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Happy Holidays 2025

/ Debbie B / Leave a comment

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the loss of half the audio for our holiday episode. We are endeavoring to repair the damage, but it won’t be today. While you’re here, why not listen to some cool holiday tunes?

UPDATE:

Well, I managed to save the first part of the episode. Sadly, the audio from the second half is unusable. We do our best, but technological prowess is something neither of us possess in large quantities.

Meeting God in everyday places

/ thebarefootevangelist / Leave a comment

I have so many conversation with folks that start with the theme “I don’t want to be part of the institutional church”. Sometimes it is because they have been hurt by the church, sometimes it is that they feel they don’t fit in or will be judged, and a lot of time it is that people see the behaviour of those who attend and realize their words say one thing but their lives and choices say another. Folks don’t want the hypocrisy.

I get it. The hypocrisy is real. That is why my work is increasingly outside the institutions. I like to call it Church Beyond Walls. The downside is the institutions have the money, so doing what I do doesn’t pay the bills. The upside is authenticity and meeting people on their spiritual journey. In fact the earliest Christian missionaries worked outside walls because those walls did not exist until Rome took over the Christian faith after 320 CE. Paul and Priscilla are just two people we read about in the Bible who spent their time outside with people, talking to and teaching them about faith in Jesus.

People talk about the church being ‘God’s House’, but in all honest the best part of our faith happens outside the walls, were the institution is not reinforced by the limits of a building.

If we sit for a minute to review our day, and put it through the lens of “spiritual encounters”, we can often see the opportunities that have presented themselves. They can be simple conversations with someone on the street, encounters at work, or family moments before the day gets hectic or afterwards when everything is winding down for the evening.

When these encounters are conversations they might be about faith, but most likely will be about something else entirely. Sometimes the spiritual moment is just watching as someone feels seen and acknowledged. This is especially true of marginalized folks like homeless people or the elderly, people who seem to fade into the background and rarely get spoken to as an equal.

Sometimes it is merely eye-contact and a smile.

And the encounter will be transformative.

We meet God in those moments where we share part of ourselves or make ourselves vulnerable. Often there is a feeling of compulsion that goes along with the moment, an urge to say or do something. I once felt a strong push to tell a young mother that she had a gentle touch with her two small children, and that it was a joy watching her. Her smile was radiant. No one had ever told her that before, and she had been wondering if she was any good at the job. We presented God for each other.

Jesus pointed out in scripture that whenever we do for someone else, we are doing for God. With that in mind, keep looking for spiritual encounters through your day. It will surprise you how many you have, and how many times you have met God in ordinary places.

Making the ordinary sacred

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Words and experiences get thrown around often without people knowing the meaning. ‘Sacred’ is one of those words. We use it in church to talk about sacraments and all the churchy stuff pastors and priests do, and that seems to make it steps removed from average folks. Even when you look the word up in the dictionary there seems a line between ‘them’ and ‘us’ when it comes to items and actions designated as ‘sacred’.

That distinction isn’t necessary, and it certainly isn’t how Jesus lived.

To make something sacred, or holy, is a choice, not a designation. The Bible is not “holy” because it is an item beyond our daily lives. It is “holy” because collectively we have decided that it is. It’s still just a book.

The same practice can be used in our regular lives, and by recognizing the ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’ in our day to day, it makes both prayer easier and it helps us feel better about mundane tasks.

One of my great spiritual inspirations is the character of Father Mulchay from the tv show M*A*S*H. One episode has him mixing cement for the floor on their operating room, and he’s singing to himself while he mixes. The look on his face shows that he is experiencing joy in the moment. He is experiencing God. He understood service was needed, no matter how messy or forgettable, and he treated it as a moment of worship.

He made that choice.

And that choice is available for all of us.

It takes only a small bit of effort to choose to make the mundane task into a moment of prayer or worship, to make it sacred, and that is something we can choose to do.

