Sandbox Cooperative Podcast

In this episode, we talk with Paul Schroeder, author of Practice Makes Purpose: Six Spiritual Practices that Will Change Your Life and Transform Your Community. Paul is a social entrepreneur, author, and spiritual teacher who has spent over 20 years working at the intersection of spirituality and social change. He served for more than a decade as a Greek Orthodox priest. After a divorce and a period of personal and spiritual crisis, Paul left the priesthood and founded New City Initiative, a nonprofit organization in Portland, Oregon, dedicated to helping people who experience poverty and homelessness achieve their full human potential. Learn more about the book at SixPractices.com

Just a couple of weeks ago, not far from us here in Rochester, there was a bombing at a mosque in Bloomington, MN. And less than a week ago, white supremacists and Nazis gathered in Charlottesville, VA held a violent demonstration. In the last couple of days a death threat was posted on the video of our Sandbox live event featuring our friend Regina Mustafa. Where do we go from here? How do we deal with our perception that this is bigger than we can fix? And how might conversation be a launching point for real solutions?

In today’s episode, we talk about language. In its simplest form, language is made up of words that we use to express something. But from cultural context, personal experience, external pressures, the message is rarely if ever cleanly sent and perfectly understood. Sometimes we think we are communicating in prose, but more often than not, it’s poetry filled with metaphor, innuendo, and inflection. It’s a wonder we can say anything at all.

Lyle Beckman is a night minister with the San Francisco Night Ministry, a ministry that provides care, counseling, referrals, and crisis intervention to anyone in any kind of distress, every night of the year between 10pm and 4 am. Every night for 52 years, a night minister has been out there, walking the streets with the job of caring for the people who are out when most people have gone in. Lyle has served as a night minister since 2004.

While we were in San Fransisco last summer, we had the opportunity to talk with Chuck Lewis and Joanne Chadwick. Chuck is a retired pastor and night minister. Jo is also retired after a career working in the church, at the YWCA and in suicide prevention. They’ve both worked in support of peace and justice for many years to make their communities and our world a better place to live. Now, both in their 80’s, they reflect a bit on where they’ve been, where we are, and where we’re headed.

Roger Wolsey is the director of the Wesley Foundation United Methodist Campus Ministry at University of Colorado at Boulder. He’s also a writer, and the author of Kissing Fish, an introduction to progressive Christianity. We talked with Roger a bit about his book and other ways of interpreting the Christian tradition. If you’d like to learn more about Kissing Fish, visit ProgressiveChristianityBook.com or find it on Facebook.

On May 7, 2017 Sandbox Cooperative welcomed Drew G. I. Hart to the Sandbox stage. This podcast contains the Q&A portion of the evening event. Drew is a professor at Messiah College with ten years of pastoral experience. He studied Biblical Studies at Messiah College, he attained his MDiv with an urban concentration from Biblical Seminary, and he recently received his PhD in theology and ethics from Lutheran Theological Seminary-Philadelphia. His work has included pastoring in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, working for an inner-city afterschool program, leading anti-racism workshops, adjunct teaching, and doing public theology. His dissertation explored the overlaps of white supremacy and Western Christendom and how Black theology and Anabaptism aid us in untangling our lives from these realities. His book, Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism, utilizes everyday stories, Jesus-shaped theological ethics, and anti-racism frameworks to transform the church’s understanding and witness. Hart’

On May 7, 2017 Sandbox Cooperative welcomed Drew G. I. Hart to the Sandbox stage. Drew is a professor at Messiah College with ten years of pastoral experience. He studied Biblical Studies at Messiah College, he attained his MDiv with an urban concentration from Biblical Seminary, and he recently received his PhD in theology and ethics from Lutheran Theological Seminary-Philadelphia. His work has included pastoring in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, working for an inner-city afterschool program, leading anti-racism workshops, adjunct teaching, and doing public theology. His dissertation explored the overlaps of white supremacy and Western Christendom and how Black theology and Anabaptism aid us in untangling our lives from these realities. His book, Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism, utilizes everyday stories, Jesus-shaped theological ethics, and anti-racism frameworks to transform the church’s understanding and witness. Hart’s blog is hosted at The Christian Century and he speaks regu

All of this week we’re sharing responses to the question we asked each of our guests on our road trip: “If you could tell everyone in the world one thing (not that they would necessarily agree, but they would listen), what would it be?” In the last part of this mini-series, we talk with Samir Selmanovic. Samir is an executive life coach in New York City who helps others master the alchemy of creativity, compassion, and courage in the corporate and entrepreneurial worlds, adding meaning to their success. Samir is also the co-leader of a Christian community called CityLights, and serves on the interfaith relations commission for the United States National Council of Churches.

All of this week we’re sharing responses to the question we asked each of our guests on our road trip: “If you could tell everyone in the world one thing (not that they would necessarily agree, but they would listen), what would it be?” Today we talk with Jason Storbakken. Jason is the Chapel Director of The Bowery Mission, which is the oldest mission to serve the homeless population in New York City. His congregation is made up of people who, for the most part, have no place to live. He is probably the only pastor I’ve met who wants his church to shrink, and actively works to make that a reality. Jason is also the author of countless articles, as well as the book “Radical Spirituality: Repentance, Resistance and Revolution.”

