The Nexus Podcast

Desperate - Path & Passion (S12 Episode 1)

Season 12 Premiere:  A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Cosmos for Wandering Hearts. In a sense, we are coming home by returning to the Conrad. But we Nexus folk are a restless lot, so we are constantly travelling, even while coming home. Travelling the Jesus Path feels a bit like always being on the road.  We will get more to that later in the fall. After 18 months apart, it seemed good for us to begin this season with a bit of a reintroduction.
 
So, over the next few weeks, we want to go over why Nexus is a practice-driven church, but before then, we start with Nexus’ Path and Passion. These, more than anything, form the heartbeat of what Nexus is all about.  The story of Ajmal helps drive home the importance of our path and passion. 

Tidying Our Junk Drawer (S11 Episode41)

This week is our season finale and our conclusion to the forgiveness series. Last week ended with Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s imagination meditation where we visualize the path of forgiveness by imagining that in front of each of us stands a large cabinet with many individual drawers. Inside each of those drawers is a particular sin, a wrong, a hurt or wound done to us that we have not yet dealt with.
 

Brad likens this to the infamous junk drawer, aka, the place for everything without a place.  Forgiveness, it turns out, can feel an awful lot like dealing with our junk drawers. Once you open it up, the things we find in there can be disorientating and painful. As we close the season and series, Brad moves us towards ways we can not only make ourselves “graves for hate” but also transform the wounds and scars into grace and peace.

Lightning Falls Upon Us (S11 Episode40)

Here is part 3 of our 4 part series on forgiveness.  Lightning is, no doubt, a dazzling display of nature’s raw power. From a distance, it’s absolutely breathtaking. But up close up, its great power contains many dangers. Of course, lightning can seriously harm or destroy anything it strikes directly, but what makes lightning all the more dangerous is that it can oftentimes simply act as a generator. Lightning can easily become a catalyst for even further destruction. A single bolt can obliterate a tree. That same bolt can also become the single spark of energy responsible for destroying thousands of kilometers of forest.
This week Brad examines the unique interplay between sin and forgiveness by jumping into two stories: one about something Jesus did and the other a story he told. It's time to get into the nitty-gritty of forgiveness... and that means getting below the surface of these stories. Plus, a little lightning talk.

H P t F t U (S11 Episode39)

This is the second in our four part series on forgiveness.  In this talk, Brad turns the tables on forgiveness first. Implicit behind any discussion of forgiveness is the unspoken acknowledgement that someone has been hurt or wronged.  In the Jesus Path tradition, we have a word for those wrongs. We call them sin.  The trouble of course is that some, many, cringe the moment you say the word sin.  Brad addresses the topic of sin from a number of angles and with a number of different names.  One of them (H P t F t U) involves some strong language.

So, viewer/listener/parental discretion is advised.

Does Forgiveness Have Its Limits? (S11 Episode38)

This week's message is part one of a four part series on forgiveness which will conclude Season 11 here at Nexus.  In walking the Jesus Path, we will be confronted by our need to both give and receive forgiveness.  But, does forgiveness have its limits?  Brad tells us a story and asks us to explore the limits of forgiveness by asking us a difficult question.  Viewer/listener discretion is advised.

 

 

Lockdown Hospitality (S11 Episode37)

This week, Erika Toffelmire will speak to a prevalent theme in the book of Acts: hospitality. Of course, throughout the pandemic, hospitality has become seemingly impossible to perform. Yet, as the prospect of some kind of normal seems on the horizon, it is worth considering how hospitality might shape our lives moving beyond life in lockdown.
Through story and insights from her own experiences, Erika is set to raise important questions for us all to consider.

Of Trust and Betrayal (Season11 Episode36)

Is there ever a time to part ways with friends or communities? If so, over what and when? Listen in to the final week of our mini-series on the Jerusalem Council.  In a world where we are constantly trying to navigate serious differences, what do we do when lines of conviction and conscience feel at odds…especially with those who might be close to us?  Brad explores the role that trust plays in all of this.

Of Practices and Potlucks (S11 Episode35)

Lens 3 of 4 on the Jerusalem council.  To our ears, the controversy over circumcision seems like a silly thing for a church to be divided about. Such is the nature of symbols though…because they lack inherent meaning, they often become a war of ideas.  So it was in the early church as well. Circumcision for some was about identity and adherence to a way of life that included 613 rules. For Paul, circumcision represented a massive barrier to belonging. Instead, he offered the church a set of practices rather than rules or symbols. Here, we examine those two practices as an alternative to rules, symbols or statements of belief.

The Seduction of Segregation (S11 Episode34)

Lens 2 of 4 and back to Acts 15 we go. While the Jerusalem Council ends with a decision to not erect barriers for Gentile inclusion in the church, the real work has only begun. It is what happens after the council that is of utmost importance. What the council decides to do represents a distinctly Christian way of navigating differences. The challenge of course is that this way forward is very fragile and the tensions around the Jew/Gentile question are ever present in the New Testament. This story has a lot to teach us as we navigate through differences in our own time and place. 

Here I Stand (S11 Episode33)

This week Brad takes us back into Acts to the Council of Jerusalem, into the middle of a highly divisive situation. Scripture, tradition, and personal experiences are all at odds with each other.  At its core this story contains all the challenges we face as a church today. How do you handle racism in the church? How do you handle serious disagreements? What role does our conscience play in interpreting Scripture and making choices as a community? How can a church embrace more people without alienating others? Is there a time to leave a church or part ways with certain people?  In this story, everything is happening and I think it speaks a powerful word to us today.