And once we do that, we can start to look around us to find other moments of the sacred. They are everywhere. Picking up something a child has dropped. Folding laundry in preparation for it to be used again. Doing dishes that will be dirtied by people having a proper meal.

All ongoing tasks are opportunities to be seen as sacred. And once we make that mental shift, the joys in life are easier to find.

Being grounded in the Gospel message

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I get a lot of comments on the name I have chosen for this website. A few weeks ago I went over why I chose evangelist and barefoot, but the comments keep coming. The online ones focus on “evangelist”, and given the all too frequent negative use of that term, I am not the least bit surprised.

In real life, however, it’s the ‘barefoot’ part of worship leadership that keeps getting people’s attention. That is especially true as the weather turns colder here in Canada. Aren’t you cold, I’m asked on a regular basis. Yes… yes I am, to tell you the truth. Especially when I step outside of church after service on to the cold stones or concrete. I don’t feel it when I’m leading worship – I move around too much – but I feel it when I stop.

There is a long line of Canadian women who felt more comfortable, more approachable by performing barefoot. Women like Anne Murray, Rita MacNeil and k.d. lang all performed barefoot, and if anyone was asked today what they remember about any of these women’s performances, it would probably be that they felt real.

Although the barefoot part gets attention when I’m leading worship, I don’t do it for that purpose. It’s a fun ice breaker, arguably, but this preference tells a larger truth – my desire to be grounded in what I am doing and saying.

Making the Gospel feel real to folks living 2000 years after the writers wrote it and the people lived it, is no easy task. The differences in cultural context alone make things confusing, and reading any of the Bible thinking it all makes sense dropped into our modern culture is a recipe for disaster, no matter who tries to do it that way.

One thing we can count on once cultural and historical context is explained, is the through line of social justice. The early church was never meant to be a religion. The earliest followers of Jesus were quite at home in their Hebrew tradition, they just saw where adjustments and changes needed to happen. Their focus was not on creating structure – that came later with Rome’s take over of the faith – the focus of the first centuries was on making life better and equal for everyone.

When we read the words of the Magnificat, we have to recognize how powerful it is to hear that the powerful are brought down and the weak are raised up. There is no changing places as so many in power fear, there is merely an equaling of places in society.

By grounding ourselves in the Gospel, we can see where change needs to happen. It helps us avoid the superficiality of salvation-behaviour encouraged in so many places, and it allows us to focus on the social Gospel that Jesus preached. Change, inclusion, social equality, mutual dependence, shared abundance… those are all Gospel ideals.

Meditating when your mind and body won’t sit still

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I recently had a conversation with someone about an issue they were having. I suggested they “meditate” on it, and their response was to say “Yes, I’ll think about it”. I quickly corrected them by pointing out I said meditate – as in let your mind wander & ponder.

I am not always great about taking my own advice.

Meditation, as I told the person I was talking to, should be a passive experience. Those leading meditations often say just to let the thoughts float free. However, when those thoughts carry you with them, the entire process can be an act of frustration.

I find the idea of meditation rewarding and beneficial, but I am not one to sit still for any length of time. I squirm, I shift, I roll my shoulders, and I am always opening my eyes. It is hard, even though I know it could be a valuable part of my spiritual practice.

Most of us have the list of assumed ‘holy’ behaviours: pray regularly, read the Bible, listen to or read commentaries by others who have deep thoughts on those Biblical passages, participate in eucharist/communion, say kind things, and learn to sit quietly with God.

For some of us, sitting quietly is anything but quiet. We might get a few seconds, perhaps even a few minutes, but before long the world around us is distracting us from our efforts.

Given this experience, I have embraced the idea of walking meditation, and it bears little resemblance to the scripted ‘walking meditations’ one can find online.

Walking in body is often mirrored by ‘walking’ in the mind. As your body moves, so do your thoughts.

By naming an issue and then letting it float away, we allow the issue to settle in the back of our brains to get tossed around and looking at from every angle, all while getting on with our day. Eventually the movement and the pondering will bring us to conclusions and clarity that just come to us, seemingly from nowhere. But in truth, we have been moving through life waiting for our mind in harmony with the Holy Spirit, to bring us where we need to be.