All of this week we’re sharing responses to the question we asked each of our guests on our road trip: “If you could tell everyone in the world one thing (not that they would necessarily agree, but they would listen), what would it be?” Today we talk with Linda Kay Klein. Linda is a storyteller, social innovator, and spiritual seeker who blends research and stories to expose unseen social problems and devise potential solutions. She utilizes her unique approach as a writer, speaker, workshop and meeting facilitator, and nonprofit consultant. Linda is currently writing a book about the impact of religious purity culture on girls, and it is due out next year.

All of this week we’re sharing responses to the question we asked each of our guests on our road trip: “If you could tell everyone in the world one thing (not that they would necessarily agree, but they would listen), what would it be?” Today we talk with Vince Anderson. Every Monday Night for decades Reverend Vince Anderson and the Love Choir has had a standing gig, currently at the Union Pool in Brooklyn. He shares a brand of music he calls “Dirty Gospel” – a raw, earthy style of gospel music. He’s grown a community through the years with that gig and has also shared his music with local congregations. Vince also appears on the “Nine Beats” album that we profiled in episodes 38 and 39.

Tim Otto is pastor at The Church of the Sojourners in the Mission District of San Francisco and author of Oriented to Faith: Transforming the Conflict Over Gay Relationships. Tim shared with us a bit about the way this conversation has shaped his own life, but also called us to unity in the midst of our conflict so that we can have real conversations and learn together. Tim challenges and invites us to find common ground for growth in the middle of our divisions.

In today’s episode we talk with Shane Claiborne – an activist, founder of The Simple Way, and author of Executing Grace: How The Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It’s Killing Us. We spoke with Shane about the death penalty, the work currently being done to abolish the practice (including current cases in Arkansas), and how we might imagine and create a better future through restorative justice. To learn more: Read Shane’s Book, Executing Grace Learn about the work of Death Penalty Action and Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

It’s the season of Easter Egg Hunts, and kids will be seeking out every last egg and piece of candy in the coming week. We start out in life enjoying the search, the hunt, and the discovery. But over time we can be tempted to lose the excitement in discovering and exploring new things and ideas. New experiences invite us a bit further toward the beauty of the world around us – explore a place where you haven’t been or a topic you aren’t an expert on, and you might just be open to growth and new life.

This episode features our conversation with Nicole Deane, who we had the chance to meet on our road trip last summer. When we spoke with her, Nicole was working with Planting Justice, a non-profit food justice organization based in Oakland, California. Nicole shared with us about how these issues of access to food and meaningful work relate to the challenges of racism and the prison industrial complex. She talked about how together we might discover our common humanity, and begin to address some of these challenges. Planting Justice works to democratize access to affordable, nutritious food by empowering urban residents with the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to maximize organic food production, expand job opportunities, and ensure environmental sustainability in the Bay Area.

In part two of our Nine Beats conversation we talk with Matt Valler and Mark Scandrette from the Nine Beats collective about some of the ways they are helping to interpret the Beatitudes in a new way. “Somewhere between a story and a dream, there is a whisper of another world, a different rhythm rising… An international collective of amazing troubadours, poets, rebels, provocateurs, sages & activists on the trail of the ancient sayings known as ‘the beatitudes’ A haunting. A cry. A new beat.”

Somewhere between a story and a dream, there is a whisper of another world, a different rhythm rising… An international collective of amazing troubadours, poets, rebels, provocateurs, sages & activists on the trail of the ancient sayings known as ‘the beatitudes’ A haunting. A cry. A new beat. In this episode we talk with Heatherlyn and Steve Bassett from the Nine Beats collective about the music and album that sits at the center of the project to explore the Beatitudes in a new way.

Is this story real? Did it actually happen? Does it matter? Why do we have an expectation that if stories matter, they must be “factual”? What if stories of all kinds are teaching tools about what it means to be human? In this episode, we talk about stories and their power to shape and influence us. Why are stories more interesting than facts, and what can we learn from stories if we’re paying attention?

In this episode, we spoke with doctors Chris Hawley and Sam Romeo about a series of house concerts they host as a part of their medical practice at Romeo Medical Clinic. Romeo Medical Clinic started in 2002 with the idea that a medical practice should care for the whole person and not just the body. They believe that the human health journey should involve health at every level including our World, Body, Mind, Spirit and Soul. Physicians and traditional medical practices are well designed to care for the body, but not as designed as well to care for the mind, spirit and soul. Romeo Medical Clinic chose to add house concerts as a whole health tool because nothing speaks to spirit and soul better than the vulnerable music of singer-song writers. They have a unique gift that causes our spirits to soar and healing for our souls. Romeo Medical Clinic loves to make use of any tool that truly heals and is both scientifically and poetically true.