From Repentance to Reparations to Reconciliation to Repast w/ Greg Thompson Pt II No. 85

This is part II of a conversation that is very important to me, a conversation that I hope might become important to you too. Notice the last three episodes are with friends who are dear. Notice how vulnerability courses through these conversations. Below I’ve written a bit more about the connections between spiritual friendship, weakness and vulnerability.

It is good to have you on this journey. May you find deeper love and connection in and through your own weaknesses.

Josh

No. 85 Show Notes:

Josh and Greg explore Greg's discernment to divest his ordination, leave local church ministry to explore different creative approaches to healing racism. Previously Greg had described his mission in the three elements of the political, the contemplative, and the convivial. Here in part two Greg casts the vision of moving from repentance to reparations to reconciliation to repast.

Start at @17:00 to skip past the introduction directly to the conversation with Greg.

Please visit: www.vuproject.org

For more information on the Invitation School of Prayer: theinvitationcenter.org/school-of-prayer

Subscribe to Invitation updates: theinvitationcenter.org/subscribe

“A Brief Review of Why Anyone Should Engage Vulnerability in Public”

A line in a sermon I preached a few times in 2015: “Come on inside for a nice hot cup of die to yourself.” I had asked the congregation to imagine if we placed such a phrase on the roadside marquee. I barely knew what I was talking about in that sermon. At least I knew enough to want to suggest the primary paradigm of following Jesus is cruciformity, our capacity to continue dying to ourselves.

I didn’t understand how much more suffering I was personally opening myself to. I think often about how one of my spiritual mothers described our journey in Christ as “holy agony.” The further I move into my awareness of God’s active presence in my life, the weaker I seem to become. Greater love and patience combined with earnest frailty.

One tangible feature of how I’m drinking the cup of “die to myself” is expressed in my inability to talk about much of anything without bearing witness to my weaknesses and failures. We live in a fraught, polarized world. How do I avoid contributing to the noise? By appealing to the one thing we all have in common: we are all poor and needy. The noise of vitriol oppresses and squeezes us into alienated confinement. We are all in desperate need of the merciful spaciousness of God. The only way into this space is through the doorway of weakness. And no one opens that door or drinks this cup if they aren’t able to be honest and vulnerable about their weaknesses.

I’m not saying that everyone needs to get vulnerable on a podcast. I’m saying that I do not know how to develop a public conversation about God without actively de-centering my ego so that you can especially find space for yourself. Inviting you to consider the relationship between contemplative spirituality and justice is to invite you into a posture of need. These are practiced, lived, conscious realities not mere abstract ideas. As we come to a more particular, immediate sense of our need, we will more freely open ourselves to moments of repast, to delight in being present to each other around the table.

Getting Vulnerable w/ Greg Thompson No. 84

In this episode Josh opens up a conversation with Greg Thompson about his book co-authored with Duke Kwon, Reparations: A Christian Call to Repentance & Repair. Yet in the process of attempting to create a conversation about healing the ravages of white supremacy, Josh is confronted with his own personal instability. Does he belong to himself enough to be able to steward for others conversations about healing toward reconciliation? How is it that sharing our weaknesses with each other allows us to belong to each other?

This episode is an introduction to Greg and his movement out of pastoral leadership into Voices Underground, an organization committed to erecting a national monument to the Underground Railroad. Greg describes how his mission that lies at the intersection of the political, contemplative, and convivial led him to go to culinary school open a restaurant and a cocktail bar.

In part II of this conversation, Josh and Greg go more deeply into the meaning and practice of reparations.

Start at @15:00 to skip past the introduction directly to the conversation with Greg.

Please visit: www.vuproject.org
For more information on the Invitation School of Prayer: theinvitationcenter.org/school-of-prayer

Subscribe to Invitation updates: theinvitationcenter.org/subscribe

Spiritual Friendship w/ Josh Bottomly No. 83

Josh has a conversation with his best friend about their 30+ years of spiritual friendship since they met at summer camp in middle school. This episode is a co-release with the Awakening, a worship/arts camp for high school students based at Hope College.

