House of Learning Podcast

Portland's Black History and the Bible (Part 2)

Portland has some rich Black history, but also some terrible examples of the injustice and trauma that race in America can mean. Join us for part two of our discussion as we follow the story in Portland, and allow the Bible to provoke us to think afresh about what to learn from this history. (If you haven’t already listened to part one of this discussion, check out last week first - or it’ll be confusing!)

We referred to an excellent article you might want to check out at 

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/racist-history-portland/492035/

We also recommended checking out the Racial Justice Community’s resources at:

https://racialjusticecommunity.com 

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20-second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.

Portland's Black History and the Bible (Part 1)

Portland has some rich Black history, but also some terrible examples of the injustice and trauma that race in America can mean. Join us as we tell some of the story in Portland, and allow the Bible to provoke us to think afresh about what to learn from this history and what it means for us now. (This is part one, catch us next week for part two of what turned out to be a long discussion!)

We referred to an excellent article you might want to check out at 

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/racist-history-portland/492035/

We also recommended checking out the Racial Justice Community’s resources at:

https://racialjusticecommunity.com 

Check out the marriage course at:

https://westsideajc.org/events/2021/03marriage-momentum-online

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20 second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.

Celebrating Black Theology

We often say that insights from other cultures and groups are not just good… but necessary! In Black History Month we put some meat on the bones of this claim by talking about some of our favorite Black theologians and what we have learned from them: Carl Eliis Jr., Emmanuel Katongole, and Esau McCaulley.

We highlighted these works this week:

Carl Ellis Jr., Free at Last

Emmanuel Katongole, Born from Lament

Esau McCaulley, Reading While Black

And Esau’s NYT article, The Bloody Fourth Day of Christmas

For more resources, especially some more Black thinkers to follow and learn from, check out the Racial Justice Community’s page, or follow them on Facebook.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20 second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.

What is a Calling?

Calling can be exciting, but calling questions can immobilize us too. Richard and Dominic chat though some of the key questions to help us keep moving forward in our calling. Is ‘calling’ something we share in common, or individual to each of us… or both? How do you go about discovering it? And how do you step into it?

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20 second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.

Genesis Sets the Stage

It’s impossible to answer questions about our common purpose and unity without agreeing on the story we’re supposed to be living. So we go back to Genesis to ramble through creation, the garden and the fall to look for answers about the story we’re living in and what trajectory our life is (supposed to be) on.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20 second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.

What is Theology?

Join a couple of theologians as they try to convince you that not only should you practice doing theology as a spiritual discipline, but whether you know it or not you already are a theologian… but will you be a good one?

This week we recommended the following books:

How to Read Theology for All Its Worth, Stetina

Practicing Christian Doctrine, Jones

Theology: The Basics, McGrath

A Short History of Christian Doctrine, Lohse

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20 second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.

What is Christian Nationalism?

Current events have stirred up passionate debates about Trump, religion, the church and the nation. A central issue is Christian Nationalism… so we unpack what it is, and how the Bible might help us navigate the issues.

This week we recommended lots of interesting books:

Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? by John Fea

Taking America Back for God by Whitehead and Perry

The Myth of a Christian Nation by Gregory Boyd

American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion by Wilsey and Fea

America's Religious History by Kidd

Divided by Faith by Emerson and Smith

----------

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20 second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.

New Year - The Return of the King

Happy New Year! In an epic changeover from 2020 to 2021 we chat about the anticipation of Jesus showing up this year. But we also want to capture what God has done this year as well. We walk through an Examen prayer exercise for this season, and invite you to join us as we launch into what 2021 has for us!

----

(This is a practice by Vinita Hampton Wright from Ignatius Spirituality) 

Step One: Become aware of God’s presence.

One way of doing this is to ask the Holy Spirit to help you review the year with a holy perspective—with wisdom, grace, and faith. Ask for the grace to tear yourself away from your own patterns of thinking and seeing so that you can see your life more as God sees it. Of course you will see your failings—but God sees you as a beloved daughter or son who has a future and a hope. Of course you will see your accomplishments—but God sees your deeper self, the person behind all the activity, a person made in God’s image.

Step Two: Review the year with gratitude.

As you use this holy perspective to review the year, pay attention to the good gifts from the year ending. Name specifically those that come to memory now, and thank God for them.

Step Three: Pay attention to your emotions.

Think over the year again, and notice your emotional reactions. What memories speak most loudly to you? What events, conversations, relationships, or activities bring up the most emotion now, as you remember them? Ask God to help you linger with these emotions, whether they are pleasant or disturbing. Ask for help in understanding why you feel as you do. What can you learn about yourself or about your situation as you dwell in your emotional responses?

Step Four: Choose one feature of the year and pray from it.

While you are lingering with your memories and emotions, settle on one feature. Perhaps it is a single event, or maybe it’s a pattern of your own behavior that has come to mind as you reviewed the year. Whatever it is that has emerged, allow it to fuel your prayer. Don’t worry about the many other aspects of the year that you could think about right now; stay with the one thing that has come to you with the most power and pray from those thoughts and emotions.

Step Five: Look toward the new year.

Imagine what challenges and blessings might await you in the coming year. Think of important relationships, major (and minor) decisions to be made, skills to learn, habits to build, healing to seek, good work to accomplish. Make a simple list of highlights—matters that you expect to take prominence in your life in the new year. Bring them to God now, and ask for the graces you will need.

End your prayer, thanking God for love and life and holy possibilities.

----

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20 second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.

Advent and Joy

Merry Christmas! As Advent reaches its destination we celebrate the arrival of God’s Son incarnate by discussing joy. Is there a distinct biblical kind of joy, why is this the climactic Advent theme, and how can you get more of it?

Catch more Advent goodies at westsideajc.org/advent

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20 second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.

Advent and Love

God sent His son because He loves us (John 3:16)... but does Christmas show us God’s love in a special way? Join Richard, Shelbi & Weston as they unpack God’s love through shepherds, Magi and new parents, and what they teach us about walking in God’s love ourselves.

Catch more Advent goodies at westsideajc.org/advent

Thanks for listening to this episode of the House of Learning podcast.

This podcast is produced by A Jesus Church College, based at Westside: A Jesus Church in Portland Oregon.

AJC College train and mobilize the next generation of Kingdom leaders through an accredited four-year degree in Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Leadership and Formation, combining classroom learning with mentoring and ministry apprenticeship, for a third of the cost of traditional college.

To find out more, go to ajccollege.org, or follow us on Instagram or Facebook, to find out if this is where God could be calling you to explore your calling.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, subscribe, and share with someone.

And if you have a question you’d like us to chat about, please let us know!

You can email us at podcast@ajccollege.org. If you can, send us a 20 second audio recording saying who you are and where you are from, along with your question, and we’d love to include it in a future episode.