Commons Church Podcast

In my mind talking about the nature of God shouldn't be an exercise in gatekeeping—all of our God-talk is provisional, after all. There are, however, some important ideas in the Christian imagination of God that we are attempting to preserve with the doctrine of Trinity. So let's talk about that. ★ Support this podcast ★

Acts 10 + 15 ***“There is little doubt that our doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the least developed areas in mainstream Christianity.” —Alwyn MarriageWhether you’ve been around the Christian story for a while—or you’ve recently started exploring, there’s a certain mystique around the idea of God as Spirit.And that mystique is all the more compelling when we acknowledge that many of us feel some distance between Jesus’ promise to send the Spirit to his friends and our experience in the world. An advocate? To help us?So let’s be honest — the nature of the Divine is elusive.And just for the record, we’re not assuming that four sermons are going to answer all your questions.But we are going to explore some big theological ideas, all while contending that maybe... just maybe, you’re more familiar with the Spirit’s gentle touch than you think you are. ★ Support this podcast ★

John 14***“There is little doubt that our doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the least developed areas in mainstream Christianity.” —Alwyn MarriageWhether you’ve been around the Christian story for a while—or you’ve recently started exploring, there’s a certain mystique around the idea of God as Spirit.And that mystique is all the more compelling when we acknowledge that many of us feel some distance between Jesus’ promise to send the Spirit to his friends and our experience in the world. An advocate? To help us?So let’s be honest — the nature of the Divine is elusive.And just for the record, we’re not assuming that four sermons are going to answer all your questions.But we are going to explore some big theological ideas, all while contending that maybe... just maybe, you’re more familiar with the Spirit’s gentle touch than you think you are. ★ Support this podcast ★

“There is little doubt that our doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the least developed areas in mainstream Christianity.” —Alwyn MarriageWhether you’ve been around the Christian story for a while—or you’ve recently started exploring, there’s a certain mystique around the idea of God as Spirit.And that mystique is all the more compelling when we acknowledge that many of us feel some distance between Jesus’ promise to send the Spirit to his friends and our experience in the world. An advocate? To help us?So let’s be honest — the nature of the Divine is elusive.And just for the record, we’re not assuming that four sermons are going to answer all your questions.But we are going to explore some big theological ideas, all while contending that maybe... just maybe, you’re more familiar with the Spirit’s gentle touch than you think you are. ★ Support this podcast ★

Toward. Away. Against: This is a really simple way to think about our default reaction to conflict, our stress reaction to conflict, and how as healthy humans we can choose to respond with the strategy that is most appropriate in any given encounter. ★ Support this podcast ★

The experience of the global pandemic has changed us. And it has changed our friendships. Some may have deepened, while others have dwindled without getting a solid chance to take root.Let's begin the new year with a conversation on that deeply personal connection with others we all long for but often struggle to cultivate.Friendship is essential to our humanity. It is also a gift that we are free to receive and to offer. Some friendships help us become our true selves.You might remember with fondness the name of your childhood buddy. You know what it feels like to let your guard down with that one person in your life. Afterall, they really care. And you are most certainly familiar with the pain of broken trust.So join us to take another look at friendship together. Let's discover more about ourselves and what it means to cultivate friendships in a world that feels increasingly lonely and polarized. ★ Support this podcast ★

The experience of the global pandemic has changed us. And it has changed our friendships. Some may have deepened, while others have dwindled without getting a solid chance to take root.Let's begin the new year with a conversation on that deeply personal connection with others we all long for but often struggle to cultivate.Friendship is essential to our humanity. It is also a gift that we are free to receive and to offer. Some friendships help us become our true selves.You might remember with fondness the name of your childhood buddy. You know what it feels like to let your guard down with that one person in your life. Afterall, they really care. And you are most certainly familiar with the pain of broken trust.So join us to take another look at friendship together. Let's discover more about ourselves and what it means to cultivate friendships in a world that feels increasingly lonely and polarized. ★ Support this podcast ★

The experience of the global pandemic has changed us. And it has changed our friendships. Some may have deepened, while others have dwindled without getting a solid chance to take root.Let's begin the new year with a conversation on that deeply personal connection with others we all long for but often struggle to cultivate.Friendship is essential to our humanity. It is also a gift that we are free to receive and to offer. Some friendships help us become our true selves.You might remember with fondness the name of your childhood buddy. You know what it feels like to let your guard down with that one person in your life. Afterall, they really care. And you are most certainly familiar with the pain of broken trust.So join us to take another look at friendship together. Let's discover more about ourselves and what it means to cultivate friendships in a world that feels increasingly lonely and polarized. ★ Support this podcast ★

The experience of the global pandemic has changed us. And it has changed our friendships. Some may have deepened, while others have dwindled without getting a solid chance to take root.Let's begin the new year with a conversation on that deeply personal connection with others we all long for but often struggle to cultivate.Friendship is essential to our humanity. It is also a gift that we are free to receive and to offer. Some friendships help us become our true selves.You might remember with fondness the name of your childhood buddy. You know what it feels like to let your guard down with that one person in your life. Afterall, they really care. And you are most certainly familiar with the pain of broken trust.So join us to take another look at friendship together. Let's discover more about ourselves and what it means to cultivate friendships in a world that feels increasingly lonely and polarized. ★ Support this podcast ★

Try this thought experiment. What moments in your life do you consider pivotal? Maybe it’s a big trip, grad school graduation, or the birth of a child.Now, imagine yourself taking ten minutes to write from memory what happened, how you felt, and who said what. Next, imagine someone else who was with you writing down what they saw, how they felt, and who said what.Can you imagine the differences? One story feels intimate, the other distant. One story catches a mortifying detail, the other only fondness. One stirs sadness, and the other stays upbeat. There are so many angles to the same story. It’s true in life, and it’s true in the scriptures.This Advent, we go back to the moments just before Jesus was born. We trace tragedy in a genealogy. We find comedy in Joseph's confusion. We see fairytale in Elizabeth’s late-in-life pregnancy. We stumble through mystery as Mary gets the news of a baby soon born to change the world. ★ Support this podcast ★