Starting off with some talkback! A listener responds to our election discussion and why is it that people can start from the same place of Jesus and yet move in such very different directions politically. Also, how does the future hope of a new humanity, of that future kingdom of God, affect our present action and movement in the world? Following this, the pastors get deep on a huge topic around Circle of Hope, the idea that dialogue is important and protects the gravity of our community. Our dialogue helps keep us together more than simply a set of doctrines or ideas about God, many of which were formulated in their time and place to bind people to community. Not everyone, especially now, is into a strict set of beliefs, and often there are many who have doubts, live in a gray space addressed better by listening and dialogue. A pastor, for instance, can have as many questions about faith as anyone else can! We need conversation, faith, love, Jesus and his grace to hold us. Lastly, some Show and Tell: adoring the stars and planets, discovering our spiritual ancestors, the Prophet Elijah and hope, and the pastoral wisdom of Dave Chappelle.

//Notes//

Jacob’s Trouble “These Thousand Hills” (1988):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVJfTG5I6Io

Circle of Hope’s proverbs:

https://circleofhope.net/proverbs

Robert Gates’ Passion for Leadership (2016):

https://www.amazon.com/Passion-Leadership-Lessons-Change-Service/dp/0307949648

Council of Chalcedon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Chalcedon

“Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!”

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+9&version=NRSV

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” John 20:29:

https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/John%2020%3A29

Daily Prayer and Transhistorical Blogs:

https://circleofhope.net/dailyprayer

https://circleofhope.net/dailyprayerdeeper - Elijah’s being and doing as much if not more than his words.

https://circleofhope.net/transhistorical - Lucretia Mott, Sundar Singh, Martin de Porres so far in November. Teresa of Avila, Harriet Tubman, Oscar Romero, and Ignatius of Loyola are on there too, and were celebrated in our Sunday meetings this month! Jarena Lee will be added.

Dave Chappelle on SNL being surprisingly pastoral:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un_VvR_WqNs

//About this Podcast//

Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

//Contact Us//

Email: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

YouTube: https://youtube.com/circleofhope

FB: https://fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: https://circleofhope.net/sharing

Episode 21: We Need a Better Way

It's a big podcast with a lot of big and difficult conversations, as big as this year of 2020 has been. From Walter Wallace Jr to the upcoming election, the pastors offer some insights, wisdom, prayers, and hopes about the looming social and political issues.

//Notes//

Litany for Walter Wallace

by Raleigh Booze

Oh God,

We mourn the death of Walter Wallace Jr.

Another black man fallen unjustly victim to police brutality in the US

Lord, we need a better way

Lord we need your way

We grieve with Walter's family, his community of West Philadelphia,

the country, and the world, We grieve with you Jesus

Lord we need a better way

Lord we need your healing

May we not jump to intellectualizing the deeply-rooted/historic problem of racism

or condemn how others are processing their grief

Lord we need a better way

Lord give us humility

May we establish alternatives to dealing with mental health crises

that don't resort to violence—that restore, transform and maintain dignity and respect for human life

Lord we need a better way

Lord convict us to transform the status quo

May we have the right words for the students we work with

especially those touched by this situation

Lord we need a better way

Lord help us be present

Lord you gave us Jesus to show us the meaning of love

We live in a world that often operates counter to everything that you are and have always been.

Give us hope. Don't allow us to succumb to despair

We ask all of these things in your name

Amen.

Ben’s blog on the election: https://www.circleofhope.net/benwhite/love-through-election/

Jonny’s blog on the election: https://www.circleofhope.net/jonnyrashid/the-love-of-christ-constrained-me-to-vote/

The book Rachel spoke about: Born from Lament by Emmanuel Katongole

https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7434/born-from-lament.aspx

Julie read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo with her kids.

https://www.katedicamillo.com/books/edward.html

Ben was talking about https://jesuscollective.com/

//About this Podcast//

Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

//Contact Us//

Email: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

YouTube: https://youtube.com/circleofhope

FB: https://fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: https://circleofhope.net/sharing

Circle of Hope pastors start out with some moments of insight from a recent women's retreat. Julie and Rachel report on lots of great conversations: from perfectionism and white supremacy, how God is freeing us from all our baggage, even about Monarch butterflies, among many other points of light. Next, the pastors get into their origin stories, answering a listener's question about what were they doing before being pastors. The pastors go through some of their journeys, and how that prior work and learning shaped who they are now. Finally, a little Show and Tell: 10 years of being a pastor, Third Day, little acts of kindness like baking for a neighbor, and The Soulmaking Room.

