The Nexus Podcast

Game Play (S12 Episode8)

How does a woman with a PhD in psychology, two New York Times bestselling books, and no idea how many cards are in a deck end up putting her career on hold for three years so she can learn to play poker? Maria Konnikova’s story of academic turned poker professional is an interesting tale. Even more interesting though is the lessons she learned along the way and how many of those lessons seem to apply to walking the Christian Path.
 
This Sunday we explore the faith lessons inherent in so many of the games we love most.

Skin in the Game (S12 Episode7)

For the next few weeks we will explore the wild world of game theory. Conceived in the 1950s, Game Theory is a mathematic discipline that has influenced quantum theory, economics, evolutionary biology, systems science, computer science, military defense planning, and logic. Might it have something to add to our ongoing exploration of the Christian Path?
 
This week we are dive into the game behind the theory itself: poker. We will need to explore the nature and consequence of beliefs, election polling, the stakes of the incarnation, Jesus' parable of the talents, and, of course, we should probably play a little poker.
 
This Sunday promises to be both fun and challenging for us all as we explore what it means to have Skin In The Game.

Squeezed (S12 Episode6)

This Sunday is our final week in the Practices series and we will be wrapping it up by looking at Generosity.

The Hospitality of Robot Soft Exorcism (S12 Episode5)

We are almost to the end of practices here at Nexus as we look at Hospitality and Forgiveness. We spent four weeks on forgiveness in June, so the focus here will be primarily on hospitality. There are many dimensions to hospitality, but for this Sunday, let’s examine what it means to be a hospitable person?
 
Brad will examine two episodes from Jesus’ life, explain this odd thing called Robot Soft Exorcism, and relay to you a most fascinating event he witnessed unfold this summer in Victoria Park (involving police, a man on a statue, and an unruly crowd).

People, Place and Presence (S12 Episode4)

We are diving into our third practice, our desire to be present and awake to the land and people in front of us. To do that, we will start by examining the implications of one of the most boring and redundant pieces of writing in the entirety of the New Testament. It's almost guaranteed that if you have ever read the gospels, you either skipped this part or fell asleep reading it.  Have you ever read through a phone book?  Yeah, it is about as exciting as that. However, the implications of these writings are monumental for us. The speaking of the account of Jesus' genealogy. 

Guest List (S12 E3)

Onto our second practice. This Sunday we look at how we practice belonging and participation here at Nexus. This is a crucial question for any church to answer and in doing so we consider the "guest list". Brad shares two experiences he has had as a “guest” and how those stories inform the way he thinks about belonging and participating here at Nexus.

Within (S12 Episode2)

To start this season, we are exploring the things that bind us together as a community. We want to revisit the communal practices we are striving to live out together. This week we will focus on our commitment to personal transformation and growth. 

We will explore a curious declaration by Jesus. You see, Jesus talked obsessively about the kingdom of God. When asked how to see this kingdom or where it was, Jesus replied that the kingdom of God is “within you.” 

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.