For more information about the Awakening: https://hope.edu/awakening/

Forum on Spiritual Direction Third Conversation w/ Cami Beercroft Mann Part II

Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems.

Can it?

This is the sedon part of our third conversation as Cami and I continue to unpack this question of spiritual direction. What is it? What’s it for? Is it really so vital? Why?

Cami and I engage in an extended contemplative conversation to discern and tease out the dignifying nature of spiritual direction. This is to say we talk about the practice of spiritual direction by practicing spiritual direction. While our society is one of oppression, pressing down upon and minimizing us, the contemplative space of spiritual direction provides a way for us to rediscover the enormity of each other, the profound dignity of each other.

Other avenues of engaging us in this practice:

We are currently registering for new cohorts of SOP & SOCL to begin at the end of the summer and early fall.
The School of Prayer, a nine-month study and practice of the rule of life.
The School of Contemplative Listening, a two-year certification in spiritual direction.

We are also registering for the August 9-10 Invitation Family Camp, a 24 hour, overnight experience for participants in the Invitation formation schools and friends of the Invitation.

TBA: The Failure Lab, a three-month study and and practice of confession and lamentation.

Partner with us: how can the Invitation serve you, your staff, organization, or community? We value your friendship, prayer, and financial support. One-time or recurring donations can be set up HERE at this link.

Peace of Christ to you!

Josh

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Forum on Spiritual Direction Third Conversation w/ Cami Beercroft Mann Part I

Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems.

Can it?

This is the first part of our third conversation as Cami and I continue to unpack this question of spiritual direction. What is it? What’s it for? Is it really so vital? Why?

Cami and I engage in an extended contemplative conversation to discern and tease out the dignifying nature of spiritual direction. This is to say we talk about the practice of spiritual direction by practicing spiritual direction. While our society is one of oppression, pressing down upon and minimizing us, the contemplative space of spiritual direction provides a way for us to rediscover the enormity of each other, the profound dignity of each other.

Other avenues of engaging us in this practice:

We are currently registering for new cohorts of SOP & SOCL to begin at the end of the summer and early fall.
The School of Prayer, a nine-month study and practice of the rule of life.
The School of Contemplative Listening, a two-year certification in spiritual direction.

We are also registering for the August 9-10 Invitation Family Camp, a 24 hour, overnight experience for participants in the Invitation formation schools and friends of the Invitation.

TBA: The Failure Lab, a three-month study and and practice of confession and lamentation.

Partner with us: how can the Invitation serve you, your staff, organization, or community? We value your friendship, prayer, and financial support. One-time or recurring donations can be set up HERE at this link.

Peace of Christ to you!

Josh

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"Humans Are Like Carrots" - Forum on Spiritual Direction w/ Cami Beercroft Mann No. 80

Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems.

Can it?

This is our second full conversation of the Forum on Spiritual Direction where we continue to discern the focus question for discernment, "Can Spiritual Direction Solve (Almost) All of Our Problems?"

Cami and I engage in an extended contemplative conversation to discern and tease out the dignifying nature of spiritual direction. This is to say we talk about the practice of spiritual direction by practicing spiritual direction. While our society is one of oppression, pressing down upon and minimizing us, the contemplative space of spiritual direction provides a way for us to rediscover the enormity of each other, the profound dignity of each other.

Carrots grow best in a loose, fluffy, well-draining soil. Gardeners call this “fertile sandy loam.” If planted in tightly compacted, rocky soil with clods and debris, carrots growth will not only be stunted. They will become twisted, distorted knots.

Human beings also need ample space, the comfort of love, patience, and kindness to flourish. Our society and sadly even the church at times are oppressive in ways that define our individual and collective experience of trauma, the arrested development of of spiritual, mental, and even physical health.

We believe that spiritual direction, careful, contemplative listening is the most effective way for humans to help each other discover and rediscover this kind of flourishing.

For those interested in an in-person retreat to further engage this question of spiritual direction, we are gathering people for a March 16-18 retreat here in West Michigan. Email Josh with your interest.

