In this third installment of their 12-part journey through Let Our Joys Be Known: A Brethren Heritage Curriculum, Pastor Harry Jarrett and producer Grayson Preece dig into one of the most fundamental questions of the Christian life: Why do we worship, and what is worship, anyway?

Grayson opens by reflecting on worship as a deeply personal commitment — a simple, meaningful hour that anchors his week and connects him to community. Harry pushes that definition outward, drawing on his background as a missionary and pastor to reframe worship not as a one-hour weekly event, but as the ongoing practice of assigning worth — recognizing the sacred presence of God woven through all of creation, all of our relationships, and every ordinary moment of the day.

The conversation wanders beautifully from a highway drive through the Virginia countryside to the starry sky on a late-night walk, from a formative season at Camp Bethel to a surprising dinner conversation with a man in Italy who was convinced he’d mastered the Ten Commandments by avoiding relationships entirely. Along the way, Harry and Grayson explore the Pietist and Anabaptist roots of the Church of the Brethren, the Christian mystical tradition’s understanding of God’s ever-present nearness, and why the experience of feeling absent from God is itself a form of awareness that God exists.

The episode builds to a passionate argument Harry makes for something most of the Christian church has quietly let slip away: foot washing. It is, Harry contends, the one practice Jesus most explicitly commanded — and the one that is hardest to do precisely because it demands genuine vulnerability, humility, and trust. He believes it could radically reshape how Christians relate to one another and to God.

Wherever you are in your own faith journey — whether you show up every Sunday or haven’t set foot in a church in years — this conversation will invite you to ask: When did I last notice God? And what was it that helped me see?

RUN OF SHOW

00:00 — Welcome & Series Introduction Producer Grayson Preece introduces the episode and places it as Part 3 of the 12-part Let Our Joys Be Known series.

00:45 — Why Do You Come to Worship? Grayson shares his personal reason for showing up every Sunday — the power of a simple, repeated commitment to a community and a time.

03:40 — The Hour on Sunday Harry references Nancy Beach’s book and reflects on how, for most people, Sunday morning is the only intentional hour spent thinking about God, faith, or theology all week.

05:50 — Worship Beyond the Sanctuary Harry expands the definition of worship: its root meaning is “assigning worth,” and his pastoral vocation has pushed him to help people see God not just on Sundays but in the entire arc of life.

07:00 — Acts 17 and “In God We Live and Move” Harry discusses the Apostle Paul’s speech to the Athenians as a foundation for understanding God as permeating all of creation — a thread running through the Pietist and Anabaptist traditions that shaped the Church of the Brethren.

08:00 — Seeing God on the Interstate Grayson shares a personal moment of divine awareness during a highway drive — turning off the music and suddenly noticing beauty, presence, and the sacred all around him.

09:15 — Being in the Same Room Is a Miracle A reflection on the wonder of human presence and how those moments when the “veil” parts reveal something of the divine.

10:00 — Does God Need Our Worship? Harry asks a provocative question: does God actually need us to worship? He reframes worship as building our own awareness and deepening our relationship with the divine, not informing God of God’s own greatness.

12:00 — Worship as Preparation and as Remembrance Grayson and Harry discuss how the Sunday hour might function as both a launching pad for the week ahead and a space to recognize God in what has already happened — “That was God on Thursday.”

13:50 — Camp Bethel and Worship in Creation A warm detour into the transformative experience of working at Church of the Brethren summer camps — and how an entire week immersed in relationship, community, and creation functions as extended, full-body worship.

14:30 — The Three Relationships at the Heart of Faith Grayson names what he sees as a “holy trinity” for the camp experience: relationships with God, with creation, and with each other — and how none of the three can thrive in isolation.

16:00 — Books Harry Is Reading Harry shares three books shaping his current theological reconstruction: Tony Jones’ The God of the Wild Places, and Richard Rohr’s Everything Belongs and The Universal Christ — all pointing toward a God who was already present, everywhere, before we arrived.

17:30 — Noticing God as an Act of Worship The simple act of naming “I see God here” — in a person, a place, a moment — is itself worship.

18:00 — The Absence of God and the Christian Mystics Harry draws on the Christian mystical tradition to suggest that even the feeling of God’s absence is a spiritual signal — you can’t miss what was never there. God is never absent; we are simply not always aware.

19:20 — Personal vs. Communal Faith Grayson notices the language of “I” in worship discussions. Harry reflects on the tension between personal and communal faith, the risk of becoming a spiritual hermit, and the story of the man in Italy who followed all Ten Commandments — because he had no relationships to challenge him.

22:40 — Foot Washing: The Ordinance We’re Missing Harry makes his most passionate case of the episode: that foot washing — the one practice Jesus most directly commanded — has been all but abandoned by the wider church, while the passive act of taking communion has become central. Why? Because foot washing requires you to do something. It demands vulnerability on both sides.

25:00 — Grayson’s Camp Bethel Foot Washing Memory Grayson recalls the foot washing ritual at summer staff closing — who he would and wouldn’t ask, how intimate and unsettling it felt, and what that discomfort reveals about us.

26:50 — What Foot Washing Could Do for the Church Harry’s bold claim: a regular, literal practice of washing one another’s feet could radically change the paradigm of the North American Christian church — binding people together in ways nothing else can.

27:07 — Closing & Listener Invitation The hosts wrap up and invite listeners to order Let Our Joys Be Known through Brethren Press and to continue the conversation with a friend, with or without the book.

RESOURCE GUIDE

📖 The Series Text

Let Our Joys Be Known: A Brethren Heritage Curriculum for Adults by Richard B. Gardner and Kenneth M. Shaffer Jr. — Brethren Press The 12-session adult curriculum Harry and Grayson are working through together. Designed for Sunday school settings, it explores the heritage, theology, and practices of the Church of the Brethren. 🔗 Order from Brethren Press: www.brethrenpress.com

📚 Books Referenced in This Episode

An Hour on Sunday: Creating Moments of Transformation and Wonder by Nancy Beach A book exploring the deep, shaping forces that can make the Sunday worship hour a time of transformation and wonder — for both believers and seekers alike. Beach served as Programming Director at Willow Creek Community Church and later as a leadership coach. She is also the author of Gifted to Lead: The Art of Leading as a Woman in the Church. 🔗 Find on Amazon | Author’s website

The God of Wild Places: Rediscovering the Divine in the Untamed Outdoors by Tony Jones (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024) The story of a pastor’s journey out of the church and into the woods, in pursuit of the God he’d lost — paddling a canoe, hunting with his dog, butchering deer. Jones is also the author of Did God Kill Jesus? and The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life, and he hosts the Reverend Hunter Podcast. He teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary. 🔗 Find on Amazon | Author’s website

Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer by Richard Rohr One of Richard Rohr’s most popular books, offering the conviction that we have no real access to who we really are except in God — and that only when we rest in God can we find the safety and freedom to be fully ourselves. A defense of contemplative prayer in which God is presented as a lover who receives and forgives everything, and in which the central insight is: “We cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.” 🔗 Find on Amazon | CAC Bookstore

The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe by Richard Rohr (Convergent Books, 2019) — New York Times Bestseller Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God’s constant, unfolding work in the world — arguing that faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator’s presence all around us, and in everyone we meet. 🔗 Find on Amazon | Penguin Random House

🏕️ Camps & Places Mentioned

Camp Bethel — Fincastle, Virginia A Christian summer camp and year-round event center on 470 sacred acres of forests, fields, ponds, streams, and hills in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, operated by the Virlina District Church of the Brethren since 1927. Their mission: TOGETHER — with God, with each other, and with creation. 🔗 campbethelvirginia.org

Brethren Woods Camp and Retreat Center — Keezletown, Virginia A year-round camp and retreat center owned and operated by the Shenandoah District of the Church of the Brethren, located in the Shenandoah Valley just 12 miles northeast of Harrisonburg, seeking “to provide Christian educational opportunities, facilities, and programs for all ages in an inviting woodland setting.” They always need summer counselors! 🔗 brethrenwoods.org

📖 Scripture References

• Acts 17:28 — “In him we live and move and have our being” (Paul speaking to the Athenians in Athens)

• John 13:14-15 — Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and commanding them to do the same

• Revelation 4:11 — “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things”

Faith in Process is hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett, live from Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. New episodes air weekly. Subscribe on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. 🔗 pastorharryjarrett.substack.com/s/faith-in-process

Harry reflects on returning to pastoral ministry after 13 years away, needing fresh theological fuel, and wanting a space where honest questions could be asked out loud. Grayson shares what happens behind the scenes as editor and producer, from cleaning up audio to shaping each episode into a more cohesive listening experience. Together they explain how Faith in Process tries to serve both the people in the room and those listening later, creating a local conversation that can travel far beyond Weyers Cave.

