No Gimmicks with Sue Ostrom

No Gimmicks with Sue Ostrom

Welcome to the season of Lent! It's a season of reflection, preparation, repentance, and renewal. It's a time set apart to help us reflect on who we are, who God is, where we belong, and what we should do. Rev. Sue Ostrom began Lent by reflecting on who Jesus says he is, and who everyone else wants him to be. We talk about why Jesus does things the hard way, why gimmicks are so tempting, and why evil keeps coming back. Welcome to Lent. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Wondering What's Next with Katie Klosterman

This season of the podcast finds us in a new era. Governments change and preachers are still called to proclaim the word of God. What is the word we need to hear now? Host Meredith Gudger-Raines shares some honest thoughts about reaching for the gospel in uncertain and frightening times, and talks to Rev. Katie Klosterman about what leads us forward. Pastor Katie is helping her congregation learn to wonder. Opening yourself up to wonder is a way of being hopeful and looking forward. When we look for wonder, it's like we're saying that we know God has something special for us that we haven't discovered yet, that there's more to the story, and that if we keep going in faith, we will find meaning and goodness. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Wilderness Training with Jenny Williams

If you feel like you're wandering in an unfamiliar and potentially threatening land, you're not alone. In Advent, we tell the story of John the Baptist, who went out to strange and wild places, on purpose, because that's where he sensed the Spirit of God doing a new thing. Rev. Jenny Williams works for the ACLU in West Virginia, and she's helping progressive Christians across the state prepare for ministry in a new wilderness. Instead of just charity work, Jenny says, it's time for people of faith to build new relationships and communities of mutual support. The only way we will make it through the wilderness is together. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Embodying Hope with Alissa Amestoy

They say experience is the best teacher. Along with a team, Rev. Alissa Amestoy is designing worship to be something not just to listen to, but to experience, a way to help people embody the stories of God's love and hope. This makes perfect sense in the season of Advent, when we tell the story of God literally embodying, well, a human body. God enters human history as a baby, showing that in God's world, hope and grace and love go way beyond what makes sense or what we can understand. We talk with Alissa about sticky feathers, creating sacred spaces, and hope on hope on hope. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Using Your Life Well with Clay Andrew

In this episode, we use the S-word a lot. < Stewardship > Long time church folks might hear the S-word and think "It's time to raise money to fund the church budget." But Rev. Clay Andrew knows stewardship is actually about something far more important, exciting, hopeful, and empowering. Stewardship is about what we do with who we are. How do we use our time, our energy, our resources, our skills? Asking these questions might be uncomfortable, and might put us at odds with the forces of power in our world, but it also might fill us with God's grace and love, and bring healing to our communities. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.