Episode 14 – Exploring the “Sinner’s Prayer” and Belonging

I am afraid of this episode.

Holland and I boldly explore the practical implication of the “Sinner’s Prayer.” A prayer we never questioned and preached for years…until… 

Join the conversation as we examine the connection between saying the “Sinner’s Prayer” and belonging in the family of God. Who belongs? Who’s in? Who’s out? 

What happens when you put a face to the “statements of faith” you profess?

In this thought-provoking episode, we take you behind closed doors into conversations with my pastor that have changed my perspective…conversations that change what we think about the nature of God and end up changing how we live in the world.

This episode does not offer answers. Instead, we participate in the ancient art of healing through storytelling. You get to decide what to do with the stories.

QUESTIONS TO SPARK YOUR CURIOSITY:

• How and when should you have hard conversations? 

  • Don’t blow up Holiday dinners if you can avoid it – AND ALSO, don’t avoid critically thinking about your faith either! 

• What does critically thinking about your statements of faith look like?

• How do the stories in this episode sit with you? What are you feeling?

• What does “faith seeking understanding” mean to you?

• What stories are healing for you?

• What questions come up for you?

RESOURCES:

• UNDERSTANDING TERMS IN THIS EPISODE:

  • Theology is “Faith seeking understanding” –

  • Statements of Faith we explore: (These are not the statements of faith Desert Voices upholds, rather take a look at our Theological Assumptions)

    • We believe that all who receive by faith the Lord Jesus Christ are born of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God, a relationship in which they are eternally secure.

    • We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation…the everlasting conscious punishment of the lost along with Satan and the other fallen angels.

    • National Association of Evangelical

  • “The Sinner’s Prayer”

  • “Esoteric” theology

  • “Humanist” – The definition of humanism is a belief that human needs and values are more important than religious beliefs, or the needs and desires of humans. An example of humanism is the belief that the person creates their own set of ethics.

  • “Womanist” theology

• Desert Voices Episode 5 “Theology is a Jenga Game”

• Christ our Black Mother Speaks – Christena Cleveland

• Reading the Bible from the Margins – Miguel De la Torre

• Braving the Wilderness – Brené Brown

• Just a Sister Away- Renita Weems

• Dance of the Dissonant Daughter – Sue Monk Kidd

• Universal Christ – Richard Rohr

• Why I Left, Why I Stayed – Tony Campolo and Bart Campolo

• New Kind of Christianity – Brian McLaren

• Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God – Brian Zahnd

• Untie the Strong Women – Clarissa Pinkola Estés Ph.D.

• Sisters in the Wilderness – Delores Williams

• Making a Way Out of No Way – Monica Coleman

• Audre Lorde quote 

  • “…I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you…What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?” 

– Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

Song:

Freakshow by Micah Bournes