Through meditation we hear the word of God. Moving while that meditation is happening simply gets us out of our own way and gives us an easier path to hear what the Spirit is telling us.

What does it mean to be a ‘progressive’ Christian?

/ thebarefootevangelist / Leave a comment

For the longest time it seemed Christians throughout the western world were lumped into two categories: conservatives and liberals. Both were valuable and held each other in tension. The conservatives kept tradition alive and valued our shared history while the liberals kept pushing for growth and change, towards inclusivity and diversity, and social justice for all. Needless to say, I identified as ‘liberal’.

That identification did not stop me from spending wonderful, faith filled time with conservatives. We worked together. One of my favourite people in seminary was a very conservative man who did not agree with women as priests and ministers, and yet he fully supported my call to ministry. I never did get around to asking him how he reconciled those two positions.

Beyond all, there was respect. Not always mutual, not always shown, but respect nonetheless.

It is so much different today. The line between those who identify as conservatives and those as liberals has thickened and become nasty in some places. And for my part, I have stopped feeling like I fit into either of those categories. I have never been conservative, but ‘liberal’ is feeling too tight and restrictive now as well.

I was happy to come across the word ‘progressive’ associated with Christianity a few years ago, giving me a new adjective to explain to people – in shorthand – what I believed. After all, that is why we categorize people.

Progressive felt right because it is an action word. To be progressive means you are constantly moving forward. Where ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ are stationary camps of thought and belief, ‘progressive’ is the wanderer.

Jesus would have been considered ‘progressive’. Not only did he physically wander throughout his ministry, he helped others wander as well. And in that wandering they had to trust God. In that wandering, they encountered people and situations they had never experienced before, and were told to go on and make neighbours of all, and then treat them well.

Progressive is the only way inclusion can happen. It is a good Christian word. It makes sense, and it speaks to our journey onwards.

Want to read the Bible? Start with Luke.

/ thebarefootevangelist / Leave a comment

We’ve all seen them, even those who are not interested in reading the Bible… those “Read the Bible in a Year” web lists and apps. I tried following one list once, and I could not get through it. And this was after I had one Master degree in Christianity (my Master of Divinity) under my belt and had experience in ministry.

The reason most people, me included, struggle and fail in this attempt is usually Numbers. Genesis is fine, lots of adventure, interesting characters. Exodus, story of this guy Moses, also a lot happening. Leviticus is judgy, lots of rules, and people certainly talk about it.

And then Numbers…. the most boring books in the Bible.

The thing is, the Bible is not a book in itself, it is a library. We have it in one collection with a different number of books depending on if you pick up a Protestant Bible, a Catholic Bible or an Orthodox Bible (I’ll explore those differences another time). But, the Bible is not something designed for you to read from cover to cover. Eventually it would be great if you get to reading it all, and certainly don’t do it without a guide of some kind, but reading it like a book will make you miss the entire point.

The Bible is a group of books written over hundreds of years, gathered and approved by different groups of people, and put in one place – known as a Codex – for ease of use, not because they tell a story front to back like a novel.

So why start with Luke? Of all the books in the Bible, Luke is the easiest to understand.

Luke is the social justice Gospel, the one that has instructions and stories of what to do to follow God’s desire that we help each other. Luke does not get spiritual or confusing like John, or overly poetic like Matthew. And it has more to it than Mark. It doesn’t have a secondary agenda like Revelation, nor is it answering questions like the letters of Paul – and we never got those questions to start. It’s not repeating the history and culture of a people so they won’t forget who they are, like the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament if that is how you were taught to identify it). Luke is simply plain old Social Gospel, and the book that reminds us that Jesus did things for others, so we should too.

Some of it will be confusing without the help of interpreters, after all it was written 2000 years ago and we have lost a lot of the cultural understanding from those days. But it is still the most plain language book in the Bible.