Effective tools, strategies, and frameworks to bridge the gaping gap between the Black Church and LGBTQ+ Community
Are you a pastor or church leader stuck, out of ideas, or struggling with what to do next?
The final Marcus Borg Memorial Conference in association with the 2021 Carrs Lane Lectures in Radical Christian Faith, was held online October 19, 2021. The conference brought together two leading and younger voices for progressive Christianity in the USA and Australia.
Embracing Social Media for Church Growth and Transformation
Attendance in US churches continues to sharply decline. As church leaders struggle to identify both root causes and possible responses, they often feel a sense of despair... but there is hope!
Faith & Reason is celebrating by talking to LGBTQ Christians and ministers about their experience in the church, as well as how individuals can help inspire progressive change in their own congregations.
“At the center of the Christmas story is hope…hope which comes to us in the form of a vulnerable, poor baby. A child, not a king, changes the world. God appears to us as a marginalized, Afro-Semitic, Jewish child from Nazareth in Palestine. A child who grows up to teach us to welcome the stranger. How would our world be different if we loved our neighbors as ourselves?” asks the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister of Middle Collegiate Church.
FOR SMALL GROUPS
My heart and passion is to see non-Christians come into a relationship with Christ and I believe that the most effective way for this to happen is to equip, encourage and empower our congregation members to be effective witnesses for Christ.
All Rev'd Up explores where faith intersects politics and culture. Reverend Irene Monroe and Reverend Emmett Price III come from different black faith perspectives, they're of different generations, they hail from different parts of the country and they come together in this podcast to talk about faith in a different way.
Joran Slane Oppelt (Integral Church) sits with author and theologian Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox at the 2018 Parliament of the World's Religions in Toronto, Canada to discuss the relevance of the Creation Spirituality movement and the importance of ritual.
Robin Myers Interview - What does a thriving Christian community look like to you?
Interview with Robin Meyers, Senior Minister of the Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ in Oklahoma City.
These interviews were conducted by ProgressiveChristianity.org at a Westar meeting as part of a series on Christianity, spirituality, religion, church, God, Jesus, sacred community, social justice, youth, and social transformation. More to come soon!
These interviews were conducted by ProgressiveChristianity.org at a Westar meeting as part of a series on Christianity, spirituality, religion, church, God, Jesus, sacred community, social justice, youth, and social transformation. More to come soon!
In May 2017, people from all over the world will gather in Portland, Oregon to share knowledge and wisdom, learn from each other, celebrate, be inspired, and find the tools needed to create and enliven local movements within our communities. Together we will explore sacred oneness, Christ consciousness, eco-spirituality, social justice and the way of universal and personal transformation that honors the Divine in all.
"If I speak of Islamic violence, I must speak of Catholic violence... and no, not all Muslims are violent, not all Catholics are violent. It is like a fruit salad; there's everything."
Irvine United Congregational Church is celebrating 25 years of welcoming people of all sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions into the full community and life of the church. The church was a pioneer in becoming the first Orange County congregation to adopt an Open and Affirming declaration and later became a leader in the fight for marriage equality. Irvine UCC will celebrate this monumental anniversary with an event featuring former IUCC pastor the Rev. Fred Plumer.
Since its foundation, nearly a century ago, the United Church of Canada has famously been a broad-minded Christian denomination. Its goal at the outset was to unite the many strands of liberal Protestant practice under the same roof. And through the years it's been widely seen as an open-minded and pluralistic institution. But now, one United Church minister in Ontario, is forcing the church to re-examine the limits of that approach...
The Cathedral of Hope, a congregation of the United Church of Christ, is based in Dallas, Texas, and is the world's largest liberal Christian church with a primary outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Local and national church ministries, outreach programs, pastoral counseling, television media and the internet touch thousands of lives each day.
Speaking at Community Christian Church of Springfield, MO, Bishop Spong gave us a taste of sections of his next book which will be on the Gospel of Matthew. In this lecture he is speaking to the need for the modern church to abandon its outdated commitment to belief in substitutionary death/atonement theology.
Learn why we believe “Common Cause Communities” are the future of church planting. Hear why Brian McClaren, Peter Rollins, and Alexie Torres-Fleming (among others) are joining our guest faculty.
Check out this Inclusive, Spiritual, Progressive and Diverse Faith Community!
Traditional churches have resisted the substantive change necessary to remain relevant in the modern world. There is a huge chasm between the higher biblical criticism and liberation theology of most seminaries and what is actually proclaimed from the pulpits of American churches. This is true, in large part because ministers are afraid of losing their jobs and parishioners want to hold onto the magical thinking that has helped them to cope with the vicissitudes of life.
I’d like to invite you into a conversation we’ve been having at the First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael these last weeks of Lent, a conversation about evolution and faith. We’re not talking about a six day creation, with God resting on the seventh. I really, really hope that argument’s over and done with. No, we’re talking about evolution as the way in which everything unfolds in all of creation. We are looking at a creation that evolves and opens towards unity, or shalom, in the presence of God.
This is Bishop Spong's first lecture in the "Future of the Progressive Church" conference held on August 3, 2013 at the Community Christian Church in Springfield, MO
This video is the second of Bishop John Shelby Spong's lectures at the "Future of the Progressive Church" conference held on August 3, 2013 at the Community Christian Church in Springfield, MO.
All religions are the product of a culture's attempt at expressing their most closely held beliefs, values and the morals they want to pass on to the coming generation. We should no more say that one religion is better than another than we would claim that one language is superior to another or that my favorite music is "right" any everyone else's favorite music is "wrong." There are healthy and unhealthy religious beliefs and practices but in the 21st century we need to learn from one another and challenge one another to repent of our prejudices, oppressive practices and out dated values so that we can all become the best Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc. that we can be.
The dogged refusal of traditional religions to give up Bronze Age magical thinking and doctrines will continue to make religion increasingly irrelevant in the 21st century. If the church has a future it will be because we are willing to undergo a radical transformation, being more passionate about what is true than what we have read in ancient documents. We need to be connected to one another in order to be effective in changing the world and we need meaningful connection to others to correct our own excesses. We can become better people through working together for justice, peace and mercy.
Bishop John Shelby Spong's message might alienate certain types of believers--namely, biblical literalists. But he stands strong in his analysis of the Bible as a symbolic work and calls Christ's followers today to recognize their savior as a "boundary-breaker," not a "blood offering." This lecture ended Spong's weeklong stint as 2 p.m. interfaith lecturer, a gig he titled "Re-Claiming the Bible in a Non-Religious World."