For a long time, Christianity has had an identity crisis and we need a shift. When we take the expanse of the Bible, we have these amazing stories of our beginnings that teach us God wants us to co-create with the divine. It is one of our greatest gifts, to help bring about the kingdom of heaven. This series has been about falling in love with our identity as co-creators, in particular, here in our little corner of the world.

Neighborhoods are sacred places when we treat them as such. They are the spaces where we'll both experience and bring about the kingdom of heaven most prominently. Neighborhood are sacred and the Commons are the glue that hold neighborhoods together. The commons are all the spaces where local community come together. They can be rooting together at a local football game, or coming to the park for local music, or showing up in common areas to hold a vigil, protest something unjust, etc. The commons are where we are our most human selves, and yet, they are more and more neglected. Today's episode is about reclaiming the Commons of our neighborhoods, to remember the spaces where the kingdom shows up.

The world is only feeling more chaotic and divisive, and with that comes an even greater sense that there's nothing any of us can do but watch. And yet, Jesus spent his time empowering normal people in small communities. We may not know it, but our neighborhoods are the area where we have the greatest effect, and it's where we'll experience the Kingdom of Heaven the most. Yet we ignore it, glued to what's happening in parts of the world we can do nothing about. In this episode we talk about the sacredness of neighborhood and the ability to transcend the polarization within the country and create something sacred in our communities.

The home, like so much else has shifted in the last 300 years. We've gone from people who grow up among generations of family on ancestral lands, to moving away and developing the nuclear family, to having the most diversified homes imaginable. Yet, linking them all is a sense of belonging and connection. Home isn't just a physical place, but a space where vulnerability and safety are granted and accountability is worked towards when conflict arises. More than anything home is a space where values are instilled and shaped and people are equipped to be part of the world, not just as individuals, but as a beloved community

There has been a boom in the last 10 years of people interested in their genealogy. People are craving to know where they come from, but I believe it's because people are craving to feel their roots grounded in a community, the way are ancestors lived. Today's episode explores what those roots look like for our Unorthodox community in particular, and if you're listening to this from outside our community, I hope it helps you explore your roots wherever you call home.

The community in which you reside is one of the most sacred things about this life, and yet, we are being drastically pulled away from it. Each of us has a particular community, filled with specific people, plants, animals, and environments that are a balm for moments of chaos, and the fulfillment of what's most meaningful. Jesus called it The Kingdom of Heaven. How do we get back to it? This new series is going to be looking at the Bethania community in particular in a way to ground us in one of the greatest gifts God has given. Today's focus will be the land within which we reside.

In today's episode we look at some localized stories of nonviolent action people have taken in response to tremendous violence we've seen in the world. We can fall victim the belief that if nonviolence doesn't solve big problems, it's meaningless, but nonviolent action is like grains of sand that alone seem insignificant, but when brought together create a tremendous, lasting force.

In this episode we're going to look at Martin Luther King Jr.'s principles of nonviolence as a way to explore the question: is violence futile? Our conversation on nonviolence gets into some of the struggle we have around the concept of redemptive violence. We've been raised to believe there are moments where violence is necessary and so the question remains: is it?

I'm going to say something as explicitly as I can. If you are going to call yourself a Christian, nonviolence is fundamental to that identity. The problem? As a nation, we are addicted to violence. And we've manipulated Christianity to adapt to that addiction for hundreds of years. We start a new series with this episode, not just looking at nonviolence as a fundamental of Christianity, but as the only way to create genuine change.

We come to the last episode of our Last Week series and we talk about the penultimate question: what is the meaning of Easter? This series has meant to respond to that question from the first episode of the series to the last episode, because the gospel writer of Mark is clear: you can't answer that question without the full picture. Many of us were raised with the belief that Easter is about afterlife, but we'll find out, it's far more about this life.