The intriguing title encapsulates all of what this dynamic conversation embodies. Dr. Craig Mayes sits down at the table to discuss his decades of ministry experience but in particular his time spent in New York City serving, loving, and communing with a marginalized group of people who are struggling with homelessness. By the end of this conversation Craig leads our community into a restored and revitalized vision and challenge about what it truly means to love God and love our neighbor. You DO NOT want to be away from this table and this conversation. Be "now here" and no where else. Welcome...a seat is saved just for you at The Open Table Collective.

On this episode of The Cluttered Table Bea and Danny continue to discuss the weekly church lectionary. Bea gives some basic definitions, reasons, and ways to understand the lectionary and how it can be used to shape and grow our faith. They also discuss a passage of scripture in the book of 1 Corinthians that leads to a very intriguing story about a farmer and his orchard. As always these raw "Cluttered Table" discussions are designed to whet your appetite for scripture and help you wrestle with faith and the way life, God, people, and circumstances collide. These episodes have very little editing and are truly just unfiltered, raw, and unscripted discussions between a parent and child as they wrestle with faith together. We are glad you are gathered at our messy cluttered table and look forward to what God might say to us all through these discussions.  If you like The Open Table Collective podcast please subscribe to our podcast and share with the people in your life that might benefit from these types of discussions, especially those who have felt uninvited, marginalized, wounded, or looked over by the church or people of faith.  

Jesus was not only God but Jesus was fully human. Jesus was born as a vulnerable baby having to rely on his parents, family members, and community to help him grow and mature. Scripture claims Jesus would grow in wisdom and in stature throughout his life. The thought of God learning and growing seems so counterintuitive and strange yet that is how it is explained. The original Holy Week was the culmination of Jesus' entire life and public ministry and it was within those 7 days where Jesus would be accused, arrested, put on trial, found guilty, and sentenced to death on a Roman cross. But have you ever imagined the emotions as a human being that Jesus would have felt? Have you ever tried to place yourself in his mother Mary's shoes? This small message and moving poem by Pastor Jeff Nelson opens our imagination of what Jesus might have been feeling as he journeyed to the cross thinking about his beautiful mother and his life with her. Let this permeate your heart, mind, and soul. Let this shape you in a unique way this Easter as you allow yourself to imagine Jesus as not only divine but human.

Shane Claiborne visits The Open Table Collective to discuss his new book, Rethinking Life: Embracing the Sacredness of Every Person. Shane challenges and ignites our imagination to envision and embrace a holistic ethic of life, not just protecting life within the womb but truly valuing all life seeing every person as sacred. Shane is an activist and a fierce advocate for the homeless, the marginalized, and the imprisoned which the latter has fueled his passion to end the death penalty and help stop gun violence. In a sad ironic twist, we recorded this conversation just 24 hours removed from the horrific shooting in a Nashville school that took the lives of 3 precious children as well as 3 adults. This conversation seemed to bring a sense of some kind of hope in the midst of despair and a dream for people to come together for greater solutions to the addiction of violence we are seeing within our country. Pull up a chair and let’s learn together.

Danny and Bea once again sit at their cluttered table of faith but the conversation took a turn they did not expect. Reading from the most well-known chapter in all of scripture which starts with a man named Nicodemus coming to Jesus in secret, under the covering of darkness, they then finish with the most clear, concise, and well-known scripture John 3:16. The conversation could have easily turned into a typical or dare we say "rote evangelical call" to faith but instead their words wandered down a path talking about life, death, and how resurrection can happen on a daily level. Join them at the cluttered table and hopefully leave with a vision of how death ultimately brings resurrected life.

It is ridiculous in 2023 that there are still certain sects of the Christian church arguing, justifying, and putting up barriers to limit women in their roles and capacities of influence and leadership within the church. Carolyn Custis James is one of the modern-day faith heroes that has been writing about and fighting for the empowerment of women within the evangelical church for many decades. This journey has not been without much opposition but Carolyn is truly a courageous warrior and has the scars to prove it. She is a wonderful author of several books, a speaker, teacher, mentor, and one bad ass leader. Her writings and leadership provide new insights and understanding as it pertains to God's original design for men and women and how the church can sometimes miss the fullness of that blessed alliance. We know you will love sitting at The Open Table with Carolyn and Danny. Pull up a seat!!

This is the first episode of what we are calling "The Cluttered Table Collection". These are smaller "appetizer" episodes of Danny and his youngest child Bea discussing what they are learning as they journey together through the yearly church lectionary. These are not necessarily in order but meant to spark thoughts and inspire a desire to engage with God's holy scripture. We hope you enjoy these little bits and pieces of raw conversations about God and faith between a parent and child. 

Nicole Wilson and Danny Cox have a lively conversation with pastor and leader Eli Garza about the importance of understanding cultures, how to have an inter-cultural mindset, and what a gift it can be to truly do the work to see the uniqueness of all our neighbors.

Should our ethnicity, culture, race, or skin color influence our faith and how we view ourselves, God, our neighbors, and the world? This is the core question that Dr. Eric Moore and Danny wrestle with together at the table. What comes out of this discussion is intriguing and challenging. 

This is The Open Table Collective's first podcast; its maiden voyage. We will share the history of the project, some of the tenets we are built upon, and share some of our hopes and dreams as we venture out to sea on this journey of reimagining, rethinking, and reclaiming faith and the person of Jesus.