Afleveringen
-
Mary, the mother of Jesus, is often portrayed in art as a meek, mild-mannered woman who happens to be Jesusâ mother. However, a closer look at her words in the Gospels reveals someone who sought to upend oppressive regimes and uplift the poor and oppressed. How might reimagining Mary as a revolutionary inform how we think about the radical teachings of her Son?
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
Interpreting Eveâs actions in the Garden of Eden as having doomed all humanity is perhaps the foundational claim used by many Christians to uphold patriarchy. Eve has been associated with evil, sin, temptation, and fallenness. Interestingly, but unsurprisingly, none of these claims are mentioned in the biblical story. Join us this Sunday as we read the story of Eve through a feminist and womanist lens and re-imagine Creationâs origin story beyond the patriarchal gaze.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
-
This is a special crossover posting from the Progressive Christians Podcast, hosted by Rev. Dr. Carter.
Los Angeles is suffering from a historical fire. Thankfully, Julia, Westley, Rev. Blair, and Dr. Carter are safe, but we are thinking about and actively working on ways to support our local community. If you are interested in supporting, please check out the links below.
In this episode, Rev. Dr. Carter is solo, recording from San Diego, where he and his family have evacuated from the Pallisades and Sunset fires. He discusses the difficulties that lie ahead for their community and what the root causes of the fire really are, and what they are not (hint: it has nothing to do with DEI). We end this episode with a prayer and we hope that you join us in keeping our community uplifted in prayer and support during this difficult time.
Links to organizations that are supporting Angelinos:
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/how-to-help-la-fire-victims
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-08/how-to-help-victims-of-pacific-palisades-eaton-and-hurst-fires
-
Too often, weâve been told that a successful life is a linear one. But in reality, our lives unfold with many unexpected twists and turns. The Magi follow a star, embarking on a long journey in a foreign land to honor the newborn Christ. Instead of returning to Herod as commanded, they trust their dreams and go home by another way. Their road isnât straight, but God âmakes a way in the wildernessâ as they follow their intuition and diverge from the expected path.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
After eight days have passed, Mary and Joseph circumcise their child and give him the name Jesus. They return to the temple in Jerusalem to enact the sacred birth rituals of their culture and tradition. Rituals mark sacred turning points in our lives. As new parents, Mary and Joseph would reasonably be nervous about the future of their family. Given this, the invitation for us is to view these sacred rituals as a response to and a reminder of the ancestral legacy upon which we stand.
www.TheLoftLA.org -
As John the Baptist teaches about bearing good fruit, the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers ask him, âWhat, then, should we do?â His answer to each group was some version of: âDo the good that is yours to do. In the same way, the question we are invited to consider this Advent is, what is the good that we are called to do? Join us as the Singers of Soul will be performing timeless Christmas and gospel carols!
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
One of lifeâs most essential lessons is that we are never meant to go alone. And yet, modern culture pushes us more and more into lonely silos. Our scriptures reveal how vital community is and how God can bring even unconventional pairs of people together. Indeed, the stories of Ruth and Naomi and Mary and Joseph exemplify how unlikely pairs can become a covenant community.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
When Mary encounters the angel of the Lord, the angel reminds Mary that God favors her and exhorts her not to be afraid. To be sure, fear would be a natural response to everything that is happening to her and her community. However, Mary shows us that when we remember who and whose we are we can avoid succumbing to fear and trust that all things are possible with God.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
Parents spend countless hours teaching their children about the importance of sharing, it is a lesson we struggle to fully comprehend even in adulthood. In America, we live in a society of extreme wealth and poverty because we are still unable to share. Why do we allow these extremes to exist? We invite you to join us on Sunday as we explore how our trinitarian understanding of God can help us develop a mature spirituality of generosity.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
In times of unrest, Jesus often responded by tending to his immediate needs and those of his community before deciding what to do. As we emerge from this season of political unrest, the healing stories of Jesus show us that our response to this unrest is to begin with personal and communal healing. Doing so reminds us that God cares for all of Godâs creatures, great and small.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
The gospels tell us that Jesus practiced nonviolence and taught his followers to expand their preconceived ideas about who was welcome at Godâs table. Despite this inclusive theology, we are currently in the midst of another rise of Christian Nationalismâa belief system rooted in mythological lies about American history and the Divine. We invite you to join us this Sunday as we unpack the lies of Christian Nationalism by centering the life, teachings, and politics of Jesus.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
What role should churches, and specifically our church, play in addressing the challenges of loneliness in our faith community? We invite you to join us for the last sermon of this series as we explore how following the religion of Jesus should transform our relationship with ourselves and each other.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
We all want to be accepted and belong to a supportive circle of friends. However, our desire for relationships and community are often in conflict with what we actually prioritize, and we are now learning that children are noticing this behavior and mirror it. How can we close the gap between what we say we want and what we actually prioritize? How might we prevent our children from developing habits that promote social isolation? What we see in the gospels is that Jesus invites us to view ourselves as a family of families, interconnected and embodying the compassionate instinct that we were born with.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
What does it mean to be someoneâs friend? How does friendship expand our experience of the Divine? As humans, we all need the social connection of friendship to help prevent us from feeling lonely. To be sure, making friends and keeping friendships alive is not easy. However, as we see in the friendships between David and Jonathan and Jesus and his disciples, friendship is essential to our spiritual growth.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
For those of us who struggle with loneliness, the obvious âsolutionâ to our challenge would be to go and spend time with people. If only it were that easy. While there are several practices that we should adopt to address our longing for community, the most important one is somewhat counterintuitive. Jesus teaches his disciples that we must first deepen our connection with ourselves, which builds the foundation upon which we establish new or strengthen existing relationships.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
Rugged individualism and self-determination are among the core values that dominate American culture. These values have simultaneously incentivized many of us to prioritize our vocations or social obligations at the expense of and for the benefit of our relationships. The result is that far too many of us struggle with loneliness and long for connection and belonging. As the writer of Ecclesiastes makes clear, our feelings of loneliness are not new, and the antidote to loneliness is human connection.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
Jesusâ way of radical compassion is, in fact, radical. In his parables on forgiveness and love, he encourages his followers to forgive those who have wronged them as many as seventy-seven times and to love their enemies! Given our polarized society, is this kind of compassion possible or even practical?
www.TheLoftLA.org -
Jesusâ path of radical compassion is not limited to grounding ourselves in the truth of our belovedness and recovering our compassionate core. In its truest form, compassion always moves us to compassionate care towards others. As we see in the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus, compassion for others can break boundaries, dismantle stereotypes, heal, and transform both others and ourselves.
www.TheLoftLA.org
-
Compassion can be misunderstood as mere tenderness or sentimentality. Self-compassion moves us to ask ourselves, âWhat do I need to help alleviate my suffering?â The answer to this question changes depending on the circumstances. Sometimes, we need to rest in our belovedness. At other times, when we need to protect or provide for ourselves and our loved ones, self-compassion can be fierce. We find an example of such fierce self-compassion in the story of the Prophet Miriam and the actions she takes to save her brother and, in the process, her people.
www.TheLoftLA.org
- Laat meer zien
