Revolution Church

This is the longest we’ve ever taken to get through the first 2 chapters of Galatians! That’s because Jay has learned so much new scholarship, and it unlocked all sorts of nuance and context and a deeper understanding for all of us. So, let’s get right into it! Today we’ll be talking about some pretty uncomfortable stuff at times, mainly the idea of Nationalism. This was something Paul was dealing with in his time just as we are dealing with it now. Just another example of how Galatians is just as relevant today as it’s ever been. We spend a lot of time today dissecting Paul’s rebuke of Peter. What was the whole story? Why does he do it? Did him and Peter have issues in the past? Was Paul just making a name for himself? Or was there something deeper than all of that that we aren’t aware of. Jay also discusses the idea, and dangers, of taking the Bible at face value. Something so many of us were taught to do—but can that lead to trouble, separation, and even hatred? Paul seems to be very uninterested in the life of Christ, putting more focus on the fruits of Jesus’s death and how it unites all of us. Makes us one. How his death stopped making us each others “other.” Jay also shares a great story about the moment Revolution Gathering was born thirty years ago. This is a real good one, folks!This talk was given on February 04, 2024 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here we are with more Galatians study! We have a lot to go through today. Jay’s continued studying and research really makes this study stand apart from other years, bringing a fresh take to our annual study. Paul gets a bad rap these days, mostly because when held up to the standards of today’s way of thinking he often feels problematic—but was Paul more progressive and ahead of his time than he gets credit for? Is he one of the most misunderstood authors of the New Testament? Is Paul’s humanity something we can be inspired by? In this chapter Paul calls out Peter about his behavior and his view of others. Calling into question Peter’s exclusivity and how what he was preaching didn’t fit with how he was living. What does Paul have to say about “important” people and social hierarchy? Is social hierarchy an issue we still struggle with today? Have politicians become gods? Is Grace out the door now? Do we only have room for judgement and division? How does thinking like that stake up with the idea of ‘taking up our cross?’—Like I said, this year’s study is something different and is uncovering a whole new set of questions. It’s exciting stuff!! We mean it when we say that we have a lot to go through today!This talk was given on January 28, 2024 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jay is back from Sundance Film Festival where they premiered the new documentary he worked on about his mom Tammy Faye. Jay shares with us some stories about Sundance and the people he met and which celebrities he had some close encounters with. He also takes some time to reflect on some of the friends we lost last year and how this documentary brough up some of that pain. The best way to help with that pain is to dive right into the Book of Galatians! A book of love and grace! This is part 2 of the Galatians series. Jay’s never broken up the first chapter into multiple talks like he has this year, but we want something new, and he’s been learning all sorts of new and interesting stuff about this letter to the Galatians—so this study is not like the previous years. While Jay was interacting with the Hollywood crowd in Sundance, he observed their exclusivity too and it struck him that Christianity gets a reputation for being exclusive, but humanity as a whole is pretty exclusive. So it is up to us to change that and to be inclusive. This is some of the stuff Paul talks about in his writings as well. Before his conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul wasn’t the best person out there. In his religious zeal he hurt people, destroyed communities, sown discourse—what makes this letter very interesting is see how Paul learned from his own past and changed. And now he’s writing to a divided community to try and stop them from doing what he was once responsible for doing himself. It really adds a whole new layer to this study.This talk was given on January 21, 2024 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s a new year, so we’re back at it with our annual Galatians study to kick it off! This year Jay brings new study materials and new scholarship — continuing to unlock more and more that this letter has to offer. There is something unsettling that the issues addressed in this letter by Paul are still so relevant to us today. But that makes it just as timely and just as helpful as ever. The Galatians study continues to teach us more and more about grace, while still asking some really important questions. Is there such a thing as grace, or is it just a scam to justify and excuse our own sins? Is the Bible perfect? What was God’s role in the process of writing and assembling it? Is doubt the opposite of faith? Is doubt an aspect of faith? This letter was written to a community that was completely divided, and it was Paul’s way of reaching out to try and help repair it. That’s why we continue to study it because we still need the help. And each year we learn more and more, helping us all grow more and more. It’s a really great thing.Note: Apologies for the lower audio quality this week. Even though it’s not too bad, we’re still not sure what happened, and we were unable to fix it. We’re going to try our hardest to pinpoint the problem and hopefully keep it from happening again.This talk was given on January 7, 2024 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apologies for the brief delay on this week’s talk. Josh has been fighting with Covid all week which made editing the video not the easiest feat. But it’s here now and what a way to close out the year. For the last talk of 2023 Jay is going into the book of James! I know, we couldn’t believe it either. But he is and he knocks it out of the park. James is a tricky book, not really because what it says, but a lot of because of how it’s taught and used. Have almost 100% of pastors—including Jay—gotten this book wrong? Today Jay dives into this particular book to talk about the dangers of showing partiality. Are the rich treated differently? By everyone? Are we just as guilty? The Bible, especially the Gospels, talk about loving people equally…but do we do that? Can we do that? How do we love people the best we can? What we tend to know the most about the book of James