Other avenues of engaging us in this practice:

The School of Prayer, a nine-month study and practice of the rule of life.

The School of Contemplative Listening, a two-year certification in spiritual direction.

TBA: The Failure Lab, a three-month study and and practice of confession and lamentation.

Partner with us: how can the Invitation serve you, your staff, organization, or community? We value your friendship, prayer, and financial support. One-time or recurring donations can be set up HERE at this link.

Peace of Christ to you!

Josh

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"Composting Failure" - Forum on Spiritual Direction No. 79

Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems.

Can it?

This episode something of an experiment for the Forum on Spiritual Direction. As I have struggled to accept my own failures, I offer some of my weaknesses and questions with you as an opportunity to explore the focus question of this series: can spiritual direction solve (almost) all of the world's problems? This episode turns out to be a kind of audio essay with no specific final point, no definite idea. Mostly I am looking to share myself and to welcome you deeper into this conversation I’m having with Cami.

Over the holiday while home, I was prompted by the previous Forum discussion with Cami about the spirituality of our origins. So I take you on an audio walk around the Illinois farm where I was raised. I then share some further reflections while on retreat at St. Gregory's Abbey in Three Rivers Michigan.

I’m considering how deep listening to our failures is a necessary, essential a gift for the sake of our healing and growth. Failures can become compost!

Much Love to you!

Josh

**The picture I’ve used for this episode is from our family farm, taken the morning of January 3, 2023

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Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems - A Forum on SD Intro No. 78

Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems.

Can it?

This is the second half of our new series with Cami Mann, "The Forum on Spiritual Direction.’ In this session Cami beautifully invites us into her journey in and out and back into her Catholic faith practice. She shares some of her own trauma, and begins to map out the unique charism of her trauma informed practice of spiritual direction.

In the scope of this series, you are invited to engage at least two zoom conversations and to even attend an in-person retreat. Details on these events along with a working outline of the Forum can be found HERE.

Josh and Cami serve as the co-directors of the Invitation School of Contemplative Listening, a study and practice of spiritual direction at the vital intersection of contemplation and justice.

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‘Yes’ to Frailty

The Invitation Podcast has always consisted of guided prayers, meditations, and spiritual conversations. My interest has not been in teaching the ideas of formation but to invite listeners into the experiential, transformative reality of God.

This Forum series with Cami is proving to be the most substantial documentation I’ve offered to date of this sacred, contemplative space. I eagerly offer these things to you with an evangelical zeal that I thought I had forgotten. I’m jealous for you to get your heart and mind into this transformative reality too. Yet, I’m attempting to invite you to this space with patience and generosity. Genuine, thoughtful exchange is at a premium today. To engage you in these things in any way is precious and holy. The question is how to be enthusiastic, eager, even zealous to connect with you and yet, and yet….to not wear out my welcome, to not scare you away, to not impose myself upon you, to not create another set of “shoulds” for you to attain, another stage for you to perform on.

As I mention in this episode, I’m thinking about the podcast, this Forum especially, as a message in a bottle. If you are the one who has found my bottle, you will find scraps of paper stuffed inside that read:

Please, don’t “should” on yourself.

Please, notice my affection is for you to be you as you are, messy, disregulated, riddled with doubt.

Please, we are only as gentle with others as we are with ourselves.

I've been thinking about the intimate relationship between madness and genius. This spectrum is well researched in terms of our greatest artists and thinkers. To dream dreams, to hope with vision that is beyond our current conceptual realities requires one to be relatively unstable, flexible, even crazy. I immediately think of St Francis stripping naked and giving away all his earthly possessions. Do you recall any holy fools? Do you hold them at arms length with indifference? I have. Today, they are making more and more sense, a different kind of sense. Sixth grader Kadisha Hamed said, Mr. Banner, that doesn’t make sense” after I had read Robert Frost to her class. I replied so many years ago, “it doesn’t have to make sense in order to make sense.” Foolishness. Instability. Madness.

C.S. Lewis famously taught us that Jesus must either be Lord, liar, or lunatic. He cannot be all of those things. Last night in our School of Prayer cohort, one participant quoted Shane Claiborne that those following Jesus should like him “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” More madness, yet genius.

