This is part 5 in our Easter series and the last episode in our inaugural season! Wade Zick is director of Pilgrim FirsCamp and Conference Center. He shares the power of liberating space for youth and adults coming alive in their sexuality and faith as well as the life and death stakes. Hosted by Rev. Tracy Howe Wispelwey, Minister For Congregational and Community Engagement for the United Church of Christ.

Wonder what it is like for youth attending a church seeking to be alive in sexuality and faith? Listen to Sam and Annabel, two high school students on the journey with their faith community!

This week we jump straight into the conversation with Rev. Thea Racelis, Latina queer theologian, activist, mother, wife and pastor in Las Vegas, NV. Thea brings wisdom, experience and insight into the intersections of LGBTQIA and Latinx identity as well as practical advice to congregations expanding their ministries to people becoming more alive in their sexuality and faith!

This week our lectionary reflection considers what it means to lay down our lives in the wake of resurrection. Rev. Tracy Howe Wispelwey hosts a conversation with Anil Oommen, Assistant Professor at Pacific University in Eugene, OR, and delves into vulnerability, humanity and the cost of broken masculinity in our society and world.

This week begins our 5 part Easter series, Alive! In Our Sexuality and Faith. This week's lectionary takes us straight to our embodied faith as followers of Jesus come to terms with the resurrection and the Jesus being both alive and scarred. Our conversation with Amy Johnson, Commissioned Minister of Sexual Education with the United Church of Christ and the National Our Whole Lives Coordinator introduces us to the relationship between sexuality, sexual education and a just world for all.

In this special one hour Holy Week conclusion of the series, Sacred Conversations To End Racism, Rev. Traci Blackmon opens up about her personal experience of white supremacy as a child growing up in Alabama, and then in Charlottesville this past summer. With an extended reflection on Holy Week and a journey towards resurrection, the realities that not everyone will be transformed are juxtaposed with a radical call to hope and to go on even when the way is literally made impossible.

Liz Alexander is a millennial womanist, entrepreneur and writer for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. Getting ready for Holy Week, Liz and co-hosts Rev. Tracy Howe Wispelwey and Rev. Dr. Velda Love reflect on how the criminal justice system has been weaponized, particularly against women and girls of color or who are poor. Liz offers wisdom and reflection on how each community has a unique role on dismantling and eradicating racism.

In Part 5, Rev. Dr. Velda Love and Rev. Tracy Howe Wispelwey talk with Jamye Wooten about building black power in Baltimore and self-sustaining community building as a radical path to dismantling oppression. Jamye is the creator of the #BlackChurchSyllabus and #MLK2BAKER. In April 2015, Jamye co-founded Baltimore United for Change, a coalition of grassroots organizations in Baltimore City that organized in response to the death of #FreddieGray. Jamye is a founding board member of the Tubman House and serves on the board of trustees for Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary. He is the former program director of the Collective Banking Group, Inc. (CBG), a Christian ministry that draws together leaders from the faith, business, and public service sectors to develop and enhance economic empowerment strategies for the African American community.

Rev. Melanie is a womanist ethicist, millennial preacher, intellectual activist, and the 2017-18 Visiting Instructor of Ethics, Theology, and Culture at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, Texas. She is the Co-Curator of #millennialwomanism forum alongside Liz S. Alexander hosted on the Black Theology Project (btpbase.org) and Co-Creative of The Millennial Womanism Project. In this week's episode, Rev. Melanie along with co-hosts Rev. Tracy Howe Wispelwey and Rev. Dr. Velda Love, reflect on shifting paradigms, the force of millennials in eradicating racism as well as radicalizing young white nationalists, lent and more. Rev. Melanie earned a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Howard University and a Master of Divinity with a certificate in Black Church Studies from Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Melanie is a Doctor of Philosophy candidate at Chicago Theological Seminary studying ethics, theology, and culture.

Rev. Dr. Curtiss Paul DeYoung is the CEO of the Minnesota Council of Churches. Previously he was the Executive Director of the historic racial justice organization Community Renewal Society in Chicago and the inaugural Professor of Reconciliation Studies at Bethel University in St. Paul. This week he joins co-hosts, Rev. Tracy Howe Wispelwey and Rev. Dr. Velda Love to talk about de-centering whiteness when you've been socialized white, and how to dismantle racism from a place of privilege.