Last Sunday we hosted a communal online experience meant to offer each of us some spiritual help in our individual journeys of leaving behind what constricts us and embracing promise for the future. Our sense is, as we turn the page on 2020, this past year has been full of chances for constricting lies, traumas, thoughts, beliefs, or vows to make their way into us and start to take up residence.
Read MoreFor many of the problems we are personally navigating, there are no simple solutions. Because many problems don't come down to isolated issues, they come down to the systems of our society or religion or government (or family unit even) themselves. Special guest Cara Carothers, an advocate for educational equity, joins us to talk about how we can hope and fight even so.
Read MoreFor some of us, America's political divide hits very close to home. BLC's Christina Culver and Kyle Hanawalt discuss how faith can offer a way to feel hope about the future even if we never experience someone changing their mind. When is it right to say something, and when is it right to not? What are healthy boundaries to protect that hope?
Read MoreBuilding authentic relationships with people requires getting in touch with what's really going on inside us. Kyle walks us through a prayer practice that can help.
Read MoreImagine concentric circles. The circle in the center is the person or people closest to a crisis or trauma. Each of the circles working outward are the people next closest. Vince shares the one simple rule in this model to help us care well and avoid making things worse.
Read MoreTouching on a theology of liberation, joy, and suffering that connects Jesus' cross to the lynching of Black Americans, BLC's Leicester Mitchell helps us see Jesus and the Gospel through the lived experience of a Black man in America today.
Read MoreIn honor of the weekend many would have been participating in Chicago’s Pride Parade if not for COVID-19, Rebecca Janvrin joins Vince & Kyle to discuss queer insights on God and faith. This kicks off our new series of discussion: God of the Oppressed. We’ll be immersing ourselves, one at a time, in various different marginalized perspectives on Jesus and faith and the Bible. Really, we can’t come to a proper theology and understanding of Jesus at all if we’re not trying to do that from marginalized perspectives, because Jesus was a marginalized person.
Read MoreLinda, Vince, and Kyle discuss loneliness, identity, introversion vs extroversion, and the prayers, scriptures, and images of God that are helping them during our shelter-in-place reality or have helped them in past seasons of loneliness.
Read MoreVince & Kyle discuss the overlap of Jesus spirituality and mental health, and then pass on a mental health potluck of ideas, prayers, poems, technology, and resources from people in BLC’s community. There are no one-size-fits-all approaches to maintaining mental health, so take what you like and leave the rest!
Read MoreWith the coronavirus in view, but also any senseless suffering each of us might face, Kyle and Vince discuss the difference between a “Life as God’s Blueprint” understanding of believing in God and a “Life as a Battlefield” understanding of believing in God. The former is extremely common, but hurts many. The latter has helped them personally find powerful connection with God in the midst of hardship.
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