The episode also includes a thoughtful question and answer time about podcasts, Substack, digital access, community, Sunday school, and how churches can use new media without giving up the importance of face-to-face conversation. Faith in Process is hosted on Substack and is also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Run of Show

00:00:08 | Welcome from Grayson Preece

00:00:43 | Christy Doughty introduces Harry and Grayson

00:03:47 | Harry welcomes the live audience at Bridgewater Retirement Community

00:05:45 | Grayson introduces himself as editor and producer

00:06:33 | How Faith in Process began

00:07:20 | Harry’s return to ministry after burnout

00:08:18 | What is a podcast?

00:09:02 | Podcasting as a new cassette tape ministry

00:11:29 | Why create a Sunday school class as a live podcast?

00:13:34 | Recording, editing, and publishing through Substack

00:14:17 | How Grayson became the podcast producer

00:16:48 | What podcast editing actually involves

00:20:01 | Intros, outros, music, and distribution

00:22:31 | Why the podcast focuses on published authors and accountable words

00:24:29 | Asking the questions pastors are often afraid to ask

00:27:42 | Reaching out to authors, professors, and Brethren voices

00:29:11 | Faith at Work and Faith in Process as weekly rhythms

00:30:10 | Grayson on why hard questions matter

00:31:48 | Religious trauma series with Lonnie Yoder

00:32:14 | The original 18 to 35 audience and the actual audience showing up

00:33:00 | Audience questions begin

00:34:11 | How remote guests join by Zoom

00:35:03 | Why the podcast is audio-only

00:35:53 | What does “pod” mean in podcast?

00:36:44 | How does podcasting build in-person community?

00:41:17 | How to subscribe or follow on Substack

00:44:42 | How to find Faith in Process on Apple, Spotify, and other apps

00:46:11 | Do listeners need Substack?

00:47:27 | How to find other podcasts

00:50:14 | Podcast recommendations from the audience

00:50:51 | Closing thanks from Harry

00:51:49 | Grayson’s outro and invitation to keep processing

Pull Quotes from the Transcript

“Faith in Process, the podcast where we talk with real people about how they process their faith in their writing, in their work, and in their everyday lives.”

“A podcast is just a new-fangled cassette ministry that costs a lot less to produce.”

“What if we created a Sunday school class for this sector of the congregation, but we did it as a live podcast?”

“There were questions that I was either not allowed to ask or I was afraid to ask.”

“We are doing things that do build community, do build engagement, do build face-to-face conversation, but it is augmented.”

Resource Guide

Faith in Process
The main podcast home for Harry Jarrett’s weekly conversations about faith as something alive, changing, and still unfolding. Available on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Faith at Work
Harry’s sermon podcast and writing home on Substack. The Substack page describes Harry as producing both Faith at Work and Faith in Process.

Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren
The home congregation for Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool. Pleasant Valley lists its location as 91 Valley Church Road in Weyers Cave, Virginia, with Sunday School at 9:30 AM during September through May.

Bridgewater Retirement Community
The setting for this bonus recording. Bridgewater Retirement Community describes itself as a retirement community in Bridgewater, Virginia.

On Being with Krista Tippett
Mentioned during the audience recommendation portion of the episode. On Being is associated with Krista Tippett’s long-running conversations about meaning, spirituality, ethics, and human life.

Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson
Mentioned as another podcast recommendation. Heather Cox Richardson’s Substack describes Letters from an American as a newsletter about the history behind today’s politics, and the Apple Podcasts listing describes it as her narrated newsletter.

The Cottage by Diana Butler Bass
Mentioned as a podcast and conversation space. Diana Butler Bass describes The Cottage as a newsletter on Substack, and its podcast listing frames it as “part retreat, part think tank” about culture, faith, and spirit.

Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool

Recorded live on Sunday mornings at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett.

Join us in person or listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Substack.
Learn more about our congregation at pleasantvalleyalive.org

In this week’s episode of Faith in Process, I sat down with Millard Driver for one of those wonderfully wandering conversations that somehow begins in one place and ends up touching almost everything. We talked about power, responsibility, faith, parenting, government, teaching, addiction recovery, forgiveness, abuse, Spider Man, Cocaine Bear, and the image of God revealed in Jesus. It was exactly the kind of conversation that led me to start this podcast in the first place.

When I was interviewing to become pastor at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren, Millard and Frieda invited me to their home. We sat on the porch, looked out over the sheep, and Millard pulled out a sheet of paper filled with questions and topics he wanted to discuss. That was my introduction to Millard. I quickly learned that lunch with him would rarely be small talk. He would bring questions. He would recommend books. He would tell me what podcast I needed to hear. Then we would talk for a long time.

At some point, I realized that what we were doing over lunch was very much like the podcasts I enjoyed listening to. It was honest conversation between people trying to make sense of faith, life, theology, and the world around us. Faith in Process grew out of those conversations. So it felt right that Millard would be a regular on the podcast. This time he helped us think together about something as big, complicated, and unavoidable as power.

Millard began by talking about the Celtic Christian idea of a “soul friend.” He said everyone ought to have at least one. A soul friend is someone with whom you can have the real conversation. Not the polite version. Not the shallow version. The real one. The kind of conversation where you can say what you think, ask what you fear, disagree honestly, and still remain friends. I think that kind of friendship is itself a form of power, not power over another person, but power with another person. It is the shared power of trust.

That became one of the major distinctions in our conversation: power over and power with.

Power over is the kind of power most of us notice first. It is authority. It is control. It is the ability to make something happen because we have the position, the role, the law, the leverage, or the force to make it happen. Sometimes that kind of power is necessary. We talked about speed limits, for example. A community gives the state authority to set rules for the common good. If someone drives recklessly, there are consequences. That is power over, and in that case it can be used to protect life.

But power over can so easily become dangerous. It becomes dangerous when it serves the one who has the power at the expense of the one who does not. It becomes dangerous when it is coercive, manipulative, self-serving, or abusive. It becomes dangerous when it forgets the humanity of the person on the other side. It becomes dangerous when the question is no longer, “What serves the good of the other?” but “How can I get what I want?”

That is where the conversation became theological for me. Millard said his interest in power has to do with his image of God. That line has stayed with me. Our understanding of power is always connected to our understanding of God. If we imagine God primarily as the one who controls, dominates, punishes, and coerces, then we may be tempted to believe that divine power looks like force. But if we look at Jesus, we see something different.

In Jesus, power looks like healing. Power looks like washing feet. Power looks like telling the truth without destroying the person who needs to hear it. Power looks like forgiving from the cross. Power looks like refusing to answer violence with violence. Power looks like love that persuades rather than coerces. Power looks like an invitation, not domination.

That does not mean Jesus is weak. It means Jesus reveals a different kind of strength.

This matters because we are created in the image of God. If God’s power is revealed most clearly in Jesus, then our use of power is meant to be shaped by Jesus, too. We all carry power because we all carry the image of God. The question is not whether we have power. The question is how we will use the power we have.

That may be the most important sentence I took from the conversation: we all have power.

Some of us have power because of our job. Some have power because of age, gender, race, education, income, family position, personality, experience, or reputation. Some have power because they can speak easily in a room. Some have power because others trust them. Some have power because they have survived something and can now help another person survive it too. Some have power because they know how systems work. Some have power because they have learned how to listen.

And some people who feel powerless still have more agency than they realize.

That does not mean everyone has equal power. They do not. It does not mean systems of abuse, injustice, racism, sexism, poverty, or coercion are imaginary. They are not. It does not mean we should tell harmed people, “You have power, so just fix it.” That would be cruel. But it does mean that one of the most loving things we can sometimes do is come alongside someone and say, “You are not nothing. You are not alone. You are not without value. You are not without voice. You have power, and we will help you find a safe way to use it.”

During the conversation, someone brought up a hypothetical situation involving a professor abusing power over a student. That shifted the tone of the room. It should have. There are some uses of power that are not merely unfortunate or complicated. They are wrong. When a person uses their position to manipulate someone with less power for their own benefit, that is abuse. It is coercive. It is self-serving. It is a violation of trust.

In that moment, I found myself thinking less about abstract definitions and more about community. What does a faithful community do when someone is being manipulated, threatened, silenced, or harmed? We do not simply offer ideas. We create safety. We tell the truth. We protect the vulnerable. We help people know what resources exist. We stand with them so they are not alone. We use whatever power we have to interrupt the misuse of power.

That, I think, is one of the clearest callings of the church.

The church should be a community where power is named honestly. Pastors have power. Teachers have power. Parents have power. Longtime members have power. People with money have power. People with strong opinions have power. People who know the history of the congregation have power. People who control keys, calendars, kitchens, microphones, committees, and conversations have power. None of that is automatically bad. But all of it carries responsibility.

Unrecognized power is often the most dangerous kind. When we do not know we have power, we may use it carelessly. We may intimidate without meaning to. We may silence without noticing. We may assume our preferences are neutral. We may confuse our comfort with faithfulness. We may hurt people and then be shocked when they tell us they were hurt.

That is why awareness matters. It is why humility matters. It is why confession matters. It is why listening matters.

One of the lighter moments in the episode came when I compared irresponsible power to Cocaine Bear. I will admit that is not a metaphor I expected to use in Sunday school. But it worked, at least for me. The image is absurd, but memorable: a bear under the influence, crashing through the world, causing harm without any real awareness of what it is doing. That may be an extreme picture, but it raises a serious question. What happens when people with power are out of touch with themselves, their motives, their fears, their wounds, and their impact on others?

They may not intend harm. But they can still do harm.

That is where Richard Rohr’s Everything Belongs entered the conversation. I had been listening to Rohr talk about contemplation and the true self. The contemplative life helps us stop trying to control everything. It helps us become less reactive, less manipulative, less driven by fear. It helps us see ourselves truthfully, which may be one of the first steps toward using power faithfully.

If I do not know what is happening inside me, I will likely use power poorly. If I am afraid, I may try to control. If I am insecure, I may try to dominate. If I am ashamed, I may try to shame someone else. If I am anxious, I may confuse urgency with wisdom. If I am wounded, I may wound. The spiritual life does not remove power from us. It teaches us how to hold power without letting it deform us.

That is why Jesus matters so much here.

Jesus does not simply teach us what to believe. Jesus shows us how to be human. He shows us how to live with power without turning it into domination. He shows us how to speak with authority without using that authority to crush people. He shows us how to confront evil without becoming evil. He shows us how to forgive without pretending harm does not matter. He shows us how to resist empire without becoming another version of empire.

The cross is the clearest picture of that kind of power. Rome used the cross as an instrument of terror. It was power over in its most brutal form. It was the empire saying, “This is what happens to people who challenge us.” And yet Jesus, from the cross, speaks forgiveness. He refuses to let Rome define the meaning of the moment. He does not answer violence with violence. He reveals a power that empire cannot understand and cannot finally defeat.

That is not weakness. That is the power of God.

So I am left with a question that feels both simple and searching: how do I use the power I have?

How do I use power as a pastor? How do I use power as a husband, father, friend, employer, landowner, writer, and person with a microphone? How do I use power when I am leading a meeting, preaching a sermon, writing an article, asking a question, making a decision, or telling a story? How do I use power when I am tired, anxious, disappointed, or afraid? How do I use power when I think I am right?

That last question may be the most dangerous one. Most of us do not misuse power because we wake up hoping to be villains. We misuse power because we believe we are right, or because we are scared, or because we think the ends justify the means, or because we have never stopped to consider what it feels like to be on the other side of us.

Faith invites us to stop and consider.

Not so we can deny our power, but so we can consecrate it. Not so we can pretend power is always bad, but so we can offer it to the way of Jesus. Not so we can become passive, but so we can become responsible. Not so we can avoid influence, but so our influence becomes loving, truthful, creative, and life-giving.

Power over asks, “How can I get the final word?”

Power with asks, “How can we seek the good together?”

Power over asks, “How can I make you do what I want?”

Power with asks, “How can I use what I have to help life flourish?”

Power over protects itself.

Power with makes room.

Power over coerces.

Power with invites.

Power over can build fear.

Power with can build trust.

I do not think I will ever be done processing this. Maybe that is why it belongs on Faith in Process. The goal is not to settle every question in thirty-six minutes. The goal is to become more honest, more aware, and more faithful as we ask the questions together.

We all have power.

The question is whether we will use it like Jesus.

Together with the Sunday school class at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren, they wrestle with the difference between power over and power with. Is power over always harmful, or can it serve the common good? How do we know when power becomes coercive, self serving, or abusive? What does it mean to use power in ways that are persuasive, loving, creative, and faithful to the way of Jesus?

The conversation moves through examples from government, parenting, teaching, addiction recovery, incarceration, abuse, forgiveness, and even Spider Man and Cocaine Bear. Along the way, the episode keeps returning to a deeply Christian question: if we are created in the image of God, how are we called to use the power we have?

Run of Show

00:00:08 Welcome to Faith in Process

00:00:35 How the podcast began through conversations with Millard

00:03:21 Introducing the topic: power

00:03:45 Soul friends, Celtic Christianity, and the gift of honest conversation

00:05:09 Lonnie Yoder’s earlier comments on power

00:06:19 Defining power as capacity, ability, authority, influence, and control

00:08:15 Government, democracy, and power for the common good

00:09:32 Power over, power with, and who gets the final word

00:12:23 Millard connects the topic of power to his image of God

00:13:26 Created in the image of God and created with intrinsic power

00:15:03 Old Testament images of God, Jesus, and the God revealed in persuasive love

00:17:44 Class discussion begins

00:18:00 Parenting as an example of power used for good or harm

00:18:38 Asking whether power serves the good of the other

00:20:49 Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, contemplation, and the true self

00:23:03 Lonnie Yoder’s classroom example: the professor as the most powerful person in the room

00:24:21 Spider Man and “with great power comes great responsibility”

00:24:29 Everyone has power, whether they realize it or not

00:25:01 Richard Rohr, prison, freedom, and agency

00:26:39 Corrie ten Boom, Desmond Tutu, Jesus, and forgiveness as a form of power

00:27:27 Alcoholics Anonymous and the power of example

00:28:33 Why recognizing our power creates responsibility

00:29:01 Cocaine Bear as an image of unrecognized, destructive power

00:31:10 Abuse of power in academic settings

00:32:45 Helping people recognize they are not powerless

00:34:54 Safe community, shame, fear, and the courage to bring harm to light

00:35:31 Closing the conversation

00:36:10 Outro: continuing the conversation about power dynamics

Resource Guide

Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
Harry mentions listening to Richard Rohr’s Everything Belongs while reflecting on contemplation, the true self, and our tendency to manipulate other people or the world around us. The Center for Action and Contemplation describes the book as one of Rohr’s best known works on contemplative prayer and seeing through God.

Anam Cara and the Celtic idea of the “soul friend”
Millard refers to a Celtic Christian idea that everyone should have at least one “soul friend.” The Irish phrase often associated with this idea is anam cara, meaning soul friend. This as a kind of spiritual friendship where honest conversation, disagreement, prayer, and companionship can deepen faith.

Spider Man and “with great power comes great responsibility”
The class jokes that all good theology comes from Marvel comics after someone quotes the famous Spider Man line. The phrase is closely associated with Uncle Ben and has even been cited by Justice Elena Kagan in a 2015 Supreme Court opinion involving Marvel.

Corrie ten Boom and forgiveness
A class participant names Corrie ten Boom as an example of forgiveness in the face of great harm. Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who helped Jews escape the Nazis and later survived Ravensbrück concentration camp, became widely known for her witness to forgiveness and reconciliation.

Desmond Tutu and restorative justice
Desmond Tutu is mentioned as another example of forgiveness and power. Tutu chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a process that sought to confront apartheid’s harms through truth telling, accountability, and the possibility of reconciliation.

Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act
Millard uses environmental law as an example of public power used for the common good. The EPA notes that the basic structure of the Clean Air Act was established in 1970, with major revisions in 1977 and 1990, while the Clean Water Act took shape through major 1972 amendments to earlier federal water pollution law.

Cocaine Bear
Harry uses Cocaine Bear as a humorous image of unrecognized and destructive power. The real story involved a black bear that died in Georgia in 1985 after ingesting cocaine connected to drug smuggling. The later movie takes significant creative liberties with that event.

I was on vacation when this week’s Faith in Process episode was recorded. Rather than canceling the conversation, Grayson Preece and I decided it would be a good opportunity for him to step into the host chair. That turned out to be more than a practical scheduling decision. It became one of those moments when the thing you did not plan becomes the thing you needed.

Grayson chose to talk with Ewan Benjamin about conscientious objection, war, conscience, and the courage to prepare for peace. Ewan is the Conscientious Objection Fellow with On Earth Peace and a student in conflict transformation at Eastern Mennonite University. In the conversation, he brought together history, practical guidance, Brethren conviction, and the kinds of lived questions young adults are asking right now. As I listened, I found myself grateful for the topic, but also grateful that the conversation was led by two young adults. That matters.

We are living in a moment when conversations about war and peace cannot remain theoretical. There are military conflicts happening in the world right now, and whether Congress has formally declared something a war or not, people are still dying, people are still killing, and communities are still being torn apart by violence. If we only talk about these conflicts politically, and never talk about how they affect us spiritually, relationally, and faithfully, then we are missing something essential.

That is why I am grateful that On Earth Peace, Ewan, Grayson, and others are helping elevate this conversation. They are not simply asking what our preferred political response should be. They are asking what a Jesus shaped response might look like. I hesitate sometimes even to say “Christian response,” because Christians are deeply divided on questions of war and peace. Some support war in particular circumstances. Some oppose all war. Some find themselves somewhere in the middle. But for those of us who are trying to follow Jesus, the deeper question remains: what might Jesus be inviting us to do?

For the Church of the Brethren, conscientious objection is not an obscure historical footnote. It is part of our spiritual inheritance. It is connected to how we read Jesus, how we understand discipleship, and how we bear witness to another way of living in the world. It is connected to the Sermon on the Mount, to the historic peace churches, and to generations of Brethren who have wrestled with what faithfulness requires when the state asks for participation in war.

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One of the things Ewan made clear is that conscientious objection is not simply a private opinion. It has to be formed, named, documented, and supported. A young person who believes they cannot participate in war needs language for that conviction. They need to write it down. They need to talk about it with their family, their church, their friends, and their mentors. They need a community that can say, “Yes, this is not something they invented yesterday. This is part of who they are and how their faith has been formed.”

That may sound practical, and it is. But it is also deeply spiritual. Writing down what we believe forces us to ask whether we actually believe it. It pushes us to move beyond inherited slogans and into thoughtful conviction. It invites us to ask whether we object only to one particular war, or whether we object to war itself. It asks whether peace is merely a beautiful idea, or whether peace is a form of obedience.

That is one of the reasons I found the conversation so compelling. It was not simply about how to avoid military service. It was about how conscience is formed in community. Too often, we wait until a crisis arrives before we start asking what we believe. We wait until the pressure is on before we help young people find words for their conscience. We wait until the system demands an answer before we teach the language of discipleship.

But conscience is not something we should try to invent in a panic. Conscience is formed over time. It is prayed into being. It is discussed around tables, in Sunday school rooms, in youth groups, in late night conversations, in sermons, in stories, in mentoring relationships, and in communities that take Jesus seriously enough to ask difficult questions before the difficult moment arrives.

Near the end of the conversation, Ewan said something that has stayed with me. He said, “I think God’s more creative than that.” He was talking about the assumption that violence is sometimes the only way to solve a problem. That sentence may be the heart of the whole episode for me. It is not naive. It does not pretend evil does not exist. It does not suggest that conflict is simple or that peace is easy. It simply refuses to let violence become the limit of our imagination.

That is faith. It is not the absence of conflict, and it is certainly not the avoidance of hard questions. It is the belief that God can work in ways that do not require destruction. It is the conviction that transformation is more faithful than domination. It is the hope that the Spirit is still able to create possibilities we cannot yet see.

That is why I appreciated that Ewan is studying conflict transformation, not conflict avoidance. Peace, at least as I understand the way of Jesus, is not pretending there is no tension. It is not staying quiet so nobody gets upset. It is not the absence of disagreement. Peace is the presence of another possibility. It is the Spirit working within us and among us to imagine what violence cannot imagine.

I was also encouraged because this conversation was led by young adults. It is easy for those of us who have been in church leadership for a while to talk about “the future of the church” as if young adults are somewhere offstage waiting to be invited in. But sometimes they are already having the conversation. Sometimes they are already asking better questions than we are. Sometimes they are already leading, and what they need from the rest of us is not control, but encouragement, trust, mentoring, and room.

That is one of the hopes I have for Faith in Process. I hope it becomes a space where people, especially young adults, can ask honest questions about faith without fear. I hope it becomes a place where theological curiosity is welcomed, where spiritual struggle is not shamed, and where people can speak honestly about what they believe, what they doubt, and what they are still processing. The church needs spaces like that.

We are facing a leadership crisis across much of the church. Many young adults are not imagining vocational ministry as a meaningful or viable path. Some of that is understandable. They have seen burnout. They have seen conflict. They have seen churches wound people. They have seen institutions that sometimes seem more interested in preservation than transformation. I understand some of that story from the inside.

I was away from vocational

ministry for thirteen years after burning out. During part of that time, I was not spending much energy worrying about whether the church had enough future leaders. I was trying to find my own way back to health. But now I am back in pastoral ministry. I am reading again, preaching again, listening again, leading again, and rediscovering the strange joy of this vocation.

Coming back has helped me see, more clearly than ever, that we need thoughtful, spiritually grounded, emotionally healthy, courageous young adults to consider ministry. Not only pastoral ministry, though certainly that. We need people in peace work, chaplaincy, teaching, denominational leadership, nonprofit leadership, spiritual direction, community organizing, and all the other places where faith has to be translated into real life.

This does not mean ministry is easy. It is not. But meaningful work is not the same as easy work. I have done other kinds of work, and some of it was harder than ministry in ways people might not expect. Being the general manager of a Courtyard Marriott was, in many ways, one of the hardest jobs I ever had. Every vocation has pressure. Every vocation has conflict. Every vocation has days when you wonder what in the world you are doing.

But ministry, at its best, gives a person the opportunity to read, think, pray, listen, teach, walk with people through joy and grief, help families become healthier, help communities become more faithful, and help people discover that their lives can be part of something larger than themselves. That is worthy work. It is not always easy work, but it is worthy work.

I also believe there is room right now for young adults to step into leadership in the church. There is room for people who come with different perspectives, different questions, and different ways of applying what they know about God, Jesus, scripture, psychology, society, community, justice, and peace. There is room for people who are willing to think deeply, love well, and lead with courage.

But programs alone will not call people into ministry. Relationships will. Encouragement will. Communities will. Someone saying, “I see gifts in you,” can make a difference. Someone handing the microphone to Grayson and saying, “Why don’t you host this week?” can make a difference. Someone listening to Ewan and saying, “What you are working on matters,” can make a difference.

That is part of what I hope happened in this episode. Yes, it was about conscientious objection. Yes, it was about war and peace. Yes, it was about the Church of the Brethren witness and the practical steps young people can take to prepare a conscientious objector file. But it was also about leadership. It was about young adults speaking with moral seriousness. It was about the church listening. It was about the possibility that the Spirit is still calling people, still forming people, and still stirring up voices we need to hear.

That is also why I hope churches will take this episode seriously. Not because every person will come to the same conclusion about every question. Not because the conversation is simple. Not because the risks are imaginary. We should take it seriously because forming conscience is part of the work of the church. Helping young people ask what faithfulness looks like in the face of war is part of discipleship.

We should not wait until the government asks for an answer before we help young people think about peace. We should not wait until a draft crisis arrives before we ask what it means to follow Jesus. We should not wait until fear is high before we build communities of conscience. If peace is part of our witness, then peace needs to be part of our formation.

I came home from vacation grateful. I am grateful for Grayson. I am grateful for Ewan. I am grateful for On Earth Peace. I am grateful for the Brethren peace witness. I am grateful for young adults who are willing to ask difficult questions out loud. And I am grateful for the possibility that conversations like this can become sparks.

That is what I hope Faith in Process can help create. Not polished answers from people who have everything figured out, but faithful conversations among people who are willing to keep processing together. I hope this podcast becomes one small space where honest questions, thoughtful faith, and courageous leadership can meet.

If we are going to prepare for peace, we will need more than information. We will need communities of conscience. We will need mentors and friends. We will need young adults with courage. We will need churches willing to listen. And we will need the imagination to believe, even now, that Jesus is still showing us another way.

In this episode of Faith in Process, producer Grayson Preece steps into the host chair while Pastor Harry is away and talks with Ewan Benjamin, a graduate student in conflict transformation at Eastern Mennonite University and Conscientious Objection Fellow with On Earth Peace. Together, they explore what it means to be a conscientious objector, why the Church of the Brethren has historically taught that “war is sin,” and how young people, families, and congregations can begin preparing now.

Ewan explains why conscientious objection is not just a private belief, but a practice shaped by community, documentation, spiritual formation, and courage. The conversation moves from personal conviction to Selective Service, from Brethren history to Civilian Public Service, from the Sermon on the Mount to present-day organizing, and from fear about the military system to hope rooted in conflict transformation.

This episode is especially helpful for youth, parents, grandparents, pastors, Sunday school teachers, and anyone who wants to understand the Brethren peace witness in a changing world. Based on the uploaded episode transcript.

Run of show

00:00
Welcome and introduction

00:35
Grayson hosts while Harry is away and introduces Ewan Benjamin

01:20
What conscientious objection means

02:40
Selective Service registration and the missing “CO checkbox”

04:12
How to document a conscientious objection claim

07:25
Why family, friends, and church community matter

09:24
Objecting to one war versus objecting to all war

12:00
A brief history of Brethren conscientious objection

14:43
World War II, alternative service, and Brethren Volunteer Service

15:49
Automatic draft registration and current concerns

17:25
Audience question: non-registration, risks, and consequences

21:00
How churches can support youth and teach peace

23:53
Biblical foundations for the Brethren peace witness

27:42
Just war tradition and early Christian nonviolence

30:13
God’s creativity beyond violence

30:57
On Earth Peace resources and closing invitation

32:24
Closing thanks and “Happy processing”

Resource guide with links

Church of the Brethren Conscientious Objection page
A denominational starting place for understanding conscientious objection, the Brethren peace witness, and available resources for youth and congregations.
https://www.brethren.org/peacebuilding/co/

Call of Conscience curriculum
A Church of the Brethren curriculum designed to help youth explore peace, conscience, allegiance, and the practical steps of preparing a conscientious objector claim.
https://www.brethren.org/peacebuilding/co/introduction/

Church of the Brethren Conscientious Objector Toolkit
A practical guide for creating a CO file, writing a statement of belief, documenting convictions, and preparing before a draft crisis.
https://www.brethren.org/peacebuilding/co/toolkit/

Center on Conscience & War
A national organization offering counseling, legal support, Selective Service information, and resources for conscientious objectors.
https://centeronconscience.org/

Center on Conscience & War: Selective Service information
A helpful resource for understanding registration, non-registration, state consequences, and conscientious objection.
https://centeronconscience.org/selective-service-info/

Selective Service System: Who Needs to Register
The official government page explaining who is required to register for Selective Service.
https://www.sss.gov/register/who-needs-to-register/

Selective Service System: Conscientious Objectors
Official Selective Service guidance on how conscientious objector claims are handled if a draft is authorized.
https://www.sss.gov/conscientious-objectors/

Selective Service System: Automatic Registration
Official Selective Service information about automatic registration connected to the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.
https://www.sss.gov/about/

On Earth Peace
The organization where Ewan Benjamin serves as Conscientious Objection Fellow. https://www.onearthpeace.org/

On Earth Peace Team page
Ewan Benjamin is listed as the Robert C. and Ruthann K. Johansen Fellow in Nonviolence, Justice, and Peace.
https://www.onearthpeace.org/team

On Earth Peace: “I Object! Now What?”
A May 17, 2026 online Sunday school session for youth, parents, grandparents, and church leaders exploring conscientious objection, Selective Service, and preparation.
https://www.onearthpeace.org/2026_05_17_co_sunday_school

Civilian Public Service and alternative service in World War II
A National WWII Museum overview of Civilian Public Service, the alternative service program shaped by the Historic Peace Churches.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/conscientious-objectors-civilian-public-service

Shoes of Peace: Letters to Youth From Peacemakers
A Brethren Press collection of letters from peacemakers written for younger readers.
https://www.brethrenpress.com/product_p/9780871780454.htm

Brethren Volunteer Service history
A Church of the Brethren overview of Brethren Volunteer Service and its history.
https://www.brethren.org/bvs/history/

Seagoing Cowboys and Heifer Project
A resource from Swarthmore’s Peace Collection on seagoing cowboys, Civilian Public Service, Brethren Service Committee, and the Heifer Project.
https://www1.swarthmore.edu/library/peace/conscientiousobjection/CPSResources/SeagoingCowboys.html

The Church of the Brethren and War by Rufus D. Bowman
A bibliographic listing for the historical work referenced by Ewan in the conversation.
https://www.journal33.org/salvjudg/html/chrwar.html

Together, they explore why Alves matters, especially for listeners who may never have encountered his work before. Scott introduces Alves as an early and often overlooked voice in liberation theology, then follows the arc of his thought from justice for the poor and marginalized toward a wider vision of life, beauty, embodiment, imagination, and what Alves called an “erotic exuberance for life.”

This episode moves beyond abstract theology into questions that feel urgent today. What drives us to seek justice in the first place? Why does beauty matter in Christian faith? What happens when churches care more about souls than bodies? And how might younger adults, artists, pastors, and seekers hear Alves as an invitation to recover a more integrated life?

The conversation also touches on theopoetics, psychoanalysis, war and nonviolence, the inner life, and the tension between the life drive and the death drive in both culture and church. Along the way, Scott offers accessible entry points for anyone who wants to begin reading Alves for themselves.

If you have ever felt that faith has become too dry, too rigid, or too disconnected from beauty, art, desire, and human flourishing, this conversation opens another way.

Run of Show

00:00 Opening and producer intro. Grayson explains that this episode begins before the usual formal introduction.

00:00 to 09:16 Pre-conversation. Harry and Scott talk about church planting, ministry in Italy, Brazil, Bethany students, and Scott’s early connection to teaching Rubem Alves.

09:16 to 11:34 Harry’s formal welcome and setup for the episode on Rubem Alves.

11:34 to 13:28 Who Rubem Alves was, why he matters, and his place in liberation theology.

13:28 to 17:59 “Erotic exuberance for life,” Eros and Thanatos, and why ethics alone is not enough.

18:00 to 19:10 “Outside of beauty, there is no salvation” and Alves’s challenge to narrow church thinking.

19:10 to 23:27 Connections to Bart Ehrman, Thomas Jay Oord, the inner life, psychoanalysis, and theopoetics.

23:27 to 28:25 Beauty, ugliness, Easter, embodiment, and “I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body.”

28:25 to 32:45 Gnosticism, crusading theology, the body, Jesus and Socrates, and why resurrection matters.

32:45 to 38:27 Grayson’s questions on younger adults, art, joy, integration, and listening to the inner life.

38:27 to 41:12 Where to start reading Rubem Alves and how Bethany’s theopoetics program connects.

41:12 to end Closing reflections, church banter, and final signoff.

Resource Guide

Rubem Alves
A Brazilian theologian, educator, writer, and psychoanalyst, Alves is widely recognized as one of the early Protestant voices in Latin American liberation theology. His legacy has also grown through interest in theopoetics and theological imagination. The Instituto Rubem Alves serves as an official home for his legacy and writings.

The Poet, the Warrior, the Prophet
This is probably the best starting place for listeners who want to enter Alves’s thought. Scott specifically recommends it in the episode, and it remains one of the key English language introductions to his theological and poetic voice.

Transparencies of Eternity
A short contemplative work by Alves that includes the chapter Scott references, “Outside of Beauty, There is No Salvation.” This is a strong follow up for listeners drawn to the beauty, contemplation, and spiritual imagination themes in the episode.

Tender Returns
Scott recommends this as a gentle, contemplative collection for devotional style reading. The volume was assembled after Alves’s death by his daughter Raquel Alves and gathers short translated writings.

I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body
This book becomes especially important in the episode because Scott reads from it to explore embodiment, nonviolence, and resistance to forms of theology that diminish the body. It is a central text for the Easter and embodied faith themes in the conversation.

Bethany Theological Seminary, Theopoetics and Writing
Scott points listeners toward Bethany’s theopoetics work as a place where Alves’s legacy continues to be taught and explored. Bethany currently offers both a Master of Arts in Theopoetics and Writing and a certificate option.

Bart Ehrman, Love Thy Stranger
Harry mentions Bart Ehrman’s recent work on altruism and Jesus’ expansion of neighbor love. This could be a useful side path for listeners interested in ethics, neighbor love, and how Jesus reshaped moral imagination.

Thomas Jay Oord, A Systematic Theology of Love
Harry also mentions Thomas Jay Oord’s recent work as another conversation partner for themes of relationality, love, and theology beyond rigid systems. That makes it a good companion resource for process minded listeners.

Oscar Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?
Scott references Cullmann’s classic contrast between Socrates and Jesus to underscore why Christian faith should not dismiss the body. This is a helpful background text for the embodiment section of the episode.

On Earth Peace and Matt Guynn
Scott briefly mentions former Bethany student Matt Guynn and his connection to peacebuilding work shaped by theopoetic imagination. Listeners interested in practical peace work may want to explore On Earth Peace.

Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool

Recorded live on Sunday mornings at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett.

Join us in person or listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Substack.
Learn more about our congregation at pleasantvalleyalive.org

Not “how much do you make?” Not “who did you vote for?” The one that really stops people cold is this: Who are you?

We’re much more comfortable with the version we’ve all agreed to ask: What do you do? That one’s safe. That one has a rehearsed answer. But “who are you?” now that’s a different kind of conversation altogether. That’s the conversation Sabbath is trying to have with us.

This past Sunday, we had the joy of talking with Pastor Angela Finet from Mountville Church of the Brethren, who is guiding us through the background thought process from her Covenant Bible Study, Sabbath: God’s Call to Peace. We’re doing this as a four-part series, and we’re just getting started. So feel free to join in on the next ones.

Angela opened her chapter 2 by inviting people to come up with five words to describe themselves. I tried it ahead of time and thought I knew myself well enough to breeze through it. I didn’t. Every word I considered, I second-guessed. I landed on: husband, father, innovator, enthusiast, thought leader. Angela’s list from when she first wrote the chapter (nurturer, communicator, artist, truth teller, observer) had already changed by the time she came to talk with us. She’d been doing her own Sabbath work, she said, and her words had become less task-oriented, less about what she produces.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly the point.

The Idol Question

Angela starts the Sabbath conversation not with rest or rhythm but with idols. That might seem like a strange place to begin, but she’s following the logic of God, who did the same thing in Exodus. When God brings the Israelites out of Egypt, out of a system built entirely around production and servitude, the very first boundary God establishes is this: no other gods. No idols.

Why? Because the liberated people still had the psychology and rhythm of life that came from 400 years of slavery.

Angela put it well: God has to train them not to fall back into slavery. The Ten Commandments aren’t arbitrary rules. They’re, as she said, “boundaries of healthy living.” These are the conditions under which human beings can actually flourish in community, in relationship with God, and in their own skin.

And the reason idolatry tops the list is that idols are what we replace God with when we can’t quite trust that God is enough. Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, described it in terms that feel uncomfortably current: a “strange melancholy” haunting people in the midst of abundance, because they’ve taken some incomplete joy of this world and built their whole life on it. That’s the definition of idolatry. Not the dramatic, golden-calf kind, the ordinary, everyday kind. Money. Career. Status. Body image. The approval of the people around us.

Whatever absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, Angela said, you become controlled by it. The person who just wants to be liked becomes controlled by the people they’re trying to please. The person chasing status is owned by the ladder they’re climbing. They fall back into slavery; only now they’ve built the chains themselves.

This is not peace.

Two Kinds of Peace, One Rhythm

One of the things I appreciate most about Angela’s framing is her distinction between peace with God and peace of God. These aren’t just prepositions. They’re describing something directional.

Peace with God is about alignment. It’s the settling that happens when our strivings and goals stop pulling against what God is doing and start moving with it. And peace of God is what flows from that: the shalom that Jesus talks about in the farewell discourse, the protection of the heart that isn’t contingent on circumstances being good.

When I asked Angela whether God is automatically our “first love,” whether we come to Sabbath already oriented toward God, or whether that orientation is itself part of what Sabbath forms in us, she said she thinks it’s a process. That feels true to me. Most of us arrive at Sabbath not as people already in right relationship with God, but as people trying to get there. We come in with the idols still in hand.

Angela described Sabbath as a circular practice of filling and giving. You spend time with God, your tank fills. That fullness, the peace with God, is what enables you to navigate the storms of life. When the tank runs low, you return. It’s not a one-time transaction. It’s a way of living.

Remember Jesus and the vine and the branches? Dwelling. Abiding.

We know this language. But I think many of us have treated it as a metaphor when it was meant to be an instruction.

The Disdain for Rest

In our conversation, I named this plainly: many of us in the church, especially in traditions built around humble service, have developed a quiet disdain for rest.

I use that word deliberately.

We’ve dressed it up in theology: work while it’s day, night is coming, the fields are white for harvest. We’ve made busyness a form of faithfulness. Pastors are especially guilty of this. There’s even a little story that floats around in pastoral circles: a pastor saying proudly that the devil doesn’t take a day off, and neither do they. A wise congregant responded to that: “I think you’re following the wrong model.”

Angela’s been putting her Sabbath day in the church bulletin from day one at Mountville. Fridays are her Sabbath. There are contact instructions for pastoral needs. It took some training; people would reach out apologetically, “I know it’s your Sabbath, but…” and she had to learn not to respond, because nothing she encountered actually required an emergency override.

What she was modeling, she told us, was the thing she was preaching. And over time, it began to do something in the congregation: it showed them that God is still present and still at work even when the pastor isn’t available. It challenged the subtle idol of the pastorate: the belief that the pastor’s prayer is somehow more direct-dialed to God than anyone else’s.

When people ask her to pray for something, she’s started saying “I’ll pray with you,” and the response is usually a surprised “oh.” I quipped that maybe she should be more direct and ask, “Have you prayed about that yourself yet?” She didn’t think that would be a very good idea. But I got the laugh I was looking for from her.

Sabbath as Resistance

We were almost out of time when I opened a door that I hope we’ll walk through much further next time. I asked about her concept of Sabbath changing society and challenging “empire.” She quoted Joanna Harader, a Mennonite pastor and writer whose work I’ve come to appreciate, on the relationship between external chaos and internal injustice: the more chaotic the outside world becomes, the more we crave security and predictability within our chosen communities and the more injustice we end up tolerating inside those communities, because we just want things to stay the same.

This is why Sabbath is not merely a personal spiritual discipline. It’s countercultural. It’s political, in the deepest sense. Walter Brueggemann, in his book Sabbath as Resistance, argues exactly this: Sabbath is a visible insistence that our lives are not defined by production and consumption. In a world that runs on anxiety and acquisition that tells us 24/7 what to care about, what to fear, what to chase, choosing to stop is a radical act.

We came out of slavery. Some of us, Angela said quietly, are still in it.

And we’re in it not because of Pharaoh, but because of the information feed, the notifications, the curated outrage cycle, the sense that if we stop paying attention for even a day, the world will fall apart without us.

It won’t. But more than that, God is already in it. And our not-stopping is actually preventing us from seeing that clearly.

I’m looking forward to the next three conversations with Angela. She’s a generous, wise guide through this material.

We’re in an age of restlessness, and we have access to an ancient remedy that most of us have never really tried.

Maybe this is the season to try it.

Resources from This Conversation

Angela Finet
Sabbath: God’s Call to Peace (Covenant Bible Studies series, Brethren Press)
A four-part study guide exploring Sabbath as God’s call to peace with God, with creation, and with neighbor. Designed for groups, with questions, reflections, and discussion prompts throughout.
Order from Brethren Press

Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America (1835)
The French political thinker’s observation from his travels through the 1830s America that a “strange melancholy haunts inhabitants of democratic countries in the midst of their abundance”remains one of the sharpest diagnoses of the idolatry of prosperity ever written. Angela quoted it to define idolatry: building your entire life on the incomplete joy of this world.
Read the full passage online at marxists.org

Marva Dawn
Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting (Eerdmans, 1989)
Angela referenced Dawn’s concept of Sabbath as reconnecting with yourself, with God, with others, and with the world. Dawn’s four-part framework for Sabbath (ceasing, resting, embracing, feasting) has been foundational in contemporary Christian thinking on rest. A classic worth your time.
Find it at Eerdmans

Walter Brueggemann
Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now (Westminster John Knox Press)
Brueggemann’s compact, powerful argument that Sabbath-keeping is an act of both resistance and alternative: a refusal to let our lives be defined by production and consumption. Angela pointed to this book when talking about Sabbath as a challenge to systems of overwork, inequality, and empire. Available with a study guide for group use.
Find it at Westminster John Knox Press

Joanna Harader
A Mennonite pastor and writer, currently serving at Bethel College Mennonite Church in North Newton, Kansas. Angela quoted her on the relationship between external chaos and our internal tolerance for injustice, the way fear of the outside world drives us to demand false stability within our communities. Harader writes on her blog, Spacious Faith, and has published two devotionals with Herald Press: Expecting Emmanuel and Prone to Wander: A Lenten Journey with Women in the Wilderness.
Learn more at Herald Press

Faith in Process is a weekly Sunday school conversation at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Pastor Harry Jarrett hosts conversations with guests about how they process their faith in their writing, work, and everyday lives. Listen wherever you find podcasts.

This conversation is pastoral, practical, and deeply timely for anyone trying to follow Jesus without being consumed by anxiety, performance, or the pressure to always be available.

Run of Show

00:00 Intro and welcome from Grayson Preece
00:00:45 Harry welcomes listeners and introduces Angela Finet
00:01:42 Beginning a four part series on Sabbath and peace
00:02:08 The five words exercise and how Sabbath reshapes identity
00:05:42 Why Angela begins chapter two with idols
00:06:16 Exodus, liberation, and God’s concern for Sabbath
00:07:34 Alexis de Tocqueville, abundance, and idolatry
00:08:12 Common modern idols such as money, status, body image, and approval
00:09:15 Is God really our first love, or does that grow over time?
00:11:50 Peace with God versus the peace of God
00:14:22 Sabbath as a circular rhythm that fills the tank
00:15:48 Marva Dawn, connection, ceasing, and reconnecting
00:16:16 Why the church often disdains rest
00:17:05 Pastoral overwork, humble service, and resentment
00:19:03 Why pastors need to preach and model Sabbath
00:19:43 Angela’s Friday Sabbath and teaching congregational boundaries
00:21:19 When people turn the pastor into an idol
00:22:31 Sabbath as resistance to overwork, inequality, and empire
00:23:43 Joanna Harader on chaos, predictability, and internal injustice
00:24:38 Walter Brueggemann and Sabbath as resistance
00:24:49 Closing thoughts and invitation to continue the series

Resource Guide

Angela Finet, Sabbath: God’s Call to Peace
This Brethren Press study presents Sabbath as far more than a break from work. It frames Sabbath as God’s call to peace, including peace with God, creation, and neighbor, along with peace as freedom and justice for all.
Link: Sabbath: God’s Call to Peace

Marva J. Dawn, Keeping the Sabbath Wholly
A classic and deeply practical guide to Sabbath keeping. Dawn describes Sabbath through four movements, ceasing, resting, embracing, and feasting, which makes this a helpful next read for listeners who want to practice what the episode discusses.
Link: Keeping the Sabbath Wholly

Joanna Harader, Spacious Faith
Joanna Harader’s Spacious Faith offers spiritual reflections, worship resources, sermons, and devotional writing shaped by a spacious, justice minded Christian imagination. It is a valuable resource for pastors, church leaders, and anyone seeking a thoughtful and grounded spiritual life.
Link: Spacious Faith

Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now
Brueggemann’s book argues that Sabbath is not merely personal rest but a way of resisting the culture of endless productivity and demand. It is especially relevant to this episode’s final section about overwork, empire, and the social meaning of Sabbath.
Link: Sabbath as Resistance

Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool

Recorded live on Sunday mornings at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett.

