There are multiple good strategies for cultivating life-giving faith in the face of confusion, injustice, and the demands of modern life. Hayley and Vince describe two strategies they tend to hear people in BLC share about.
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Our church's tradition on Palm Sunday, beginning Holy Week's re-telling of the last days of Jesus' life, is to talk about the Cross. This year, Vince talks about the way Jesus' death on the Cross can help free us from cycles of revenge and retribution, and encourages us to give up the popular American belief known as Penal Substitutionary Atonement.
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No matter how much (or little) we personally pick up the Bible, we all can influence how it is evoked in our culture: away from terrorizing applications, toward beautiful applications. This week's focus is inspired by one of our favorite responses to our survey about "Texts of Terror". It was two words: "Paul. LOL."
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Concluding our discussion of the modern experience of crushing, constant guilt, Hayley and Vince move us to the topic of grace: a close-relative of forgiveness, but also distinct in important ways.
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Hayley and Vince continue this month's discussion of the modern experience of constant, nagging guilt, and in particular how healthy spirituality and community might help us address guilt in our relationships.
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Formed by things like reality tv, religious legalism, and even a little too much self help, we can often automatically take on a lens of judgment when looking at ourselves and those around us. Instead of falling into the trap of comparison, can we adjust our vision to see more clearly through a lens of compassion?
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As Jesus offered specific critique of the 1st century Roman Empire's so-called "peace", it feels important to us to offer specific critique of 21st century America's so-called "peace". Vince gives one more framing to our upcoming Lent 2022 experiment in giving up false beliefs.
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One tension it feels we must hold to live life well is (on one side) pursuing ideals, and (on the other side) choosing to embrace what is true right now and maybe can't be ideal. Hayley and Kyle discuss how to do that well without losing our minds or succumbing to cynicism.
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We collected awesome, honest questions from people in our community about how it’s hard to believe in an all-parts loving, no-parts punishing God. Hayley, Kyle, and Vince (our pastors) have found there ARE actually satisfying responses to these hard questions, that can free us up to feel spiritually alive and active. Even better: there are a number of them. We don’t all have to come to the exact same conclusions…
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Sharing from his own life regrets and from the work of Dr. Mirsolav Volf, Kyle encourages us that the magnetic and powerful life Jesus leads us into is found in choosing embrace over exclusion, in choosing self-sacrifice over others-sacrifice, and in resisting the power our in-group loyalty tests have over us.
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