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Vox Veniae Podcast
Vox Veniae Podcast episodes
- Good Trouble
Virginia Cumberbatch reflects on the promises of God and how our calling and purpose invite us into living out “good trouble” [Psalm 85:8-13].
Reflection
- What is God calling you to in this moment?
- How can you show up in a meaningful way to be a purveyor of #goodtrouble?
Spiritual Practice
- Create time to meditate on what God has promised you and us as people of God (ex: peace, assurance, strength, vision, calling, etc.). Reflect on how those promises can and are manifesting in this moment, despite uncertainty, despite “trouble.”
- Prayerfully identify what gifts / resources God has bestowed to you that can show up this week in a meaningful way that pushes “love and truth to meet [one another] in the street”, in your community. Write down what God is unearthing in this moment for you around your purpose and your calling to bring shalom to your neighborhood, our city, or this country.
Resources
- Ideas and organizations to consider in being a purveyor of “good trouble”:
- Voting rights: The Poor People’s Campaign, She the People
- Racial justice: Black Lives Matter
- Just Policing: Austin Justice Coalition, Measure Austin
- Covid-19 impact on vulnerable communities: Community Resiliency Trust
- Education equity: Community Resiliency Trust
MWG Discussion Questions
- What are some of God’s promises that you’re reminded of during challenging and difficult times? In what ways to do we let those promises guide our choices? How might we have disregarded those promises?
- What does the image of righteousness and peace (or truth and love) kissing in the street bring up for you? How might they seem to conflict with each other? What meaning and invitation do they capture for you?
- How has our own faith experience encouraged us to participate in what John Lewis calls “good trouble” and how has our faith sometimes discouraged us from participating? What might be some practical opportunities for us to consider during this current season?
22 min - Struggle
Jason Minnix explores how new possibilities open up when we bring our real struggles into our connection with God [Genesis 32:23-31].
Reflection
- Where am I being called to pull away and be with my deeper work?
- How am I being invited to wrestle with God?
- Where do I sense a new day emerging?
Spiritual Practice
- Take an hour for solitude this week and meet God in your shadow. (Take any intense emotion or judgment you have of another person and see it as a mirror to your own healing and unfolding.)
- Forgive your life for being what it is.
- What kind of wrestling is meaningful to me now?
Resources
- Video: Sheena Melwani
MWG Discussion Questions
- How does the metaphor of our unaddressed struggles as a beach ball, forced underwater until they break out above the surface with equal force resonate with you? In what ways have you experienced this dynamic?
- If “shadow boxing” with God is where we learn to process the negative emotions that can be overlooked/buried/blamed on other people, how might this practice look like for you and how can solitude help in that process?
- If God seeing the dirty, messy, and undone parts of you is a sacred opportunity to build intimacy with him, what are the challenges that prevent us from engaging in this way (e.g. our need for control)?
- Wrestling with God can be as diverse as playful banter or cursing God out. Do either of these (or the other examples) feel particularly resonant to what you’re experiencing in your life right now? Are there any that make you feel uncomfortable? Are there ways you can bring more joy to your struggle with God?
25 min - The Expansion of Love
Matt Inman invites us to reflect on where God’s love is working within our story during this season [Matthew 13:33].
Reflection
- How has love matured you in the last 5 years?
- Where do you sense love wanting to work in your life in this season?
Spiritual Practice
- Meditation. Consider where Love became active in your life. Spend time meditating in that mental and emotional space of love and enough-ness.
- Journaling. Journal through what facets of your life you struggle accepting or receiving in this current season. If you were to receive in Love into that internal space, what experiences might open up to you? (Rest? Repentance? Celebration? Good Trouble?)
Resources
- Framework: Johari Window
MWG Discussion Questions
- When was the kingdom/love first activated in your life?
- Matt asked, “the kingdom is not coming TO us, but INTO us. Not affecting us, but infecting us.” What does this call your attention to today?
- How does the Johari window help us conceptualize the kingdom working through all of our self/all of our present moment?
- Where might Love be speaking care and confrontation to our default settings?
22 min - Mercy in Discernment
Jane Patterson reflects on Jesus’ parable that invites us to discernment in the spaces of judgment in our lives [Matthew 13:24-30].
Reflection
- What is the difference between being discerning about someone's actions and judging them?
- In what ways have you been corrected in a way that was creative for you?
Resources
- Article: After a Trail of Tears, Justice for Indian Country
- Poetry: Joy Harjo
MWG Discussion Questions
- How do we hold the tension of embodying Jesus’ righteousness and mercy at the same time? What do we have a tendency to emphasize? How is that shaped by our own experience of faith?
- In what ways do we rationalize our judgment of others? What are the challenges of living in a way where our project is not one of sorting out, but of growing together so that all will flourish?
