Priest Pulse

Melissa Rau joins us for the fourth part of our coronavirus pandemic miniseries to discuss faith formation. We discuss rethinking faith formation now and beyond the pandemic.  Melissa Rau is Director of Partnerships and New Initiatives for Episcopal Church Foundation. Melissa joined the ECF staff in April 2018. Prior to joining ECF, she served churches as a consultant doing strategic visioning, assessments, facilitation, training, and coaching. She has studied with Princeton Theological Seminary, the General Theological Seminary, and Candler School of Theology. She has written and published curriculum and numerous articles for online and printed publications, and more recently co-authored a book—Ten Solutions for Small Churches. She has extensive ecumenical experience in parishes throughout the country. Melissa is married to the Rev. Mike Rau, Rector at Holy Nativity in Rockledge, PA. They have two daughters and a son. Melissa loves to read and is particularly fond of giraffes and the color orange.

In part three of our coronavirus pandemic miniseries we're joined by Kyle Oliver to discuss incarnational perspectives on online church. Kyle Matthew Oliver is an educational media producer and researcher, a fellow of the Episcopal Church Foundation, and a priest of the Diocese of California. He currently serves as communications and marketing manager and adjunct instructor in Christian education at Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley. Kyle is a doctoral candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University, working on a multimedia dissertation focused on making meaning through making media in faith and faith-adjacent settings. His most recent publication, with Stacy Williams-Duncan and Lisa Kimball, is "Digital Literacies for Ministry: A Qualitative Study of Theological Educators Preparing Students for New Media Engagement," which can be read for free in the journal Ecclesial Practices. Kyle lives in San Francisco with his wife, Kristin Saylor, who serves as director of formation at Grace Cathedra

Wondering whether to celebrate the Holy Eucharist with your congregation online during the coronavirus pandemic? Dr. Joshua Wise joins us to discuss sacramental theology and an orthodox, Trinitarian, Incarnational perspective on online worship for our congregations.  Joshua Wise is the author of No Avatars Allowed: Theological Reflections on Video Games from Church Publishing. He's also cofounder of the All Ports Open Network where he writes and produces several podcasts including Weeping Cedars, a horror audio drama. Listen now at www.allportsopen.com

Priest Pulse is back with a coronavirus pandemic miniseries looking at pastoral care, communications, sacramental theology, formation, and justice and reconciliation ministry while we're experience church in exile. Part one features the Rev. Dr. Storm Swain author of Trauma and Transformation at Ground Zero: A Pastoral Theology from Fortress Press. Storm discusses pastoral care in times of crisis, the ongoing trauma of the coronavirus pandemic, clergy resiliency, self-care, and more.

After an unexpected hiatus we return with Anna Courie and David Peters, authors of Christ Walk Crushed: a 40-Day Journey Toward Reconciliation available from Church Publishing Inc. In this interview we discuss contrition, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation, as well as what its like to leave the beautiful state of Hawaii for the mainland. Check out our patreon: www.patreon.com/priestpulse

The Rev. Lorenzo Lebrija joins us to talk about his ministry with TryTank, a joint partnership between the General Theological Seminary and Virginia Theological Seminary. TryTank is a learning lab to experiment in church growth and innovation. In this episode we talk about the boldness to experiment in ministry, and how failure can lead to true success.  https://www.lorenzolebrija.com/about-lorenzo.html https://www.trytank.org/about.html   Check out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/priestpulse  

On this week’s Priest Pulse, Colin and Fr. Laurence fly solo as they key up two MORE interviews from the FORMA conference in January. While in Indy, Fr. Ben and Colin sat down with Jerusalem Greer, who is currently (but was not yet at the time) staff officer for evangelism on the Presiding Bishop’s staff, to hear about the many projects she has going on around the Church. In our second segment, Fr. Laurence was able to talk with the Rev. Callie Swanlund to hear her thoughts on the recent screening of her awesome How2Charist project and what might be next!   Jerusalem Greer: https://jerusalemgreer.com/ How2Charist: https://how2charist.com/ Priest Pulse Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/priestpulse Priest Pulse: www.priestpulse.com

On this episode we're joined by author Greg Millikin of the book "Being Called, Being Gay" from Church Publishing available now, as well as returning guest Sarah Stonesifer. We discuss issues around discernment, vocation, and call to lay and ordained ministry, and engage issues of age, gender, sexual orientation, and more as they relate to discernment in the Episcopal Church. We think all discernment officers around TEC should check this one out!  Check out our patreon: www.patreon.com/priestpulse You can buy Being Called, Being Gay by Greg Millikin, Forward by Mary Glaspool, now from Church Publishing https://www.churchpublishing.org/beingcalledbeinggay  