//Notes//

The Soulmaking Room, by Dee Dee Risher

https://upperroombooks.com/book/the-soulmaking-room/

Five Iron Frenzy

https://www.fiveironfrenzy.com/, currently, FIF has a Kickstarter campaign for their new record.

These Thousand Hills by Third Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKnU0LIfsBE

View from the High Point of New Jersey

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGVVxS4D1Mg/

//About this Podcast//

Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

//Contact Us//

Email: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

YouTube: youtube.com/circleofhope

FB: fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: circleofhope.net/sharing

The Circle of Hope pastors get into some rich discussions on this week's episode. Thanks to our listeners who offered them some deep stuff to chew on! In the first Talkback section, the pastors discuss making space for questions, leaving room for wonder in our faith, and that "correct" answers, rights and wrongs, can often lead from faith into faithlessness. Our faith is much more than exactitude, but is built on the wonder and mystery of God who is much bigger than our answers could ever hold. A little later in the show, another listener asks them about what questions they hold about faith currently, what questions are left lingering for them, and what they are desiring from God right now. To top it off, a little Show and Tell: an event on anti-racism, Andorra Meadow, Sufjan Stevens, socially distant worship. All this and more on Resist and Restore!

Notes:

The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens

https://music.sufjan.com/album/the-ascension

Befriending Our Desire by Philip Sheldrake

https://litpress.org/Products/4717/Befriending-Our-Desires?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIztSAreST7AIV0YpaBR3ayAgOEAAYASAAEgKc_vD_BwE

//About this Podcast//

Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

//Contact Us//

Email: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

YouTube: youtube.com/circleofhope

FB: fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: circleofhope.net/sharing

Talking back on how to survive during this prolonged Covid crisis. No physical touch? Meetings all look the same, meeting fatigue? Days running together? Our pastors talk about the struggles and share some of our community's ways that they're enduring these tough times.

Jonny interviews Drew Hart who just released a new book "Who Will Be a Witness." Jonny delves deep with Drew on his new book, including Jesus' participation in political action, what Christian Supremacy is and how it affects the church, on white supremacy, economic injustice, and more. A deep conversation filled with fresh ways of thinking about the Bible and strategies for what social justice we can participate in now.

A little Show and Tell to finish out the episode: the joy of a son playing soccer, a book on the spiritual journey, the wonders of a fishtank, the swans return to the lake!

Notes:

//Talk Back - On Surviving Covid//

Check out more of our Talkback at our Sunday meetings, 5pm at: circleofhope.net/OnlineMeeting and subscribe to us on YouTube at youtube.com/circleofhope

//Main Topic - Drew Hart Interview//

From Drew Hart's website (https://drewgihart.com/):

Drew G. I. Hart is an author, activist, and professor in theology in the Bible and Religion department at Messiah University with ten years of pastoral experience. Hart majored in Biblical Studies at Messiah College as an undergrad, he attained his MDiv with an urban concentration from Biblical Theological Seminary, and he received his PhD in theology and ethics from Lutheran Theological Seminary-Philadelphia.

Dr. Hart’s dissertation considered how Christian discipleship, as framed by Black theologies and contemporary Anabaptism, gesture the western Church towards untangling the forces of white supremacy and the inertia of western Christendom which have plagued its witness in society for too long. As two traditions that emerged from the underside of violent and oppressive western Christian societies, he found Black theologies and Anabaptism each repeatedly turning to the particularity of Jesus in the gospel narratives, ultimately calling for an ethic of liberation in the Black Church and an ethic of peacemaking in the Anabaptist tradition. Hart finds the practice of reading Jesus not only for the Church, but also against it, to be a vital dimension in salvaging western Christianity from itself [...]