- When our communities are disturbed or disrupted, what does God’s invitation for us to stop look like because of what we do not know? What does it mean for us to practice discernment and not knowing at the same time (e.g. in light of divisions and conflicting values and perspectives of politics, racial justice, pandemic, etc)?
18 min - Nourishing Love
Jason Minnix reflects on what is really nourishing and giving us life right now. Dave Schwab also shares his reflections on this text [Isaiah 55:1-13].
Reflection
- How am I being invited to attend to my deeper desires?
- Where do I sense invitation into God’s expansive presence today?
- What is the nourishing love I’m being invited to sow now?
Spiritual Practice
- Practice noticing what’s inside this week. Take some time to be with the interior thoughts and feelings this week. Write out a stream of consciousness with as little judgment as possible.
- Take a moment to experience mercy today.
- What is the nourishing love I’m being invited to sow now?
MWG Discussion Questions
- What, if anything, is nourishing my soul right now?
- Why do we settle for something that does not satisfy?
- What within ourselves holds us back from experiencing the joy of being?
- In what ways can we experience God’s nourishment in mercy? Why is this practice so hard for many of us to remember?
30 min - True Lightness
Jason Minnix reflects on how Jesus invites us to experience levity in the midst of the current weights in our lives [Matthew 11:25-30].
Reflection
- Where am I being invited to release my assumptions and receive new eyes?
- What truth, if any, offers me rest and ease now?
Spiritual Practice
- Don’t ask Google everything and embrace the joy of being wrong.
- Take some time this week to have a direct spiritual experience (take a walk, pay attention to your body more closely, begin to experience the saturation of your life with God’s presence)
- Pay attention to the impact of any teaching/content on your body this week.
Resources
- Podcast: On Being (Jason Reynolds)
23 min - Welcome
Weylin Lee reflects on what a meaningful posture and practice of welcome might look like for us in our current season. Autumn Barker also shares her reflections on this text [Matthew 10:40-42].
Reflection
- How might we be able to create brave space in our practice of welcoming others?
- How is welcoming others inviting us into vulnerability?
Resources
- Practice: The People’s Supper
- Film: Just Mercy
22 min - Sacred Heart
James Allison reflects on the Feast of the Sacred Heart and the love that we’re invited to receive and give [1 John 4:7-16].
Reflection
- How can we move from a cognitive to a relational understanding and practice of love?
- How are we invited to meekness in our attempt to love well and to receive love?
Resources
- Video: Vox Online Liturgy Replay
MWG Discussion Questions
- In what ways has love been more of a cognitive experience versus a relational practice? What are the barriers that make it difficult to practice love?
- What associations have you made between the heart of Jesus and the love of God? How have they been disconnected in your experience of faith? In what ways have they been aligned with each other?
- How has our own experience of God's love (how we receive or don't receive it) impacted our ability to love others?
14 min - A Hope That Does Not Disappoint
Scott Erickson reflects on hope in the midst of our current circumstances [Romans 5:1-8].
Reflection
- What particular conversations are happening in your life because of these current circumstances?
- In what ways are you fighting being a student by trying to be a teacher?
Resources
- Video: Vox Online Liturgy Replay
MWG Discussion Questions
- How do we tend to respond to disappointment in our lives? What is that disappointment based in?
- What has been our experience of perseverance? Is it more about will power? How might a framework of perseverance as an invitation impact our experience (i.e. exploring what we might be invited to consider versus just getting through it)?
- How do we experience the tension of the reality we experience in today's world (e.g. pandemic, racial injustice) and the hope that Jesus offers and promises? What are things that keep us from hope? What are some practices that might help us move towards hope?
22 min - Original Beauty
Jason Minnix reflects on how we’re invited to notice the intention of beauty amidst devastation. Nic Acosta also shares his reflections on this text [Genesis 1-2:4].
Reflection
- Where am I being invited to practice antifragility and fragility?
- How am I being invited into beauty this week?
Spiritual Practice
- Pick a practice that may be either supporting your fragility or your antifragility. Journal, therapy, melancholy music, exercise, All or Nothing documentaries, act rather than just feel and think about things, take a break from action to think and feel, move out of empathy into strength, move out of strength into empathy, show up for your friends who are more vulnerable now, recommit to the paths you’ve discerned.
Resources
- Resources for Co-Laboring
- Book: Antifragile (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
MWG Discussion Questions
- What strikes you as the difference between “good” and “beautiful”?
- Does changing the connotation of “good” change my views about how God views His creation?
- In what ways do I take on more than the world needs me to do? In so doing am I ignoring anything that is my unique task?
- What in my personal history has yielded anti-fragility in me? How does that show up now?
32 min
About Vox Veniae Podcast
From the publisher's feed
The work of the people. Our weekly rhythm of being together as a larger community to worship and confess, to engage scripture and prayer, to celebrate eucharist, and to be sent back into the city with…
a benediction each and every week.