Awaken Bowness Podcast

The He(art) of Forgiveness Part 2

In an attempt to try something new this sermon is based off of an interactive game of Kahoot played on Sunday, April 18th. We talked about SHALOM and forgiveness and unresolved conflict. Did you know that withholding forgiveness affects YOU more than it affects the person who offended you? Did you know that conflict is a gift? Did you know that forgiveness is at the very HEART of Christian life together? 
Let's be known in Bowness by our willingness to forgive freely and completely.
 
 

The He(art) of Forgiveness Part 1

Join us for a three part series on FORGIVENESS as a spiritual practice of letting go. In this Sermon we unpack the poetic and beautiful story of Jacob and Esau and reflect on forgiveness as a gift that gives itself to you. 
 
In this sermon and throughout this series you will find reflections from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Reverend Mpho Tutu's book, The Book of Forgiving. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00DB32SR6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Easter Sunday 2021: Utterly Alive

On Good Friday several of us gathering around the weeping tree in Bowmont park to slowly and reflectively take the weeping ties down from the tree. On Saturday we ironed them and carefully, prayerfully, tied them all together and made a banner for the Sanctuary. On Easter Sunday we had a celebratory worship service hosted by Logan and Dionne and we gave a sermon proclaiming that God is utterly alive and we reflect on how the bodily resurrection demonstrates that the earth and God are completely open towards one another. Our longing to connect is blessed by God!

Lent as a Sacred Space for Sorrow: The God of the Losing Side

The God revealed in the Scriptures is continually on the losing-side of history. This is foolishness and a stumbling block to those who are winning. Jesus didn't ride triumphantly into Jerusalem: the Resurrection isn't the victory following Friday's defeat. Jesus marched into Jerusalem - lowly and riding on a donkey to reveal a God who suffers, takes risks, opens Godself to vulnerability and always towards the most vulnerable. That might challenge our Greek notions of "omnipotence and omniscience" but you cannot love if you cannot lose and greater love has no other than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. 
 
 

Lent as a Sacred Space for Sorrow: Compassion for Your Own Hurting Heart with Adrianna Schmidt

Adrianna is a Table Group leader at Awaken and also a registered Psychologist. She leads us in a beautiful and interactive sermon on Self-Compassion. Is it ok to love oneself and be kind to oneself? Can we see our emotions (anxiety, fear, sadness, etc) as teachers looking to teach us something? What if we invited those "guests" over for tea and became curious about them. Thank you Adrianna! 

Lent as a Sacred Space for Sorrow: Collective Grief and the Genocide in Rwanda with Melchoir Cyusa

Today we had the special honour of learning from Melchoir Cyusa. Melchoir is a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide and knows what it means to grieve as an individual and he knows very well how important it is to make sacred space for communities to grieve together. In this sermon we learned a lot about the Genocide in Rwanda against the Tutsi people and how people who have survived make space for grief and reconciliation work. 
 
Thank you Melchoir! 

Lent as a Sacred Space for Sorrow: The Cross and the Lynching Tree

We all have prejudice. Prejudice is when you make a judgement about someone's value based on their physical appearance/attributes. This could include their ethnicity, gender expression, weight, height, clothing style, monetary value of their clothing or vehicles, etc. Confronting our prejudices is important work and all people must do this work. Racism, however, is when power is mixed with prejudice and one group of people who have special access to power can dehumanize those they have prejudice against. Racism is about power and the Cross is God's divine confrontation with Power. This episode is a take 2 b/c of a sermon recording tech glitch. I read directly from my notes and re-recorded in my living room with a train and a puppy in the background. 
 
At Lent we talk about the agony of the crucifixion and the suffering of Christ and so this sermon felt like an important PART of a bigger story about the role of suffering in our world and in the Church and this sermon is not a systematic theology but rather a message from our pastor for a particular community asking particular questions in this particular place called Bowness. We focus on Isaiah 53 and the notion that Christ is a man familiar with pain and suffering and the ways his suffering leads to healing for all. 
 
Please don't just take MY word for it! Check out:
 
Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing and Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Soong Chun Rah and Mark Charles
The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
Reading while Black by Esau Mccaully
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone
Who Will be a Witness by Drew G.I. Hart
and African American Readings of Paul by Lisa M. Bowens
 
For a full bibliography of commentaries on books of the bible by Biblical Scholars and Theologians of color email us! 

Lent as a Sacred Space for Sorrow: The Sword That Breaks the Heart

Jess Andrews came and delivered this amazing sermon on pain and love through the eyes of Mother Mary. Thank you Jess for your leadership and courage. 

Lent as a Sacred Space for Sorrow: A Wounded Healer

In which I argue, alongside Bo Sanders and Randy Woodley (De-Colonizing Evangelicalism) that we can do away with words like SIN and SALVATION and instead propose a more costly discipleship. What if we went deeper and talked about the wound beneath the 'sinful behavior' and rather than modify and control the behavior, we made a safe and sacred space for people to come clean about the pain and trusted that the naming or the confessing of the pain in community leads to healing. This healing is the salvation.  It's Christ our healer - Christ our wounded healer -- Christ invited us to put our hand in the wound and believe. 
 
 

Incarnation: Embodying Sacrificial Love

Eat the Skittles. Pay Attention to the Potlatch Ceremony and learn from the Traditional Stewards of this land. Participate in the Drama of Abundance and once you've seen that there is *enough* and the Love and Forgiveness, Mercy, and Welcoming Arms of the Creator never ever ever ever ever runs out -- your notions of scarcity will be exposed and you can join the flow of generosity that so gently seeks to re-order our anxious system. 
 
Have you ever been on the receiving end of generosity? Have you ever been able to give generously? Consider these experiences and reflect on the nature of our Generous God.