is when it talks about ‘faith without works,’ but what does that mean? Do the themes of James and the themes of punk rock share similar roots? Is Ian MacKaye a modern-day Paul? And most importantly, can we make life a little bit less of a hell for people by simply focusing on life before death, before we worry about life after death. I’m telling you, this is a great talk. No better way to finish out the year, and no better talk to lead into our 2024 Galatians Study!!This talk was given on December 31, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s Christmas Eve and Jay has a great one for us today. This talk is a pretty positive one too, go figure! Our talks don’t always have this much of a positive spin on them, so when it does happen, we try to take full advantage of them. And Jay is excited about this one. Today’s talk is about looking at the difference between arguing well and disagreeing well. What does each of those mean. We used to treat them as being pretty similar but maybe they aren’t. Does learning how to disagree well need to come before learning how to argue well? Is it harder to argue well or disagree well? Maybe learning to disagree well should be our starting point. Jay also gets into the topic of love and the different kinds of love mentioned in the Bible. Have things changed to a point where we find our friends loving us more as family, and family as friends? Is it harder to argue/disagree well with people we love than it is with strangers? How important is learning to let go in the practice of disagreeing well? Jay talks about all of this stuff and more. If I was to write out every gem he hits on in this talk, this description would go on for pages and pages. Enjoy the talk and happy holidays!!This talk was given on December 24, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Revolution is coming up on its 30th year!! So Jay reflects a little bit on that, and shares some good news as we catch up on what’s been going on with him. Then he dives into the talk, and Jay is back and more inspired!! So, with feeling so inspired after 30 years, Jay’s talk today is about…inspiration! Has Christianity lost its inspiration? What inspires us to do what we do? How do we inspire others to argue well? Can we even inspire others? Do we use more fear than inspiration? Jesus tried to inspire us to almost live in a different world, to behave differently and to love in a different way and it’s not always easy. The Bible isn’t very often teaching us many easy lessons. The Bible is something we have to wrestle with and negotiate with, something we have to engage with actively. Especially if we want to use it for love and inspiration.This talk was given on December 17, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s talk isn’t really a sequel the “The Hell Talk” series that started a few weeks back, but it’s pretty darn close. Today Jay talks a lot about Radical Honesty. Radical Honesty is something we need if we want to have Radical Grace—the two go hand in hand. The church as a whole stopped the practice of Selling Indulgences, but Jay sometimes wonders if the church still it does, but it’s just hidden better. Maybe it takes a different form? But is it all the same? Does our theology have us accidentally creating monsters by how we treat and relate to each other? Jay asks us to look at ourselves and ask: What Have We Become? Is grace amazing? Or have we made it only semi-amazing? Are we showing radical grace to people? Are we relating to them with radical honesty? If we could pluck someone from the tortures of Hell, would we? And if so…does that open up a very messy can of worms for our theology? Today’s talk is a good one! It has some people divided, but that’s okay. We don’t want to push anyone away—but we want the type of hard, honest conversations where sometimes that is unavoidable. Those conversations can be rough, but it’s where the change happens. It’s where the magic happens.This talk was given on December 3, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s talk is about honesty! About what honesty means in Christianity. What honesty is like when you grow up in the church. Do we have a low regard for honesty? Have we compromised the Truth so we can continue to believe what we believe and to stay comfortable? Would we rather have certainty over honesty? That is at the heart of this talk. All of that. But Jay also shares memories and stories of the impact that his friend Carlton Pearson had on his life. And how Carlton helped Jay see the Fruits of the Spirit even in the midst of extreme darkness. And isn’t that the whole point of it? The whole point of everything? To help us see that. To help us learn that tradition and theology don’t count for much of anything if there are people out there suffering—friends, strangers, and enemies alike. And isn’t that the true point of Christianity? To help those who are in need. To help those who are suffering? Revolution isn’t that concerned with the afterlife. We want to focus on life before death. Because there is a whole lot of living that that needs to be done before we can think of any life beyond it. This talk was given on November 26, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We have a lot to get into today! Yes, today’s talk brings into question a lot of issues with the late stage of capitalism we find ourselves in now, but there is more to it than just that. Today we’re learning more about contradictions, and we’re learning about growth. We all change and grow, and we should! But let’s not be too quick to forget our old selves, because empathy really comes into play when we remember what we used to be like and how we used to think—and we use that memory and the person we were, and we add that to who we are now. That is how we start having good conversations! Today’s talk also deals with both how we “other” people, but also how we tend to “other” ourselves with labels and identities. This talk isn’t real clear cut, it’s about having a nonbinary way of thinking. Seeing more than just our side of an argument or discussion. Because while we’re fighting each other, the whole system is crushing us! But we outnumber the bullies. Together we can do this! It’s our hope that today’s talk will be a good step in starting to liberate us from bondage, liberate us from hate, and liberate us from “othering.”  We hope this talk helps us find the Tammy Faye in all of us. We’re all going through enough, we don’t need to keep hurting ourselves or each other on top of it. This talk was given on November 19, 2023 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.