A message for the third week of advent, or at least my advent, "joy". please en-JOY!

A loosely based podcast on the second week of Advent: Faith.

How does the birth of Jesus, the salvation of Israel and the world, hope and faith intersect? I'm not sure. But I do explore it a bit here!

Note: "The Anticipated Christ: A Journey Through Advent And Christmas" by Brian Zahnd is the book which I couldn't remember. Also, I refer to Jeremiah as the builder of the wall of Jerusalem. I should have said Nehemiah...

In this advent message, I speak a little about salvation and what salvation might look like on the ground, realistically. I would love to know your thoughts...

Prompted by an episode of Grey's Anatomy, I revisit the problem of suffering and try and bring some perspective to this very real and very mysterious subject.

In this episode, I explore the proposed idea to call missionaries something else, as the term/title missionary has become a mixed bag which brings up all kinds of images and emotions for different people, based on their experiences and their country's experiences with missionaries in the past.

Will a name change change anything? Is it necessary?

After 262 plus podcasts, I, again, feel the need to explain why I do what I do, the way I do, Driving Theology. There are some new insights here, I think, that I haven't discovered before.

How much of what ails the church today can be traced to a lack of humility in leaders? How do we know we know what we think we know?

I recently became aware that I may have finally shed my christian programming. Good or bad? Not sure. But it's happening. At least on some level. My journey to shed the bad while focusing on the good has been a nearly 20 year journey and has led me down some interesting roads, mainly to organic church (whatever that means) and more freedom.

What does Jesus have to do with Jazz? More than you might think. In this episode I wax philosophic on jazz and the way that dissonant chords are resolved so beautifully in Jazz, and works beautifully as a metaphor for the resolution of the chaos which we face so often in life. That's Life!

I begin by talking a little bit about Jazz, and then get into the main topic of today: as teachers, parents, and clergy, do we know the difference between manipulation and inspiration? What are the differences? Is it possible that we have been manipulating, all the while thinking we have been inspiring?