• Website - http://spark-network.org/

What I'm Into: 

• Strengthsfinder

It feels like America's cultural and political life has never been more fragmented and jarring--but a little reflection will suggest that 50 years ago was even crazier, with assassinations and rioting and lies from the White House. In 1965, young Roger Dewey took a spiritual and cultural journey through Latin America that he wrote about in his book The Hitchhiking Diaries. It transformed both his faith and his social conscience. Fifty years later, he and his wife, Claire, revisited the experience and came back with fresh perspective for hopeful faith in this time of craziness. 

Mentioned in Today's Podcast

Books

• The Hitchhiking Diaries: A Young Man's Adventure Through Latin America in 1965  | Roger Dewey

What I'm Into

• The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective | Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert.

"God's goodness" is a pretty basic religious teaching. But in Blue Ocean Faith, they've found that this truth triggers surprising, unexpected ways to the life we all want. Christina Roberts, Ryan Bauers and Dave Schmelzer explore the key ways this truth makes it possible to suffer and nonetheless find a great, transcendent world.

Mentioned in Today's Podcast: 

The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding God's Plan for Humanity | By Daniel P. Fuller

Several weeks back, Blue Ocean Faith's Dave Schmelzer invited members of Blue Ocean's mailing list who regarded themselves as "done with church" to fill that out for him. After a hundred detailed responses within the hour, Dave started compiling. Here, he, Christina Roberts and Ryan Bauers take a first pass at passing on what they've learned and what it might mean. 

Mentioned in Today's Podcast:

Church Refugees: Sociologists Reveal Why People Are Done with Church but not Their Faith | By Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope

The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community | By Marc J. Dunkelman

What I'm Into:

• The Long Goodbye | By Raymond Chandler

Adam Reynolds has, for years, been the Blue Ocean Faith chaplain at M.I.T., but has recently been promoted as an assistant chaplain for everyone there. Arguably more than anyone else in the BOF world, Adam has learned some ins and outs of, as a Christian, promoting spiritual health among all people. But it's required significant spiritual growth and change for him to pull that off. Dave Schmelzer and Christina Roberts have a fascinating conversation with Adam about what that's looked like and what all Christians might learn from his journey. 

Mentioned In Today's Podcast - 

• SEEK - find all of the videos here.

• Bucky on Parade

Some years back, Dave Schmelzer and Blue Ocean Faith worked with a major evangelical PR person who loved everything about BOF with the strong exception of it's use of the word "mystical" as part of its understanding of spiritual growth. And yet the idea that there really is something going on out there is a big deal to Christina Roberts, Ryan Bauers and Dave. They discuss why as well as kicking around why mysticism can seem so controversial in some religious settings.

Mentioned in Today's Episode:

• Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics -  Dan Harris

Bonus Material

A constituting idea of Blue Ocean Faith has been that everyone is us, that there is no ultimate us/them. But we developed that idea when the "them" for religious people were secular people, a group that Blue Ocean Faith flows easily with. Years later, the "us" is the other side of a sharply partisan, often vicious political divide. Christina Roberts, Ryan Bauers and Dave Schmelzer discuss whether "everyone is us" holds true in this new world. 

Mentioned in Today's Podcast:

Helpful Websites

• Carl Medearis

Podcast Episodes

• Episode 109 - Good Without God's Greg Epstein on Life as an American Atheist/Humanist

What I'm Into

• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Greg Epstein, Harvard and MIT's Humanist Chaplain, joins Blue Ocean Faith's Dave Schmelzer, Christina Roberts and Ryan Bauers for a dynamic conversation about life as a nonreligious person in a largely religious country, gathering atheists/agnostics at Harvard and MIT, finding common cause with Christians and other people of faith and much more. 

• Good Without God - Greg Epstein - https://amzn.to/2tO87FI

• Greg Epstein's Webpage - The Humanist Hub

Other Podcast Episodes Mentioned

• Episode 102 - On Men's Spiritual and Emotional Development

What I'm Into

• Goliath on Amazon TV

Almost 100 episodes ago, a Christian from the South challenged Blue Ocean Faith's Dave Schmelzer and his co-hosts, Val Snekvik and Tom Wassink, that, as Northern Christians, they showed little interest in understanding their Southern compatriots. On this July 4 week, we were eager to revisit this striking conversation about the fundamental divisions that remain between the South and much of the rest of the country and what it looks like to bridge those divides. 

Mentioned in Today's Podcast:

What I'm Into

• City of Gold Documentary - https://amzn.to/2IxJe5F