The Rev. Sam McGlothlin is Associate Pastor for Belle Meade United Methodist Church near Nashville, TN.  Sarah and Sam discuss the latest decision the UMC Church made on the ordination of LGBTQ people and the ability to facilitate same-sex marriages.  Sam explains the 3 different plans that were voted on and how her church community has taken the news.  She also shares her pastoral response.

Bishop Mary was born and raised in Miami, Florida. She graduated from California State University, Fullerton, in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in History and a minor in Music. She earned her Master of Divinity degree from the College of St. John the Evangelist in New Zealand in 1994. She was ordained in the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Los Angeles to the diaconate in 1994, the priesthood in 1995 and to the episcopate in 2007 in the diocese of El Camino Real.

As a priest, +Mary served as assistant rector in two parishes in the Diocese of Los Angeles before accepting the call to be rector of St. Margaret’s in Miami Lakes, Florida, in December 1998.  Following six years of service as rector she joined the staff of the Diocese of Southeast Florida as Archdeacon for Deployment. In November 2007 Gray-Reeves was elected as the third bishop of the Diocese of El Camino Real. 

Welcome to Season 2 everybody! This week Kelsey and I sit down to talk about our work in the world, why we love theology and what our hopes and dreams are for Theosophia Podcast.  

A sermon Kelsey delivered last year on the Feast Day of Transfiguration.  Kelsey Davis will be joining the Theosophia Podcast for season 2 as a co-host and co-creator of Theosophia.  She’s currently the curator of Emerging Communities for the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real in CA.  

Rev. Hanlin currently serves as an associate minister at Marble Collegiate Church in New York.  We dive into a lovely discussion about self-care for pastors and the importance of talking about mental health in the church.  

Rev. Brittany was born in East Orange, NJ, and moved to Charlotte, NC at age 11. She graduated from Howard University in Washington, DC with a major in Sociology and minor in Community Development. Upon graduating, Brittany became an AmeriCorps Volunteer, serving as Youth Care Worker for young ladies between the ages of 11-14 at Mercy Home for Boys and Girls in Chicago. She earned her Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School in 2016. Brittany is very passionate about providing authentic and effective pastoral care to children and youth. She is currently an Associate Minister at Marble Colliegate Church in New York.  Welcome, Rev. Brittany Hanlin.

This week we talk about evangelism in the church.  We talk specifically about Evangelism as Relationship and Community Building instead of the old traditions and histories of the evangelism as colonization.  We chat about the unique ways churches are evangelizing to their communities and how evangelism is a loving spreading difference as the church acting as the hands and feet of Christ.

With a passion for people and for God, Kirsten sees the best in everyone she meets. She is a nurturer and loves being a pastor and priest. Her and her husband Rev. Tim Baer co-founded the church plant Grace Church in Yukon, Oklahoma.  After serving at Grace Church for 5 years, Rev. Kirsten began full time as Assistant Chaplain at Casady Episcopal School in OKC in the fall of 2018.  She is the first female priest to serve at Casady School.  While she serves at Casady during the week, she is blessed to continue to serve at Grace on Sundays. She is a 2011 graduate of Virginia Theological Seminary (M.Div.) and the University of Oklahoma (B.A. and M.Ed). She loves baking and scrap-booking, but spends nearly all her free time with her children, Hannah and Andrew.  Here’s Rev. Kirsten Baer.

This week we hear from Heather and Kelsey about what marriage means to them.  We explore the idea of marriage as sacrament, what they did to prepare for marriage and what they do to help their relationship flourish.  Hope ya’ll enjoy this lovely conversation, here’s the Davis’

Merry Christmas! Christians around the world are celebrating the birth of Jesus, the god-son who was born of the mother of God, Mary.  The theology surrounding God incarnate as man or incarnational theology is the idea or beliefs that God came to be with us in our own flesh and take on our experience in this world with us.  Our God is a relational god, one that wants to know us and share with us in this life.  And to celebrate this theological moment in our tradition I thought it would be fitting to have the first couple on the podcast to symbolize god’s relationship with humanity.  God is relational so therefore we are relational.