Drew Hart’s Twitter handle:

https://twitter.com/DruHart

Inverse Podcast with Jarrod McKenna and Drew Hart:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inverse-podcast/id1358332600?i=1000427565197

Who Will Be A Witness by Drew Hart:

https://heraldpress.com/books/who-will-be-a-witness/

//Spiritual Show and Tell//

The Critical Journey by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/311089.The_Critical_Journey

//Transition Music//

Some transition music was sourced from Free Music Archive (freemusicarchive.org):

Band: Uncan

Song: Interpolation

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Uncanny/Third/Interpolation

Used under Creative Commons License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

//About this Podcast//

Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

//Contact us//

Email: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

YouTube: youtube.com/circleofhope

FB: fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: circleofhope.net/sharing

The freedom to call God "Mother" when relating to her is worth saying over and over again. The pastors delve deep into God's relation to gender, or lack thereof, and how we can see God in a multitude of relational ways. Following this, the pastor's talk about Circle of Hope's vision for Village Parenting, and how to raise and foster children's faith by not reducing their faith development to moral lessons and instruction, and offering the space to creatively imagine how we worship and how we relate to God. Later a little Spiritual Show and Tell: Rich Mullins, Drew Hart, gardening, surfing... All this and more on Resist and Restore.

Notes:

//Talk Back - On Mother God//

God is not genderless, God is gender-full

https://www.circleofhope.net/jonnyrashid/god-not-genderless-gender-full/

Matthew 23:37

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23%3A37&version=NRSV

Hosea 13

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hosea+13&version=NIV

//Main Topic - On Village Parenting//

Village Parenting Resource site

https://www.circleofhope.net/villageparenting/

About Children and Teens at Circle of Hope

https://www.circleofhope.net/children-and-teens/

//Spiritual Show and Tell//

Rich Mullins Website

http://kidbrothers.org/

Boy Like Me/Man Like You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYVCe_8XJX0

Who Will Be A Witness by Drew Hart

https://www.amazon.com/Will-Witness-Drew-G-I-Hart/dp/1513806599

About this Podcast: Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

Contact us at: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

YouTube: youtube.com/circleofhope

FB: fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: circleofhope.net/sharing

The Circle of Hope pastors start off with a little talkback from our recent Sunday online meeting. We've been passing the mike around at our Sunday online meetings, since we have a lot of great people who make up this body of ours. Recently our friend Pete talked about, among many things, speaking the truth in love and moments of feeling or staying small. The pastors discuss the question: "What encouragement from God do you find when you come against the tendency to become or stay small?" Later in the podcast, stories of joy! There's been a lot in the news that can make us feel despairing, so the pastors remind us of the joy that we can find in the strangest moments. Ben is mistaken for a bear. Rachel loves eating flowers. Julie gets meditative on painting a door. And Jonny finds laughter and jokes in random places. Later, some Spiritual Show and Tell with a few book and TV recommendations. All this and more on Resist and Restore!

Notes:

20 Wild Edible Plants

https://www.farmersalmanac.com/20-common-wild-edible-plants-24920

Nasturtium

https://www.almanac.com/plant/nasturtium

Kittatinny Ridge

https://pahikes.com/collections/eastern-pa/products/kittatinny-trails-map-set

"Call the Midwife" First Christmas Special

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2238586/

"The Chosen"

https://studios.vidangel.com/the-chosen

"God in My Everything" Book

https://www.zondervan.com/9780310499251/god-in-my-everything/

"God in My Everything" Event

https://wayofjesus.circleofhope.net/giftsforgrowing

Some transition music was sourced from Free Music Archive (freemusicarchive.org):

Band: Loyalty Freak Music

Song: Chillin with a drink at the club

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Loyalty_Freak_Music/TO_CHILL_AND_STAY_AWAKE/Loyalty_Freak_Music_-_TO_CHILL_AND_STAY_AWAKE_-_03_Chillin_with_a_drink_at_the_club

Used under Creative Commons License

http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

About this Podcast: Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

Contact us at: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

FB: fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: circleofhope.net/sharing

This week is a special crossover episode with our dear friends at Color Correction, a podcast by Circle of Hope's Compassion Team—Circle Mobilizing because Black Lives Matter. The podcast starts off with a little introduction and discussion on why anti-racism is important to us at Circle of Hope. Hence, why it was so perfect to have both podcast crews join forces and talk about this! What follows are a series different interviews between members of Resist and Restore and Color Correction. In the first interview, Kris Eden interviews Jonny Rashid and Andrew Yang on growing up in immigrant families in the US, and in generally white enclaves. Following this, Bethany Stewart and Julie Hoke dialogue on growing up in a neighborhood of predominantly different race than you.

