Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Ben White

Location: 3800 Marlton Pike

About Talk: We have a sense of ourselves in community. Who we are in relationship with others IS who we are. There is no other way to be human. No matter how isolated we are or feel, we are still very connected to the world. But we need to feel it. Loving your neighbor as yourself is a way to be connected on purpose. To claim your connectedness as part of your identity (especially in Christ) is a way to get free from the immense powers of darkness that threaten to swallow you up (like the black hole at the center of M87 that scientists photographed and released this week).

Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Calenthia Dowdy

Location: 2212 S. Broad St.

About Talk: In springtime, the new plants and flowers push up even through cement sometimes. Disruptions are good and necessary for our growth, too. God is always trying to do a new thing (Isaiah 43:16-21) and we have not obtained it all yet, so we need to press on and be willing to be uncomfortable (Philippians 3:4-14). For example, why do racial divides still exist in the kingdom of God? Why do we not worship together more? Let Jesus disrupt your cultural habits this Lent. May you encounter the Lord himself in your discomfort, just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). The one who brings transformation is with us.

Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Julie Hoke

Location: 5720 Ridge Ave.

About Talk: The giant sequoia trees need fire to release seeds from their cones. Three-hundred foot redwood trees have shallow, wide root systems that intertwine and fuse together with one another to withstand the elements. These trees illustrate deeper truths about life in Christ, reminding us how new life is possible when the fire of suffering seems to burn and we are weary of “being strong.” Jesus showed us the way to new life is to die to ourselves, to give up trying to get better on our own, to do things on our own capacity. He offers us himself and a whole new way of being strong in our weakness.

Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Ben White

Location: 3800 Marlton Pike

About Talk: The Hebrew word for strength in Mark 12:29-31 is meod (meh-ode). Maybe the best definition is “muchness,” but that is unfortunately not an English word. Let’s make it one. Love the Lord with all your muchness. Not all your ideal-amount-ness. Just your as-much-as-you-have-ness. (Let’s make up so many words using hyphens!). Let’s explore our sense of not-enoughness so we can claim this story as our own: “I have connection to infinite love. Jesus is the source and I have received from him. It may feel like just a little bit sometimes, but that’s all he asks me to give. All of my muchness is all I have, nothing more. So I can give what I have been given.”

Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Rachel Sensenig

Location: 2212 S. Broad St.

Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Pat McGowan

Location: 3800 Marlton Pike

About Talk: Pat tells two stories from his week. One was a surprising experience of God. The other was a surprising reaction to something that could have gotten him all jammed up and probably would have made him miss the experience he had in the first story. God is shining all the time but we are often distracted, darkened and undone in ways that make us miss what God is doing. Dialogue is one way to shed some light. And dialogue is our specialty.

Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Julie Hoke

Location: 5720 Ridge Ave.

About Talk: We are at a tender point in the Lenten journey. Many of us are weary. Let’s stay together in this a little while longer. Resist the urge to cover up your pain or move on. There is something more lasting, more full, more freeing than our temporary habits of avoidance or relief. Tonight we are letting our sorrow, our suffering, our grief draw us to the deeper healing, forgiveness and wholeness that Jesus offers. We follow the Psalms of Lament to write our own expression of grief and to call out to God together.

Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Ben White

Location: 3800 Marlton Pike

About Talk: We need to feel it in our minds. Our minds are often elevated to the top of our self-hood but they are not our essence. Our minds need transformation to love God as Jesus calls us to do. The murkiness of our minds, the unconscious motivations, the forgetfulness—all of it needs Christ’s light to shine on it. If we choose to repent of letting our thoughts control us we take our thoughts captive. This possibility is a hopeful promise for those of us who feel stuck in patterns of thinking. Jesus can deliver us from ALL that oppresses us, even our minds.

Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Julie Hoke

Location: 5720 Ridge Ave.

About Talk: The practice of centering prayer allows us to get to that deep place of love and belonging that our hearts long for. It is not limited to the “felt” presence of God but is rather a deepening of faith in God’s abiding presence, through his Spirit. It is a place that remains untouched by the conflicts we face. And as we let our whole hearts be enveloped in God’s love there, we are more able to love God with all our hearts and the rest of our lives can flow out of that center.

Season: Lent - We Need to Feel It

Speaker: Scott Sorrentino

Location: 3800 Marlton Pike

About Talk: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” could seem like a demand. But what does love feel like? What is it like to receive? What is the difference between receiving and giving? They are definitely not very distinct. But don’t take monotheism for granted. There are a lot of other things out there being worshiped, and demanding your love. "Hear, you chosen people, the Lord your God." It requires something from us, but that something is letting go. It requires nothing, but an active sort of nothing.