I definitely do not want here to recognize my own genius. I’m suggesting that being formed in Christ, to become like him, this requires of us a level of instability to see what he sees, to love what he loves, and to love how he loves. It’s the chicken and the egg. We need a particular kind of instability, a familiarity with our abundant weaknesses and failures, to live as confessional beings. The ancients called this “compunction,” when the ego is punctured, when all my modes of self-determination have been frayed, when I can no longer pull myself together and function as a socially acceptable, productive, consuming member of society. When my ego is punctured, when my self-determination is flattened and emptied, I have created more space for the Spirit to fill and move in and through me.

The cruciform irony is that my weakness is the greatest gift I have to offer you. In our nothingness we can find more ready access to everything of God. This will always come off as foolishness even to the religious establishment. I will say that the arena of spiritual direction, to spend an hour listening for the movements of the Holy Spirit in another person, to not teach, instruct, or fix that person, this madness is a wager on the genius of Christ revealed in others as they are without explanation or qualification.

I pray you will find a way to be uncouth today, to fall off your rocker. Oh that you will become unmoored and even dizzy in your freedom to love God, others, and even yourself in unnecessary, extravagant ways.

Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems - A Forum on SD Intro No. 77

Spiritual Direction Can Solve (almost) All of the World's Problems.

Can it?

1. This is the first part of two episodes introducing our new series, the Invitation "Forum on Spiritual Direction' where Cami Mann and Josh Banner invite you into a long conversation to consider the vital, healing need of contemplative listening especially today. In this forum Josh and Cami attempt to talk about spiritual direction through a practice of spiritual direction. That is to say, these are vulnerable, self-disclosive contemplative conversations where Josh and Cami attempt to listen and respond to the movements of the Holy Spirit in each other. They share their enthusiasm and insight, yet they also share their struggles, doubts, and fears.

You are invited to engage at least two zoom conversations and to even attend an in-person retreat. Details on these events along with a working outline of the Forum can be found HERE.

This part of the conversation is an honest, confessional exploration into the nature of what has become the Invitation Center in and through Josh, the founder and lead of the Invitation. In part two of this introduction, the focus turns to Cami's trauma-informed practice of direction and the story of how she came to her practice.

Josh and Cami serve as the co-directors of the Invitation School of Contemplative Listening, a study and practice of spiritual direction at the vital intersection of contemplation and justice.

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I stayed off the news and social media last week and hope to remain off through Thanksgiving at least. But I peeked today and saw that on the day after mid-term elections, the world continues under the heavy, oppressive weight of strife, infighting, polarization.

The only solution, the best solution is contemplative listening.

The warden of my facility still has not allowed volunteers back into the prison. It’s been almost three years since I’ve been able to practice contemplative listening with my incarcerated brothers. That intimate community and our shared practices had been my grounding space. Ironically, two days a month in the prison helped me stay sane. Without access to that holy communion, the School of Prayer and the School of Contemplative Listening have emerged to offer other spaces of sanity, grounding, healing, hope. Both the SOP and the SOCL are expressions of what I learned from my six years in the prison.

With this Forum on Spiritual Direction, I’m attempting to extend that holy, sacred space that began in the prison to you. I truly do believe that spiritual direction can solve (almost) all the world’s problems. I will dare to say that what Cami Mann and I are learning to see, what we are tasting, touching, practicing, and inviting you into—this is the most valuable, precious, healing, and therefore vital “meaning of life” conversation I can offer you.

Please understand there is nothing new here. It’s just taken me a long time, suffering, extensive successes and failures to better see the extent of Jesus’ life and teaching. The prison conversations had served as an incubator, ironically the prison as a greenhouse to nurture what has been emerging in me and the Invitation. Without access to the prison the SOP, SOCL, and especially Cami have served in lieu of the prison in this capacity. Cami is especially gifted as a midwife to help me and indeed all of us involved in the Invitation with this work of integration and discovery.