Colin and Ben discuss the brand new Red Church Door Podcast at www.redchurchdoor.org and share this wonderful content. At the 2019 Forma conference, Colin interviewed author Anna V. Ostenso Moore about her book "Today is a Baptism Day" available now from Church Publishing. Special thanks to the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta's youth ministry podcast with producing this episode. https://www.annavostensomoore.com/ https://www.churchpublishing.org/todayisabaptismday https://www.eycdioatl.org/podcast.html

Ben and Laurence unpack their experience at the Formed to Proclaim 2019 Forma Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. We discuss the conference and then we hear from conference goers of their impressions. Over the next several weeks we'll be releasing our Forma interviews and live episode.

It's tough to find a name for an episode about beer that doesn't offend or violate intellectual property! For the third year in a row we are LIVE at the Diocese of Pennsylvania clergy conference in Cape May, NJ. The Rev. Kirk Berlenbach, Canon for Growth and Support of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, joins the show to discuss beer ministry - do's and don't, what the canons and law allows, safety, policies, and more. We also sample some local south New Jersey craft beer from Cape May Brewery and Ludlam Island Brewery. https://www.capemaybrewery.com/ http://www.ludlamisland.com/  

The Rev. Patricia (Tricia) Lyons is the Evangelism and Community Engagement in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington DC, administrator of the Episcopal Evangelist network on Facebook, and author of Teaching Faith with Harry Potter: A Guidebook for Parents and Educators for Multigenerational Faith Formation. Tricia has also served on the Presiding Bishop’s team that helped construct The Way of Love campaign.

Dr. Jeremy Bonner is an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University and contributor to the book, "Growth and Decline in the Anglican Communion: 1980 to the Present". You can read more about Dr. Bonner's work here: https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2018/08/30/facing-more-episcopal-church-decline/

Episode two of season four is here! Ben and Colin are joined by the Rev. Jeremy Smith of Hacking Christianity. Rev. Jeremy Smith is a United Methodist Elder serving as Senior Pastor at First United Methodist Church in Seattle, Washington (USA). He blogs about faith, young clergy issues, technology, internet theory, and geeky topics at HackingChristianity.net. Jeremy discusses with us the current state of the United Methodist Church and much more. Check out www.hackingchristianity.net now!

Four years and now four seasons kicks off with Jeremy Tackett, Digital Evangelist for the Episcopal Church. We discuss working for Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, exciting new projects for TEC, and those two scary words "digital" and "evangelism." Bonus interview: Colin asks Ben all about his new Kickstarter for the All Ports Open Network launching October 3.  Here's a preview: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theologian78/1459391558?ref=580706&token=0ccd403a www.allportsopen.com

This week, Jesus has some pretty strong words for the privileged who, because of their tribes, try to keep some in and some out.  Reading: http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost/BProp21_RCL.html#gsp1

Mark Nepo writes that sacred moments wait for us like the very pulse of life that waits like a kind mother at the edge of exhaustion. As we seek to ease our anxiety not on early things but on things heavenly, what would it look like if we made God the foundation for our stability? Reading: http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost/BProp20_RCL.html#nt1

When exactly did we ever all just get along? Colin explores last Sunday's Gospel where we are met with one of the earliest divisions in the church.  Gospel Reading: http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Pentecost/BProp19_RCL.html#gsp1

We are trying something different here at Priest Pulse. I (Colin) have been recording the audio from my sermon for years and I'm finding it less effective as a tool to share the gospel. Sermons on Sunday are visual mediums and the audio is not capturing the entire presentation. What I want to try is to take the content from the Sunday Sermon, and on Monday Morning sit down and record it as a podcast. It's an experiment. I think it's going to take some time to find my sea legs as I perfect my inner-Ira Glass but I still yearn for your feedback. Let us know what you think!

This week, we welcome back the Rev. Kyle Oliver (Creative Commons Prayer) to talk about what he's been up to since his last time on Priest Pulse, his Doctoral work at Columbia, and even more exciting - his recent Holy Eucharist Illuminated Cards project. Ben, Colin, and Kyle talk about new trends in the church and the continuing rise in what they see as an increased passion for EVANGELISM! You can read more about Kyle at kyleoliver.net and at https://www.creativecommonsprayer.com/. You can puchase a copy of his Holy Eucharist Illuminated cards here: https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/holy-eucharist-illuminated