Notes:

You can subscribe to Color Correction wherever you find your podcasts. The RSS feed can be found at https://soundcloud.com/color_correction

Some transition music was sourced from Free Music Archive (freemusicarchive.org):

Band: Proviant Audio

Song: Hello September

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Proviant_Audio/Welcome_Wilderness/Hello_September

Used under Creative Commons License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

About this Podcast: Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

Contact us at: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

FB: fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: circleofhope.net/sharing

The pastors start out with some talkback from our Sunday meeting: how do you sustain friendships during this isolating time of covid? Following this are the wonderful and thoughtful minds of some of Circle's very talented people. Each of the pastors dive deep with some artists from our community on how their faith and art intersect, understanding more about their process, how they see God in their art, how their art not just engages their faith but also interacts and is inspired by the world around them. Lastly, the pastors wrap up with a little show and tell, a lot of love for the musical Hamilton and the poet Denise Levertov. All this and more on Resist and Restore!

Notes:

Circle of Hope Audio Art — All of our original music is here.

https://circleofhopeaudioart.bandcamp.com/

Circle of Hope Daily Prayer WATER entry

https://www.circleofhope.net/dailyprayerdeeper/2020/07/10/july-10-2020-discrete-at-least/

Hamilton is streaming on Disney+

Kristen Snow: @ka.snow.

Jeffy Thomas: cuttink.studio | @cuttinkstudio

Stevie Neale: Teaching artist at Dancing Classrooms Philly and Teaching Artist at Philadelphia Young Playwrights

Ray Wright: @right.heres.fine

Some transition music was sourced from Free Music Archive (freemusicarchive.org):

Band: Drake Stafford

Song: Only Love

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Drake_Stafford/Drake_Stafford_-_Singles

Used under Creative Common License

About this Podcast: Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.

Contact us at: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

FB: fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: circleofhope.net/sharing

This week, the Circle of Hope pastors start with some talkback from Instagram. We asked what does discernment mean to you? This was in sync with our season of Mapping that Circle of Hope is doing right now. Mapping involves what we as a church will decide to do over the next year and beyond, being guided by the Holy Spirit into the great things we'll do next. After this, Jonny interviews Julie on her experience with the Bible, from when she was younger to how she learned to engage with it in community. Lastly, the pastors celebrate the things that have recently inspired them. From Gerard Manley Hopkins, to clothing drives, worship songs, and the gift of play. All this and more on Resist and Restore!

Notes:

Circle of Hope Audio Art — All of our original music is here.

https://circleofhopeaudioart.bandcamp.com/

“Take Heart,” as performed by members of our community across time and space.

https://youtu.be/j8VSGsuPdgA

The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins, the poem that Ben shared

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44402/the-windhover

Miss Pennsylvania Earth, what nourished Rachel’s soul.

https://www.facebook.com/misspennsylvaniaearth/

How the Bible Actually Works by Pete Enns

https://peteenns.com/books/how-the-bible-actually-works/

Some transition music was sourced from Free Music Archive (freemusicarchive.org):

Band: Bio Unit

Song: Outer Reaches

https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Bio_Unit/Content

Used under Creative Common License

About this Podcast: Resist and Restore is a podcast by Circle of Hope. We're extending the table of our dialogue! Tune in bi-weekly as the Circle of Hope pastors—Rachel, Ben, Julie, and Jonny—sit down to dialogue about faith, God, Jesus, the spiritual life, and everything in between. Available on Spotify, iTunes/Apple Music, Google Play, Stitcher, and more.

Contact us at: [email protected]

IG/TW: @circleofhopenet

FB: fb.me/CircleofHopePhillyRegion

Help keep the show running! Contribute at: circleofhope.net/sharing