09/30/2018 Genesis 2:4-25 Kendall Vanderslice   Kendall Vanderslice is a graduate of Wheaton College and Boston University (MLA Gastronomy). She is a student at Duke Divinity School and author of an upcoming book on dinner churches: We Will Feast: Rethinking Dinner, Worship, and the Community of God(Eerdmans, 2019).   “The fruit of that tree was food whose eating was condemned to […]

09/23/2018 Acts 16:13-34 Chris Breslin   “It’s easy for us to see what our church or neighborhood or city could be, to see all the things it’s not and dream of other places. But what if our sense of what could be is not an invitation to leave and find that elsewhere? What if it’s an invitation to shape our […]

09/16/2018 Acts 2:42-47 Chris Breslin   “After I gazed for a long time at Rublev’s Trinity these words spoke to me with new power. ‘Praying at all times’ has come to mean ‘dwelling in the house of God all the days of our lives.’ ‘Surviving all that is going to happen’ now tells me that I no longer need to […]

Our conversation took place at Oak Church on September 9, 2018. Tammy White Rodman (Pilgrimage Coordinator for DurhamCares) was the moderator. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (MDiv, Duke Divinity School) is a writer, speaker, and activist. He and his wife, Leah, founded the Rutba House, a house of hospitality where the formerly homeless are welcomed into a community that eats, prays, and shares […]

09/09/2018 Jeremiah 29:4-9 Reynolds Chapman   Reynolds Chapman is Executive Director of DurhamCares, whose mission is to mobilize Durham residents to love their neighbors. He is a minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church, planting and co-pastoring Shiloh Covenant Churchin Durham’s Braggtown neighborhood. Reynolds is actively involved in the Christian Community Development Association. He lives with his wife, Katelyn, and family […]

09/02/2018 Luke 10:25-37 Chris Breslin   The missionary must be the salt which dissolves in the meat, disappears and dies in it. -Leslie Newbigin “I am an Israeli Jew on my way from Jerusalem to Jericho, and am attacked, beaten, stripped, robbed and left half dead in a ditch. Two people who should have stopped, instead pass by: a Jewish […]

08/26/2018 Prayer & Work & Presence Psalm 46 Chris Breslin   “Every step an arrival.” -Eugene Peterson   “Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” -Mary Oliver   “The Psalms not only insist that we are called to live at the intersection of God’s space and our space, of heaven and earth, to be (in […]

08/19/2018 Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Meg Hoffman   Oak Kids Website Godly Play Foundation   Songs for Today’s Worship Gathering: Turn! Turn! Turn! by Seeger Great is Thy Faithfulness by Chisholm/Runyan All Creatures of Our God and King by St. Francis 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) by Redman/Myrin Steadfast by McCracken/Jordan/Silverberg/Nouwen Rest by Maher/Cockrell Doxology

08/12/2018 Revelation 22:16-21 Chris Breslin   “I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.” -Lesslie Newbiggin   “Foot washing is perhaps the most futuristic practice of the church, though not many people really believe that. Most Christians think they are being cutting edge and futuristic when they have busy graphic presentations running on […]

08/05/2018 Colossians 3:1-17 Chris Breslin   “…the Holy Spirit takes the ‘givenness’ of what has happened in Christ, and brings it alive in ever fresh ways in ever new contexts. Moreover, God can take our most catastrophic mistakes and re-create them, make them serve his drama. That’s the wonder of what Christians call salvation; it is not simply a matter […]