainable? Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God gives us a way to understand how relationship can work within the larger picture of God's sustaining relationship through he power of forgiveness. In this episode we will explore the Matthew 18...
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The Kingdom (3): Reality
For those who've heard the Bible preached, terms like "the Kingdom of God" can easily sound like purely religious ideas that have no bearing in the real world. But what if "the Kingdom" means something far bigger than "this religion"? In this episode, we will explore the Kingdom as a metaphor…
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The Kingdom (2): Oneness
Today we are examining the invitation of the Kingdom as an invitation into oneness. This may sound esoteric, but oneness (or its absence) is played out on every level of existence and daily life, and has major consequences for how we live. Our invitation into the Kingdom of God is for us to learn...
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The Kingdom (1)
This episode kicks of a series of explorations around Jesus' great metaphor of the Kingdom of God. What is he talking about and how are we to understand and respond to it? Today we examine some first century context, as well as the implications for every person who comes into contact with Jesus'...
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Two Parables of the Kingdom
The parables of Jesus are some of the most contentious and enigmatic of all his sayings, but they were his method of choice for teaching about what he called "the Kingdom of the Heavens." In these two parables, we are not given much in terms of answers. Instead, we are invited to ask better...
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All His Benefits (Psalm 103)
When we bring the issue of "surrender to God" front and center, it brings up some very interesting reactions - many for good reason. At some point, we will all probably ask the question, "Is all this surrender really worth it?" This episode is (hopefully) a conversation starter using Psalm 103 as…
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Images of Surrender
This is a brief meditation on surrender, offering some images to hopefully help us embrace surrender as the best way to live with God. At the end, I offer a suggestion for a simple practice of living in surrender, borrowed from St. Francis de Sales book, "Philothea" (Introduction to the Devout...
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Beyond Survival: Recap
Let's take a few minutes to pull together the pieces from the last four episodes and land at one question we can ask ourselves, leading to one concrete action we can take: Question: Can you identify one survival behavior in yourself, and identify how you would practice surrendering it to God when...
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Beyond Survival 4: Gaining New Experiences
Practicing surrender by saying "no" to self only makes sense if we have something to say "yes" to. Thankfully, God has promised to faithfully be there to receive our "yes", even as we're learning to recognize it. This week's topic and discussion focus on the experience of saying yes to God- how…
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Beyond Survival 3: Tools for Getting Out
The tools of survival we know are familiar (explored in episode 2), but the tools Jesus offers for a life of sufficiency are counter-intuitive. What path is offered to us to walk out of survival? What are the habits of mind, body, and spirit that build a life of well-being in every season? That's...
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Beyond Survival 2: Common Survival Methods
This week we will look at several categories of common tools and methods we use in survival mode. These tools aren't necessarily bad in themselves, but they provide unfulfilling and oftentimes misleading substitutes for what God offers through the life of faith.
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Beyond Survival 1: What is a survival mode of living?
In this first session we will define survival and contrast it with the life the Jesus invites his followers into.
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New Fundamentals 5: Relationship Matters, Part 1
What are the consequences of a reality based on a relational God who has made relational beings? This chat discusses three relational environments every person interacts with, and how they affect each other.
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New Fundamentals 4: Who am I? Part 2
In this second part of our exploration of what it means to be human, we look at relationship and communication as essential elements of humanity. We also take the analogy of the divine dance and apply it to how humans can dance with God.
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New Fundamentals 3: Who am I? Part 1
Starting from Genesis 1:26, Dan and I try to unpack the significance of being made in God's "image and likeness".
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New Fundamentals 2: Who is God? Part 2
Exploring further into the mystery of God, Dan and I discuss "relationship", "love", and "unity" as they relate to the Trinity. We also explore the age-old metaphor of perichoresis, the divine dance, and what it shows us about the nature of God.
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New Fundamentals 1: Who is God? Part 1
I have invited my friend Dan Lanning to join me for a 6-part series as we discuss some "new fundamentals" that are not really new. In this talk we play with the mysterious nature of God as both Trinity and One.
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Spiritual Living 5: Living from the Heart
For many Jesus-followers, the spiritual life has been romanticized as a life filled with emotional ecstasy (if you do it right). But is that the teaching and the history that has come to us over the centuries? Are the emotions the deepest and truest part of our selves, or is there something more...
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Spiritual Living 4: Working with Grace part 2
The grace of being, which gives the freedom from having to justify ourselves, leads to a grace of doing. This is where we get to actively work with God for good. But most of this work is not what we think it is...
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Spiritual Living 3: Working with Grace part 1
Grace is not just unmerited favor. It is the energy of God working on our behalf to help us in the good we want to do. But how do we access it, and can we grow in it?
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Spiritual Living 2: Salvation is Daily Living
Salvation means being rescued or delivered, but what does that look like today? We can learn to recognize the effects of salvation as we learn to do our part, working it out in the challenges of everyday living.
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Spiritual Living: What does it mean to be spiritual?
In this episode, we explore the nature of Jesus' invitation to live in a new reality, which he called the Kingdom of God. How do we practically live in this spiritual reality, being affected by it and letting it affect our physical life? What are some guiding priorities and habits that keep us on...
About this show
Insights, conversations, and practices for the journey of faith, designed for a circle of trusted friends to process together.
Hosted by
Joel Skinner
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