Mark Charbonneau and his friends at The Vine church in Austin, Texas are charting a unique way forward in our cultural and religious divisions. Dave Schmelzer talks with him about what their “third way” looks like and how it might help all of us in the middle of such unprecedented divisions. Does it only apply to a small number of people of good will? Does it offer broader hope? They close with a few words about the life of a pastor at all, much less one in the middle of these sorts of cultural divides. 

Mentioned on this podcast:

The Vine church in Austin, Texas

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Some great thinkers like GK Chesterton and Meister Eckhart pitch that right at the heart of God's reality is play and that the more we can tap into this bone-deep playfulness, even in the middle of realities that look quite unpromising and overwhelming, the better we'll thrive.

Mentioned on this podcast

The God Who Plays: A Playful Approach to Theology and Spirituality, by Brian Edgar 

Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, by Stuart Brown M.D.

Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, by Matthew Fox

The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron

One of the charms of Christian faith is that so many scriptures encourage us to ask God for things we want. But as we age we realize it must be more complicated than that--and the great contemplatives add complexities as they focus on things like union with God as the main thing or with cautions about things like "disordered attachments". But we still do in fact want things! Dave Schmelzer offers us some things to ponder in these conundrums.

One unexpected outcome of the Christian contemplative life is that, per the Benedictines, we'll discover that the stuff we need to do everyday has the possibility of moving from "that stuff we have to get done" to "co-creating a better world with God." And not just that, but it also then might make our days feel rich and purposeful when they'd been feeling less than that. Christa Connelly helped facilitate a fascinating conversation on the ins and outs of this and she and Dave Schmelzer talk about what it's meant for her and might mean for you. 

Mentioned on this podcast:

Joan Chittister's book The Monastic Heart: 50 Simple Practices for a Contemplative and Fulfilling Life

Dave Schmelzer used to lead a church in which looking to experience power that we're told comes from the Holy Spirit was a big deal. Does that view of the spiritual life translate to a contemplative world? It turns out the answer is not just "yes," but even "oh, you have no idea."

Mentioned on this podcast:

Check out the next session of Faith Part 2 in October. It's a free 8-week online look at some crucial but lesser-taught riches of Christian faith that might help us when our initial faith experience falters a bit. 

Dave Schmelzer and Curtis Gruenler (an English professor and medievalist) have been friends since college and they talk about the ins and outs of how friendships themselves can empower the kind of growth in God that we talk about on The Pocket Contemplative.

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If you'd like to register interest in October's (free, eight-week) Faith Part 2 course, let us know here.

Curtis is launching a Substack on friendship (from a medievalist's perspective)

Curtis and Dave allude in passing to:

Spiritual Friendship by the medieval monk Aelred of Rievaulx

Rene Girard and his Shakespeare book Theater of Envy

In this continuation of a look (from Notre Dame sociologist Chrisitan Smith) at the religious world that Millennials in particular are living in, Dave Schmelzer will continue to look at some large, cultural forces at play before turning to some self-inflicted wounds from religion.  

Mentioned on this podcast

Register your interest here for this fall's Faith Part 2 course, a free, online look at how the Christian tradition (sometimes partnering with other contemplative traditions and modern neuroscience) encourages us into an unexpected second chapter of faith after, perhaps, our initial experience of faith has faltered. 

Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America, by Christian Smith

Evangelical parents are taught that a key part of their parental responsibility is to raise their kids to be Christians. But that's becoming, in an understatement, far more challenging  says notable Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith. In this revealing first of a two part podcast, Dave Schmelzer will walk you through some of the large-scale cultural forces that, Smith reports, are driving religion to a kind of cultural obsolescence. 

Mentioned on this podcast

Register your interest here for this fall's Faith Part 2 course, a free, online look at how the Christian tradition (sometimes partnering with other contemplative traditions and modern neuroscience) encourages us into an unexpected second chapter of faith after, perhaps, our initial experience of faith has faltered. 

Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America, by Christian Smith

Many earnest evangelicals and charismatics, Dave Schmelzer among them, have found comfort and connection in learning to hear God's voice in the spirit taught by the great 17th-century contemplative Brother Lawrence. But an insurmountable problem usually comes up: as delightful as the conversation itself is, lots and lots of things that are important to us don't actually work out in ways we'd felt like God was telling us they would. And, eventually, we wise up and quit this dialogue. But that is not the advice of some great contemplatives, who tell us that we've been making one key mistake all along. If we just clear that up, we're told we'll get a sea of benefits that will give us "solid ground" to stand on in the chaos that is life on earth. 

Mentioned on this podcast:

Register your interest here for the 8-week Faith Part 2 course coming this fall. 

The book touched on here: The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence

Many of the most prominent social activists in the last half century or so have also been contemplatives: Howard Thurman, the Dalai Lama, and Thomas Merton among others. Does the sort of spirituality we talk about here have things to offer in a world like ours where people feel daily outrages flowing through their media feeds? Might our practices actually be negative--in that moving past constant reactivity might make us too passive? But surely constant outrage mostly leads to hopelessness (and unpleasant days). Dave Schmelzer is joined by Grace Schmelzer and Steve Joh (a former pastor who currently leads a network of small, spacious, spiritual, Christian communities in the Bay Area) for a lively conversation about all of this, including a look at the most commonly discussed spiritual approach to addressing such times.

Mentioned on this podcast:

Register your interest in the next Faith Part 2 course here.

Arbor communities in the Bay Area

The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World, by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu