Raleigh Mennonite Church podcast

#Religion #Christianity #Raleigh Mennonite Church

30:20

Eli Beer is a pioneer, social entrepreneur, President and Founder of United Hatzalah of Israel. In thirty years, the organization has grown to more than 6,500 volunteers who unite together to provide immediate, life-saving care to anyone in need - regardless of race or religion. This community EMS force network treats over 730,000 incidents per year, in Israel, as they wait for ambulances and medical attention. Eli’s vision is to bring this life-saving model across the world. In 2015, Beer expanded internationally with the establishment of branches in South America and other countries, including “United Rescue” in Jersey City, USA, where the response time was reduced to just two minutes and thirty-five seconds. Episode Chapters (0:00) intro (1:04) Hatzalah’s reputation for speed (4:48) Hatzalah’s volunteer EMTs and ambucycles (5:50) Entrepreneurism at Hatzalah (8:09) Chutzpah (14:15) Hatzalah’s recruitment (18:31) Volunteers from all walks of life (22:51) Having COVID changed Eli’s perspective (26:00) operating around the world amid antisemitism (28:06) goodbye For video episodes, watch on www.youtube.com/@therudermanfamilyfoundation Stay in touch: X: @JayRuderman | @RudermanFdn LinkedIn: Jay Ruderman | Ruderman Family Foundation Instagram: All About Change Podcast | Ruderman Family Foundation To learn more about the podcast, visit https://allaboutchangepodcast.com/ Looking for more insights into the world of activism? Be sure to check out Jay’s brand new book, Find Your Fight , in which Jay teaches the next generation of activists and advocates how to step up and bring about lasting change. You can find Find Your Fight wherever you buy your books, and you can learn more about it at www.jayruderman.com .…

Raleigh Mennonite Church

maison des série•Feed

21 episodes

Raleigh Mennonite Church

updated il y a environ 3 jours

maison des série•Feed

21 episodes

#Religion #Christianity #Raleigh Mennonite Church

Minden epizód

1
Come as Children – May 11, 2025 13:25

il y a environ 3 jours13:25

13:25

Scripture: Matthew 18:1-5 The disciples of Jesus have "power problems." Who's going to be greatest? Who's going to sit next to him? And as usual, Jesus has to gently put them in their place. He tells them, Unless you turn around and become like a child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Jesus brings attention to children because of their social rank--at the very bottom of the hierarchy. Melissa held up the Presbyterian minister and children's TV icon, Mr. Rogers, as someone who took seriously the experiences of children. He treated them with dignity. Jesus tells his disciples to convert to children but Mr. Rogers shows us what that might look like.…

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Lean not on your own understanding – May 4, 2025 13:37

il y a environ 10 jours13:37

13:37

Scripture: Proverbs 3:5-8 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." It's easy to "weaponize" this teaching in Proverbs, to make us believe that the rational or scientific reasoning may be suspect. That can open us up to a lot of hucksters peddling whatever they have decided is God's truth. Wisdom comes from patient, attentive discernment of the questions that are always before us. Because wisdom intersects with community, wisdom asks, is it good for the body of Jesus? Is it good for all of us? We turn our lives towards the way God is shaping and forming the reign of God, not through violence and coercion. But instead through the constant enduring love of God that's made known to us in Jesus.…

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Giving Up In Order To Win – April 27, 2025 17:56

il y a environ 15 jours17:56

17:56

Jeremiah 17: 5-8 This week RMC's Miguel Cruz preached the sermon in Spanish. The English voice you will hear is that of the live translator in the sanctuary. Due to the nature of the recording tech, there is some residual audio of Miguel's voice in the background. ** Preaching from Jeremiah, Miguel asks us to test and examine ourselves deeply when we ask the question: where does our help come from when encounter injustice, strife, and hostility in the world? If our answer is that we rely on our own power, skills, and intellect to confront these modern ills and idols, we almost certainly doom ourselves to perpetual dissatisfaction, even if our desires are righteous. We must realize that we owe every ability we have and every good thing we might do to God's goodness and mercy. The scriptures say that our hope comes from the Lord, and that means allowing God lead us instead of relying on our own strength. By giving up, we win.…

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The Resurrection Is For The Hopeless – April 20, 2025 11:37

il y a environ 23 jours11:37

11:37

Luke 24: 1-12 Happy Easter everyone! This week Melissa Florer-Bixler preached from the Gospel of Luke. The women Disciples (the men having scattered) around Jesus, despite their deep grief and despair, stayed with Jesus through his arrest, death, and burial, and then returned only to find the tomb empty save for shining beings that declared his resurrection. The women shared this with the other Disciples, only for them to disbelieve because they had not stayed to witness and to suffer the same trauma as the women during Christ's crucifixion. Melissa reminds us that the resurrection in meant for those nearest to despair. Like these steadfast women, we are drawn with grief and despair to a tomb in our own times - the suffering and evil deeds that we see all around us in this extremely unsettling year. Christ's resurrection however, in freeing us from sin and death, transforms that deep hopelessness into a freedom to participate in the radical and surprising redemptive work that God is doing in the world.…

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The Gospel of All Creation – April 13, 2025 11:04

il y a 4 weeks11:04

11:04

Luke 19: 28-40 What could we possibly have to learn about the Gospel message from a donkey? Luke spends as much time in his Gospel on the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as he does on the Lord's Supper. Melissa Florer-Bixler reminds us this Palm Sunday that our Anabaptist ancestors were keenly aware of the spiritual lessons to learn from the suffering and death of their animals, which brought life to their owners. Likewise, our suffering in serving and giving to our neighbors, the poor, and the incarcerated gives life and reflects the lessons we can learn from Jesus' suffering. Melissa further explains that Jesus came for an even greater purpose than suffering as an example. Let us all remember this Palm Sunday that He came to free all creation, (including the creatures and little donkeys) from the bondage of sin and death.…

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God’s Love is Reckless – April 6, 2025 9:45

il y a 5 weeks9:45

9:45

John 12: 1-8 This week Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on Mary anointing Jesus' feet with expensive funerial perfume meant for Lazarus, whom Jesus had recently raised from the dead. Mary knows that Jesus plans to go Jerusalem soon to die, and her offering is a reckless offering of love, not just grief, as she sacrifices in a moment a precious heirloom meant to anoint many generations to come. During Lent we often focus on confessing our weakness, but Mary's story reminds us of the power in confessing our love, without consideration for pride or cost. The perfume would have eventually run out, but her sacrificial recklessness was followed by Jesus' humble washing of the disciples' feet, and after many generations was passed on to us in John's Gospel as an example of the reckless love God intends for us to share with the world.…

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Rewriting the story of justice – March 30, 2025 12:17

il y a 6 weeks12:17

12:17

Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 How many times have we heard Jesus's parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15? While the focus is usually on the son who leaves with his share of the inheritance and squanders it away, Melissa brings us a fresh perspective on the father and the eldest son. Not only was the younger son lost, but so was the older son, who stayed at home and continued to work with his father. When this son refuses to join the festive party welcoming his kid brother back home, his father wants to know where he is. For a second time in the parable, a father goes out to find his son. In this Lenten season of reflection and penance, what have we come to believe about justice and mercy? Will we see that God has come out of the house, away from the party, for each of us?…

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From Confession to Penance – March 23, 2025 14:25

il y a 7 weeks14:25

14:25

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-9 God's version of confession and penance is entirely different from the world's understanding of confession and penance. During Lent we have to let go of the anxiety that comes from the long-held cultural myth that confessing can only make things worse. Penance is to accept responsibility and to repair what is broken. Penance means we take out our needle and thread and we stitch up what was torn. Lent is a season of penance, not of punishment. Our God will abundantly pardon, and confession is a beginning. Confession can break forth into penance and repair in a way that is actually better than it was before. It's about getting right with one another and getting right with God. Restoring relationships is at the heart of all of it. God's relationship with God's people. What are acts of penance you can take during Lent to restore relationships with those around you? Note: There was a technical issue with the recording at the beginning of Melissa's sermon, so the first minute or two was cut off.…

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Anger Without Sin – March 16, 2025 9:33

il y a 8 weeks9:33

9:33

Luke 13: 31-35 Many of us are uncomfortable, especially pacifists, with anger and how we treat each other when tempers flare. The Bible is clear, however, that Jesus often became frustrated or upset with those around him, and even God gets angry too. Jesus, though angry with his own disciples and the evils of Herod and the Roman state, turned his energy and agitation to doing more healing and teaching and did not abandon his followers to save own life. RMC's Jordan Morehouse, in their debut sermon, invites us to explore how our anger over injustices can motivate us to protest, to advocate for the downtrodden, and serve our neighbors. The love of Christ, which did not die with him on the cross, lives on in our hearts and converts our anger and frustrations into motivation for righteous action that builds the kingdom of God. As we struggle with the evils of our own time, let us all consider what makes us angry and follow Jesus's example, by leaning in to more healing, love, and righteous action.…

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Jesus’s Son of God SAT Test – March 9, 2025 12:03

il y a 9 weeks12:03

12:03

Scripture: Luke 4:1-13 When Jesus is tempted in the desert, Satan offers Jesus power over all of the world, which Satan has been given, if Jesus will just worship Satan. (Luke 4:6) God has handed over the powers of this world to a cosmic being called Satan. We may wonder why God allows this arrangement. The answer seems to be that people wanted it. We want human rulers: kings and presidents, caesars and judges to set up systems of government that assert that power over us. This is actually one of the many catastrophes we learn about in ancient Israel's history. God's people want a king like all the other nations around them. And immediately God tells them what terrible things will come of this, as we read about in 1 Samuel 8:4-22 . During Lent we are turning to repentance. Here before God and one another we remember that one way we stray from God is that we look for shortcuts to the kingdom of God. The reign of God can't be forced upon us. It is a covenant built on consent; it can't be mandated. It has to be chosen and nurtured. There are no shortcuts to the kingdom of God, but what we need is already here.…

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Prayer: Describing Our Reality – March 2, 2025 16:02

il y a 10 weeks16:02

16:02

Scripture: Luke 9:28-36 As told in this passage from Luke, through Jesus's transfiguration we learned that prayer is getting caught up in God's glory. To pray is to know at any minute you could be surrounded by the glory of God. Prayer invites us into a wholly different relationship with God than that of extraction or exchange. And for this reason, when the disciples asked Jesus how we should pray Jesus invites us to--remarkably--address God as our parents. Prayer, like human speech, is a creative act. The prayers that we utter shape our inner lives. When we pray, we are describing the world as it actually is, formed out of this gratuitous love of God that is pouring out over everything. It turns out that prayer isn't an escape from reality. Prayer describes it.…

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Stewardship, not Ownership – Feb. 23, 2025 12:00

il y a 11 weeks12:00

12:00

Acts 2: 43-47 Much of the focus of Pentecost is on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including the signs, wonders, and languages being heard and spoken. Melissa Florer-Bixler reminds us this Sunday that the Apostles selling their possessions and giving the money to those in need was also a significant part of the signs and wonders seen that day. The example set was the idea of mutual care within the community. The state and those in power will never provide sufficient aid to the poor because they do not share our value of all of God's children, especially the poor and downtrodden. They will always favor the privileged few. Contrary to the capitalistic value of personal wealth accumulation, this passage in Acts informs us that we are called to be stewards of wealth, not owners, and to distribute it to others to meet their needs. Melissa's sermon examines how Anabaptist and Native practices and beliefs were, although faithful to the Apostle's actions on Pentecost, considered threatening or treasonous by agents of the church and state in history and what that means for our present context.…

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Sheep in the Midst of Wolves – Feb. 16, 2025 11:58

il y a 12 weeks11:58

11:58

Matthew 26: 47-56 As a pacifist, if you could end cancer or stop the next Hitler and save millions just by killing an innocent person, would you do it? These ridiculous scenarios are often posed to Anabaptists, seeking the knife's edge that would cut through our nonviolent convictions. Melissa Florer-Bixler points out this week that all four gospels share a story with a similar scenario. To save Jesus from Judas and the mob coming to arrest and crucify him, all that needed to happen was a disciple to cause the death or mutilation of a young slave of the high priest. Jesus, who apart from the sword-wielding disciple could have called down the hosts of heaven upon his enemies, chose instead to heal and protect this lowest of the low in Roman society, end the violence, and surrender himself to a painful death. Join Melissa as they discuss how pacifism is the embodiment of Christ's example of tipping the scales away from the important and powerful to the least among us, even if it costs us everything. We must live as sheep among wolves to build the kingdom of God.…

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Follow the Water of Life – Feb 9, 2025 11:43

il y a 13 weeks11:43

11:43

Romans 6: 3-4 What does it mean to baptized into Jesus' death or walking in the newness of life? Melissa Florer-Bixler unpacks this passage in Romans by explaining some of the symbolism of baptism, the three fold nature of baptisms, and what this means for us as Christians and Anabaptists. The water used in baptism is ubiquitous in our lives and essential for life, yet we can drown in only a few inches of it. Water is death and life within one substance. Our submersion represents a death of self that somehow still connects us to creation and to other believers that share our experience, and our reemergence connects us to our redemption and rebirth in following Jesus. However, this process of baptism is actually contains three distinct types of baptism for the believer. One, God's invitation of grace - Spirit Baptism. Two, our pledge to God to take this love and live within it - Water Baptism. Three, our transformation in Christ that threatens the powers of this world - Baptism of Blood. Melissa explains that this Baptism of Blood is a consequence of being remade by Christ into a new creation. By dying to sin and following Jesus, the water of life, we place ourselves into situations that oppose those powers that oppress, abuse, and rob the poor and powerless. Melissa reminds us of examples from our Anabaptist history where the mere act of baptism could lead to your death as an enemy of the church and state and modern instances where following Christ also lead to death and danger. However, we can place our hope in the fact that even if (as in the Roman's passage) we follow Christ unto death (even just death to self) it does not end there because Jesus defeated death. It leads to resurrection and the building of God's kingdom. Death and scarcity may surround us, but in Christ we are dead to sin and alive and new to God. The question we must ask ourselves as we start this week is - where will we follow the water of life?…

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What are you waiting for? – Feb. 2, 2025 9:18

il y a 14 weeks9:18