We are not claiming our own genius or to be unique messengers either. What we can offer you is a glimpse into how we are today, at this current time in our current place are learning to respond to the Holy Spirit in and through what we’ve learned from St Ignatius and Thomas Merton, Theresa of Avila and Howard Thurman, St John of the Cross and Fr Martin Laird, St Francis and James Cone, The desert Abbas and Ammas as well as Willie James Jennings (and more).

I encourage you to spend time with Ephesians 5:16 today: “Make most of your time for the days are evil.”

Eugene Peterson gives this passage more breadth in his Message translation:

I believe something like spiritual direction, contemplative, deep listening, a sharing of my depths with your depths, to linger in careful God conversation—this is how we make most of our time. This is what we were created for. This is how we heal and grow together.

I hope and pray you will not only pursue your own healing, but that you will become a wounded healer!

Love & Peace,

Josh

Zach Winters Pt I - No. 75

The Banner family was gifted with a visit from Zach Winters a few weeks ago. We recorded a bit so I could share the goodness with you!

This is the first part of what we recorded with the whole fam. Zach played a few songs for us, one of which has meant much to Susanna Childress Banner and me as we've waded through miscarriages and all kinds of other regions of pain and wilderness. We've used Zach's music with the kids at bedtime too, so they were especially shy.

Of special importance, Zach and I talk about how music can both name and heal our pain. At the end of this episode, Part I, I make some connections with Gospel music, why it matters so much, and then share again bits of a song led by CJ Kingdom-Grier I recorded at Maple Avenue Ministries during the pandemic.

Next week I intend to release Pt II of my time with Zach. That episode presents my further conversation with Zach after the kids went to bed. We continued talking about music, art, and some theology, how these things help us as humans.

I also share some more about The Invitation School of Prayer. If you are interested in participating in the SOP this year, we begin at the end of the month.

theinvitationcenter.org/school-of-prayer-details

www.zachwinters.com

Reparations Chapter 3 w/ Rev Julie Van Til - Part VII No. 74

This is part seven of our series, "White People Talking to White People About Racism," a reading of Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance & Repair by Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson. In this episode the Rev Julie Van Til helps Josh unpack chapter three.

Julie Van Til is a spiritual director and the pastor of Floosmore Community Church in Flossmore Illinois near Chicago. She is originally from the West Michigan area and was the one guest the Rev Dr Denise Kingdom Grier especially hoped would contribute to this conversation on racial justice. At the beginning of the conversation Julie and Josh discuss how the posture of a spiritual director influences her ministry as a lead pastor. They then consider the several ways that white supremacy is theft of power and culture and how racism is rooted in a troubled theology of creation. Julie and Josh conclude with reflections on the body and how anger about racism is not only acceptable, it is necessary for our healing.

Reparations Chapter 2 w/ Rev Bryan Berghoef - Part V No. 72

The Rev Bryan Berghoef helps Josh unpack "Seeing the Reality of White Supremacy," chapter 3 of Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance & Repair. We are releasing this especially on the occasion of the 4th of July weekend because chapter two begins with Fredrick Douglas' speech on the 4th of July, 1852.

Bryan Berghoef is someone Josh has been excited to get to know for some time. He is an American politician, pastor and author who was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in Michigan for the Second District.[1] He is also a pastor of the Holland United Church of Christ, a UCC church in Holland, Michigan, which he founded in 2016.

The gift of this conversation with Bryan is a hope-filled demonstration of ecumenical breadth of the body of Christ that is bears witness to the love of God that will heal the ravages of white supremacy.

Rev Bryan Berghoef

Reparations Chapter 1 w/ Rev Kate Kooyman - Part IV No. 71

The Rev Kate Kooyman helps Josh unpack “The Call to See,” chapter one of Reparations.

This call, this invitation to reparations is a discipline of seeing. Chapters one and two of our book this summer are intensive opportunities for us to see the white supremacy that pervades America, the church, and even our own families, homes, and careers. With the honesty and clarity of a spiritual director, Kwon and Thompson describe the difficulty of seeing: “seeing racism in this was has been an ongoing struggle. In truth, seeing clearly almost always is a struggle.”

Seeing is a struggle. Since the beginning we have chosen to hide from God, from each other, and from ourselves. Only with the merciful help of the Holy Spirit will we be able to come out of hiding and to open our spiritual eyes and ears to honestly know the troubles we are in and then to ask the Spirit to heal and reassemble the fragments of our lives.

Kwon and Thompson go on to write: “Embracing these truths requires a profound transformation of one’s identity, history, and aspirations. With this transformation comes an inescapable sense of disorientation and an enduring form of grief.” However, this is not a foreboding, heavy, losing ourselves in darkness for Christians, people of the light, because of the hope of the Gospel. We see the darkness in and through the light of Christ. This is an invitation to engage the sanctifying love of Jesus with more determined joy than ever before.

Subscribe to the Invitation: 
About our summer podcast series: 

Reparations Group Discussion Guide: 

To learn more about our formation schools...
The School of Prayer:theinvitationcenter.org/school-of-prayer
The School of Contemplative Listening: theinvitationcenter.org/school-of-con…e-listening-1

Rev Kate Kooyman

Reparations Introduction w/ Dr Susanna Childress - Part III No. 70

My wife, Susanna Childress, helps me respond to the introduction of Reparations. The idea is to let each chapter breathe a bit, to find ways to open ourselves to God in the reading and in the discussion. Susanna is especially able to help us think about how immersing ourselves in the writings of people of color can help us grow into people who will want to attend to the work of reparations.

She is an Assistant Professor of creative writing at Hope College here in Holland, MI., and is author of two books of poetry, the 2006, Brittingham Prize in Poetry winning, Jagged With Love, as well as Entering the House of Awe. In 2015 her poem, “Careful, I Just Won A Prize at the Fair” was included in The Best of American Poetry.

Dr Susanna Childress, Hope College, Holland, MI

Reparations Introduction w/ Dr Jesse N Curtis - Part II No. 69

Dr Jesse N Curtis, Valparaiso University

Josh and Dr Jesse Curtis touch on some of the big ideas in the introduction to Reparations, but mainly they admire the careful yet bold while also pastoral tone of the book we’ve chosen for our summer read and discussion. Jesse Curts begins his contribution by sharing from his own journey, how he learned from his early mistakes and learned the goodness of experiencing God in and through his steep learning curve on racial injustice.

To go directly to the conversation with Jesse Curtis, skip to 18:40.

If we want to experience the depths of God's love, we need to find ways to be involved with the things of God. Responding to racism and participating in the necessary repentance and repair of racism is of course seemingly heavy, yet it is a profound opportunity for transformation and hope! We understand the light of Gospel to the extent that we've seen the darkness.

White Supremacy is that darkness.

We invite you to participate in the life of God deeply this summer for yourself and for the healing of our country.The wonderful simplicity of the Gospel is that Jesus came to set the captives free. Isaiah 61 has been described as Jesus' mission statement: "to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners."

We are not pitying black people in America by acknowledging that they are, in the vocabulary of Howard Thurman, the "disinherited." In fact, it would be dishonest, undignifying, and un-loving to pretend that they have not been abused and that they are not still being abused in ways that are more broad and deep than the police brutality gets our attention in the news. The insight of Reparations, our text for this summer is that,

"White supremacy’s most enduring effect, indeed its very essence, is theft. We believe White supremacy to be a multigenerational campaign of cultural theft, in which the identities, agency, and prosperity of African Americans are systematically stolen and given to others. As we will show, we believe that while this theft took many forms, its most significant and enduring forms are the theft of truth, the theft of power, and the theft of wealth."

Here is a link for more information about this summer series, “White People Talking to White People About Racism”.

Please visit Jesse’s website: The Myth of Colorblind Christians

We are asking participants to buy the book from a black owned bookstore. In West Michigan, consider the store, We Are Lit! For a list of more black owned stores visit Literary Hub.

Our call to worship prayer for this summer from Howard Thurman:

Lord, Lord, Open Unto Me

Open unto me, light for my darkness

Open unto me, courage for my fear

Open unto me, hope for my despair

Open unto me, peace for my turmoil

Open unto me, joy for my sorrow

Open unto me, strength for my weakness

Open unto me, wisdom for my confusion

Open unto me, forgiveness for my sins

Open unto me, tenderness for my toughness

Open unto me, love for my hates

Open unto me, Thy Self for myself


Lord, Lord, open unto me!

Reparations Orientation With Rev Dr Denise Kingdom Grier - Part I No. 68

The Rev. Dr. Denise Kingdom Grier offers a bold, honest, and frank discernment of the racism in America and the white church. Her courageous testimony provides the necessary and essential orientation as we invite white people to talk with white people about racism this summer 2021 in our reading of Reparations: A Christian Call For Repentance and Repair by Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson.

Josh offers some orientation to Denise’s orientation by walking through the details about how this summer series will work, and then he offers some context about why the Invitation is handling this book and the vocabulary of reparations. Finally, Josh offers a few meditative readings from Ephesians 3 to allow you time to take this very difficult conversation into contemplative practice.

To go directly to the conversation with Denise, skip to 23:20.

We are asking participants to buy the book from a black owned bookstore. In West Michigan, consider the store, We Are Lit! For a list of more black owned stores visit Literary Hub.

The March 4, 2021, “#LeaveLoud” episode of the Pass the Mic podcast mentioned can be found HERE.

Conversation w/ Kenda Creasy Dean (Unedited) No. 67

Unedited audio of Josh’s conversation with Kenda Creasy Dean, the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Seminary. This content was created to support and deepen the Awakening, a summer week-long experience in the worship arts at Hope College that Josh serves as Director of Discipleship.

Awakening Series #5 A Family Conversation w/ Kenda Creasy Dean No. 66

In this episode Josh Banner continues the Awakening’s collaboration with the Invitation Podcast as we further explore our focus question: what does a 16-year-old have to teach the church? Here, Josh borrows from a conversation he recently had with Kenda Creasy Dean, the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Seminary, to encourage parents and teens to share their true stories of faith with each other. We hope and pray especially in the midst of Covid-19 this episode #5 will help you to slow down, to be more intentionally present to your family, and to learn with and from each other.

The full unedited, un-produced conversation with Kenda is available for you to listen to.

David Dark "Vote Righteousness!" - Conversation #15 No. 64

In November of 2018 Josh sat down for a long-awaited conversation with David Dark, professor of Religion and the Arts at Belmont University. This conversation offers us a bit of sanity as Josh and David consider questions of faith, formation, and politics. In fact, no matter what happens with our election on Nov 3 and the following week, listening to David Dark will help you "slow the tape" and consider the value of a "righteous culture" that has the capacity to ask questions with a deep attentiveness.

Josh offers a lengthy introduction offering updates on the Invitation School of Prayer as well as announcing some other exciting news. If you want to skip directly to the conversation with David, move to around the 19:30 mark to begin. If you've not already subscribed to the Invitation Podcast, please visithttps://www.invitationpodcast.org/subscribe 

Thanks for listening!

Peace of Christ to you!

Dr Jared Ortiz & Pastor Dominic Palacios - Conversation #13 No. 57

A Reformed Pastor and Catholic Theologian Walk Into a Bar….

No. This isn’t the lead into a joke. These two friends didn’t walk into a bar. They sat in my office in August 2018 to talk about contemplative prayer, the Lord’s prayer, catechism, and theological orthodoxy. As a pause from our series through Fr Martin Laird’s A Sunlit Absence, Pastor Dominic Palacios and Dr Jared Ortiz speak candidly about the tensions within the church to engage the deeper levels of transformation available in contemplative spirituality.

The greatest gift these two men offer is a way of sharing what they have in common in Jesus Christ rather than focusing on what makes them different. In the context of our very divided society and its culture wars, this conversation displays that there is peace, love, hope, growth, unity, fellowship still possible even today!

Please subscribe to the Invitation Podcast to stay informed about the new episode, retreats, and classes we offer: https://www.invitationpodcast.org/subscribe