Non-Working Title

Wherein we talk about how to define the work of the church, discuss what it looks like to cultivate a community of support and mutuality that feels like rest, and wonder how to make the case to folks that it is worth their time just to be together.

Wherein we talk about the role of hanging out in the life of the church, how hard it is to measure (and to value) the ""product"" of faith, and how much the Christianity Cinematic Universe Comic-Con obscures the gentle and mundane work of caring for one another, and how maybe the real bible study was the friends we made along the way.

For your listening vibes, here are some audio odds & ends from time spent away at Shrinemont summer camp in June and July: camp songs, camp prayers, and more. 

We took a break from posting for a few months which is fine bc this podcast is about taking breaks lol. So we hope you might take a break too, crack open a cold one (bubble water) and soak up some summer camp vibes. 

Wherein we talk about the weird-shaped work of church planting and community planting, how the currency of ministry is attention-paid, and how often the church is built into the shape of something we don't want to inhabit.

Wherein we wonder about the petty salve that is the ~self-care webinar~, where the expectation of suffering/dissatisfaction comes from in the life of the Church, and if the work of building safe, well, mutually-supportive communities requires burnout of the builders. 

Wherein we wonder together what adults could learn from Godly Play, where there might be more room for silence and spaciousness in the life of the church, and what might meet the needs of folks who are too burnt out to "get back to it."

Wherein we discuss the unevenness of ministry, and when you're responsible for other people's well-being, and the difficulty of asking for and receiving help, and also the wild and wonderful slog of youth ministry mission trips.

Wherein we discuss the biblical Jubilee, wonder what a relief it would be to absolve debts, repatriate lands, and allow things to lie fallow for a year, and consider what we--both ourselves and in our communities--to cultivate a bigger and deeper imagination towards Jubilee and God's liberation.

Wherein we talk about what it's like for ministers to be experiencing the same struggles as their people, why it's so hard to see yourself with the same eyes as you see your friends, and what a burned-out church community might look like.

Wherein we wonder how we were formed with ambitions for education and career and how those warp our senses of ourselves, our vocations, our cares of self and one another. Can we not have ambition to gentleness, rest, community, too?

Wherein we talk about how deeply we feel the urge to work on our days off, to feel guilty about doing nothing, and how academia and the Church play into that formation.

Wherein we talk about our early COVID hopes for the church, our late COVID hopes for the church, and when the tasks of the church get in the way of the mission of the church.

Wherein we talk about the work of ministry, the trauma of the past two years and the reminders of past traumas, and how to care for a self that is caring for others.

Wherein we talk about, among other things, what it's like to do ministry with tired people, to community organize tired people, and who is afforded rest and spaciousness and safety in an inequitable society.

Wherein we discuss, among other things, what it's felt like to be alienated from our emotions and even sense of fatigue as the demands of capitalism continue during this worsening pandemic. 

Pilot for the pilot season of Non-Working Title, a podcast about doing nothing and how hard it is to find rest under pandemic conditions in the collapse of every major institution, hehe haha.