Vox Veniae Podcast

Nic Acosta contrasts the temptation of creating god in our own image with the God revealed in Christ and proclaimed in scriptures. We are challenged to live into God’s Story rather than trying to live life the other way around. [Acts 17:22-32]

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Tags: Spiritual Growth, Progressive Church, Good News, Love, Tempted, Self-Serving, Gospel, Story, Redemption, Idols

Christopher Mack explores how Stephen’s life of re-telling God’s Story stripped from our lens of the myth of redemptive violence allows us to behold Divine Love and resist the real world oppression of death-dealing forces and their stories. [Acts 7:54-60]

Reflection Questions:Glimpsing the Heavens, Resisting on Earth

Resources

Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin Edited by Bayard Rustin

Eric Robinson examines M Scott Peck’s non-linear stages of pseudo-community, chaos, emptiness, and true community through the lens of the early church in Acts. He wonders what it would look like if we were okay with seasons of necessary chaos and intentional emptying to experience true community. [Acts 2]

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Resources

Vanessa Maleare explores the diverse terrain of our souls, and the friction and invitation to flourishing we experience in community. [John 20:24-27]

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Christopher Mack acknowledges the Jesus Movement has given us many reasons to leave, while encouraging curiosity around reasons we might choose to stay, and ultimately invites us to include and transcend the different stages of faith we have experienced as we participate in Jesus’ calling to love neighbor and love God by forming Beloved Community.

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On Easter Sunday, Christopher Mack contrasts the fear that caused the agents of empire to fall like dead men to the fear and great joy of the women at the tomb who go forward to tell of the vindication of the Jesus Way over the way of empire’s death dealing destruction. We are encouraged to listen to the conversation resurrection life is having with our own, listening to our sorrows, while we sing with sacred joy!

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On Palm Sunday, Vanessa Maleare confronts the feelings of sadness, disappointment, and frustration we experience when something is different than we anticipated. Jesus didn’t act like the violent warrior king many of the people anticipated. What do you do when you face unmet expectations? Vanessa invites us to choose how we respond by realizing that “I can change what I do next.”

Belonging in the Wilderness lays bare the tension between our vulnerable humanity… our desire to simply be, without hustling for worthiness or trying to fit in… and our longing for Beloved Community with our friends, family, neighbors, enemies, creation, and our Creator. The wilderness is an unavoidable part of this journey. It is where we abandon the game of dressing up like our mythical heroes and begin to uncover the mystery of our one wild and true self.  A life so rooted in Divine Love, we find ourselves simultaneously set apart and intimately connected to God’s global family. We rarely choose to go to the wilderness, where all our distractions and pretense evaporate. Yet the wilderness invites us to live together for what really matters, because here there is energy for little else. There are no shortcuts in the wilderness. It is a solitary journey, which we cannot walk alone.  

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On the fifth Sunday of Lent, Christopher Mack acknowledges we live in times where nerves can easily get fried and hope can seem in short supply. Everywhere we turn, it seems the world is on fire. The Hebrew people also wondered if the chaos engulfing their world would ever relent and give way to new life. A valley of dry bones seemed to offer evidence of a sealed and gruesome fate. Yet for Ezekiel, these beyond dead bones, were the perfect canvas for a community to believe they could begin again.

Belonging in the Wilderness lays bare the tension between our vulnerable humanity… our desire to simply be, without hustling for worthiness or trying to fit in… and our longing for Beloved Community with our friends, family, neighbors, enemies, creation, and our Creator. The wilderness is an unavoidable part of this journey. It is where we abandon the game of dressing up like our mythical heroes and begin to uncover the mystery of our one wild and true self.  A life so rooted in Divine Love, we find ourselves simultaneously set apart and intimately connected to God’s global family. We rarely choose to go to the wilderness, where all our distractions and pretense evaporate. Yet the wilderness invites us to live together for what really matters, because here there is energy for little else. There are no shortcuts in the wilderness. It is a solitary journey, which we cannot walk alone.  

Reflection Questions:

Belonging in the Wilderness: The Wild Bone Dried

On the fifth Sunday of Lent, Christopher Mack acknowledges we live in times where nerves can easily get fried and hope can seem in short supply. Everywhere we turn, it seems the world is on fire. The Hebrew people also wondered if the chaos engulfing their world would ever relent and give way to new life. A valley of dry bones seemed to offer evidence of a sealed and gruesome fate. Yet for Ezekiel, these beyond-dead bones were the perfect canvas for a community to believe they could begin again.

Belonging in the Wilderness lays bare the tension between our vulnerable humanity… our desire to simply be, without hustling for worthiness or trying to fit in… and our longing for Beloved Community with our friends, family, neighbors, enemies, creation, and our Creator. The wilderness is an unavoidable part of this journey. It is where we abandon the game of dressing up like our mythical heroes and begin to uncover the mystery of our one wild and true self.  A life so rooted in Divine Love, we find ourselves simultaneously set apart and intimately connected to God’s global family. We rarely choose to go to the wilderness, where all our distractions and pretense evaporate. Yet the wilderness invites us to live together for what really matters, because here there is energy for little else. There are no shortcuts in the wilderness. It is a solitary journey, which we cannot walk alone.  

Reflection Questions:

On this third Sunday of Lent, Eric Robinson roots us in a spirituality of the wilderness. Eric reminds us of how anxiety spreads through systems and communities to scapegoat either one of the most powerful people in the group or the least powerful. He encourages us to resist the temptation to emotionally fuse with anxiety or to cut ourselves off, but to instead self-differentiate. We are encouraged to look at the Triune God and imitate being separate-together. 

Belonging in the Wilderness lays bare the tension between our vulnerable humanity… our desire to simply be, without hustling for worthiness or trying to fit in… and our longing for Beloved Community with our friends, family, neighbors, enemies, creation, and our Creator. The wilderness is an unavoidable part of this journey. It is where we abandon the game of dressing up like our mythical heroes and begin to uncover the mystery of our one wild and true self.  A life so rooted in Divine Love, we find ourselves simultaneously set apart and intimately connected to God’s global family. We rarely choose to go to the wilderness, where all our distractions and pretense evaporate. Yet the wilderness invites us to live together for what really matters, because here there is energy for little else. There are no shortcuts in the wilderness. It is a solitary journey, which we cannot walk alone.  

Reflection Questions: