The Urban Mystic Podcast: Conversation about Deconstructing Church, the Problem of Godde, and Cultivating Relational Spirituality
Episodes
Friday Oct 07, 2022
Friday Oct 07, 2022
In seeking to establish a Relational Spirituality on the foundation of our value for intimacy with God the question of whether our experience is constructed is important. Here there's a difference between on one hand relating to a religious service or activity and pressure dynamics and on the other relating to God as a Person who draws near to speak and act.
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Saturday Oct 01, 2022
Saturday Oct 01, 2022
In seeking to establish a Relational Spirituality on the foundation of our value for intimacy with God several things come into focus. Here there’s an interplay between the Personhood of God of a God understood as transcendent, understood as universal cosmic presence, and understood to draw near in Person.
In this conversation we pick up on a quote from Sarah Bessey on FB. Are we really caught between charismatic/pentecostal experience in meetings and a universal presence of God found in the appreciation of life? I think personhood differs to universal presence and, without setting these against each other, let’s recognise that a personal relationship is a reciprocal dynamic between two persons. It is not between a person and an abstracted or conceptual presence.
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Friday Sep 23, 2022
Friday Sep 23, 2022
In this episode we continue speaking about our value for ‘intimacy with God’. I put forward that there is profound difference between the ‘faith as intimacy paradigm’ and the ‘intimacy through relational engagement paradigm’.
The ‘faith as intimacy paradigm’ has a low value for intimacy with God as there’s no intent to cultivate relational engagement. It wraps the bow of peak experience around meaningful engagement with God and then defines such as for the needy and immature. The ‘faith as intimacy paradigm’ sounds awfully like taking a relational partner for granted while not valuing their presence or seeking their attention. The result is that the ‘faith as intimacy paradigm’ is a very tough environment to make headway toward intimacy with God within.
We’re exploring the possibility and potential of a genuine relationship with God. Is there a bar or a standard for this? Or are we to expect relational engagement to be few and far between if possible at all? These are important questions for anyone seeking a Relational Spirituality.
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Thursday Sep 15, 2022
Thursday Sep 15, 2022
In this week’s episode we take a break from our current exploration of foundational values for relational spirituality, to feature a guest, Jackie Barker. In many ways this episode reflects the kinds of conversations we have with our listeners.
Jackie is a Presbyterian minister in Johannesburg, South Africa, and runs a foster home, Omphile House, where they give a small group of children their ‘forever home’. Please support this initiative (link below) - as this family is doing amazing work and it is a cause close to both my and Tim's heart.
In this episode we spend much time teasing out the experience of “abandonment”.
How are we understanding abandonment?
Is there room for growth in relationship when we experience a stepping away?
But what if there’s been no experience of God's presence? How do we then understand that...?
Omphile House
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Thursday Sep 08, 2022
Thursday Sep 08, 2022
In this episode we dive into another of our key values: intimacy with God.
Though we can draw on a number of analogies from our human-to-human relationships these often support the idea that God is practically distant and that engagement with God constitutes a peak or mountaintop experience. This is, however, untrue as the image of intimacy is presented by God to us as the true depths of what a relationship with God can be like and what we can attain in this life. Are we perhaps selling ourselves short and substituting faith and limerance for genuine relationship? And, if so, what beginnings do we make at exploring and establishing intimacy with God as our highest and deepst value?
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Sunday Sep 04, 2022
Sunday Sep 04, 2022
When editing this episode I noted that we spoke a lot about "deep listening" which mirrors the mystics saying a tremendous amount about "silence". This sparked a conversation and Steve suggested we speak of this value as "active silence". This works really well and helps us distinguish our value for "active silence" from the priority and practice of "reflective listening" in our one-on-one sessions and "deep listening" in group sessions.
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Thursday Aug 25, 2022
Thursday Aug 25, 2022
"I want to be right there at the coal face of meaning because I think that’s the truest true: to be there in the meaning at the depths of the relationship."
– Steve Carter
In this episode we dive into one of our key values: storytelling.
Storytelling is vital to Relational Spirituality as its vital to relational depth. We all live in relation to stories, and yet we can live more in relation to stories than to the people those stories are about. And, we also often live more in relation to our own story and so can bound to it and lost within our own self.
The art of storytelling lies in self-discovery and then the sharing of this discovery with others. Through storytelling we can arrive at the true depth of living and loving and enter deeply into our relationships.
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Thursday Aug 18, 2022
Thursday Aug 18, 2022
In this episode we entertain the possibility of beginning from the ground up with the individual focusing on values which translate into priorities and practices. We also consider the introduction of processes into existing communities centred around the activities of doing church.
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Thursday Aug 11, 2022
Thursday Aug 11, 2022
We continue tackling this foundation block of preaching in this second exploration of preaching and process. Preaching is often seen as a non-negotiable when it comes to church/spiritual community practice, with a huge value placed on it’s ability to transform individuals and groups.
This episode considers the difference between preaching and process. We explore the way that trust rests in the preacher with preaching and with the participants and God with processes. We also explore how process can be added to or fit into the context of church as is, and yet that there's a need for and hope in a new paradigm centred on process and participation.
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Friday Jul 29, 2022
Friday Jul 29, 2022
We continue tackling this foundation block of preaching in this second exploration of preaching and process. Preaching is often seen as a non-negotiable when it comes to church/spiritual community practice, with a huge value placed on it’s ability to transform individuals and groups.
This episode considers the relation between preaching and the presence of God.
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