Join us in person or listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Substack.
Learn more about our congregation at pleasantvalleyalive.org

Grayson’s first instinct was to push back on the concept of sin altogether, not because he is naive about human failure, but because the word carries so much baggage. He is not wrong. Somewhere along the way, the language of sin became less a description of moral direction and more a mechanism for sorting people into categories: the chosen and the condemned, the saved and the damned. I rarely use the paradigm myself, and I think I know why. The word has been captured by a theology of anxiety and chosenness that I find both psychologically manipulative and theologically thin.

I mentioned a podcast I had been listening to about white Christian nationalism and the central role that chosenness plays in its appeal. The psychology is worth understanding: telling people that they are sinners can actually feel good if it comes packaged with the assurance that they are also elect, specially selected, destined for heaven while others are not. The anxiety of being a sinner is resolved not by transformation but by status. That is a very different thing from the Brethren understanding of what it means to miss the mark.

“God is less interested in our present perfection and more interested in our defining direction.”

The Greek word hamartia, classically translated as sin, means to miss the mark, to aim at something and fall short. That framing matters. Missing the mark is not the same as being inherently evil. It presupposes that we know what the mark is, that we are capable of aiming at it, and that our failure is a matter of direction rather than constitution. The early Anabaptist insistence on adult baptism rested precisely on this distinction. Babies cannot miss the mark because they have not yet had the capacity to aim. When a person comes to baptism as an adult, they are making a statement: I know something of who I want to be and where I want to go, and I have, on more than a few occasions, gone a different way. Now I am publicly reorienting.

That is why I keep returning to one phrase that came out of our conversation almost without my planning it: baptism is not about present perfection, it is about defining direction. The act of going into the water and coming up again is less a declaration that you have arrived than it is a declaration of where you are headed. I am turning toward the way of Jesus. That is both more humble and more demanding than claiming to be saved.

Grayson raised a question that I think many people his age carry without quite having language for it: what if baptism is just a way of joining an exclusive club? What if submitting to it means implicitly declaring that everyone outside the circle is condemned? He had absorbed, as many people have, a theology that treats baptism as a kind of golden ticket, and he wanted nothing to do with it on those terms. I understand that entirely. If baptism is a membership card to heaven, the whole enterprise becomes transactional, tribal, and frankly unkind.

But the Anabaptist and Brethren tradition has never understood it that way. In our practice, baptism is an outward symbol of an inward choice. It does not save you. It does not damn those who do not share it. What it does, I have found, is something harder to name: it does something. The word I reached for in our conversation was the Latin effectus, meaning it produces an effect. When I was serving in Sicily and watching people come to faith in a context where being re-baptized could cost them their family relationships, their inheritance, sometimes their livelihood, I watched something happen in them after they made that decision. A door opened. A weight lifted. They understood more than they had before, moved more freely in their relationship with God and with the community. It was not that baptism had saved them. It was that the public, embodied act of committing to a direction had done something real.

There is a parallel here to what the book The Critical Journey describes in its account of faith stages. Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich outline six phases of the faith journey, and they include what they call the Wall, a place of crisis where black-and-white certainties dissolve and people either leave the faith, get stuck in the old paradigm, or press through into something deeper and more contemplative. Most church programs, I find, are designed to shepherd people through the first three stages: recognizing God, learning discipleship, finding their ministry. Very few institutions invite people into the later stages, the ones that involve sitting with ambiguity, grieving over things that do not make sense, being willing to be angry at God on occasion. The mystical and contemplative tradition has always lived there, but it has rarely been welcome at the center of congregational life.

What Grayson helped me see in our conversation is that there may be a way to offer clarity without requiring black-and-white answers. The clarity the Brethren tradition offers is directional: follow Jesus, belong to a community that is trying to do the same, and over time the believing and the behaving will sort themselves out. The three B’s as I named them, belong, believe, behave, are in a particular order for a reason. When we flip them, when we demand that people believe correctly and behave properly before they are welcome to belong, we are building a wall before we have even lit the campfire.

“It’s not, ‘Hey, why weren’t you here before?’ It’s just, ‘Hey, welcome in.’” — Grayson Preece, Faith in Process

The campfire image Grayson offered is one I want to keep returning to. Someone walks up, drawn by the laughter and the warmth. The first response is simply welcome. Not a quiz. Not a set of requirements. Just: come on in. The learning happens by being there. The belonging comes first, and the rest follows organically. That is not a shallow theology. That is, I would argue, closer to how Jesus himself operated.

Stanley Hauerwas, whose work on peacemaking and Christian ethics I have long found challenging in the best sense, talks about how following Jesus sometimes requires giving up the rights we are fully entitled to claim. The cross is not, in his reading, a violent transaction between God and humanity. It is the supreme act of choosing not to retaliate, not to exercise power, not to call down the twelve legions of angels that Jesus says he could summon. Peacemaking is not passive. It is the costly decision to lay down a justified claim in order to create the conditions for something new. That is what being kind costs, sometimes: the satisfaction of the retribution we had coming to us.

That is also, I think, what adult baptism costs. You are giving up the comfort of deferring the question indefinitely. You are saying, in front of people who will remember you said it: this is my direction. And you are joining a community that will hold you to it, gently and imperfectly, over time.

Neil Anderson, in his work on identity and faith, made a distinction that has always stayed with me: the New Testament does not primarily call believers sinners. It calls them saints. Saints who occasionally miss the mark, yes, but saints nonetheless. The self-understanding we carry shapes the life we live. If I walk around believing that I am fundamentally sinful and that grace is the only thing keeping me from ruin, I will live accordingly. If I walk around knowing that I am a saint who sometimes misses the mark and is oriented toward the Jesus way, I will live that life instead. The psychology tracks with good child development practice too: you tell a child not that they are bad, but that they are a good person who made a bad choice. Identity is not fixed by failure.

I want to close with something that genuinely moved me in our conversation. Grayson told me, partway through, that he had always understood baptism as something he did not want, because it felt like joining an exclusive community. By the end of our conversation, he said he might be reconsidering. Not because I argued him into it. But because we talked about it as a statement of direction rather than a claim of status, as an act of belonging to something rather than a boundary against someone. That is what the conversation itself demonstrated: belong first, and the rest opens up.

The Brethren heritage I carry, rooted in Alexander Mack’s radical act of baptizing a small group in the Eder River in 1708, choosing obedience to scripture over the convenience of state-church compliance, is one of people who were willing to be re-baptized at significant cost. Conrad Grebel and his companions in Zurich in 1525 knew that re-baptism was, legally speaking, a capital offense. They did it anyway because the inward reality demanded an outward sign. That is radical obedience. It is not a golden ticket. It is a costly, joyful, directional commitment to go a certain way. And I think that is still worth doing.

Resources Referenced in This Episode

Books & Curriculum

Let Our Joys Be Known: A Brethren Heritage Curriculum for Adults Richard B. Gardner & Kenneth M. Shaffer (Brethren Press, 1998) The curriculum at the center of this podcast series, tracing Brethren heritage, practice, and belief.

The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith Janet O. Hagberg & Robert A. Guelich (Sheffield Publishing, 2nd ed.) Describes six phases of the spiritual journey, including the Wall, a crisis of faith that can lead to deeper contemplative understanding. Most church programs, the authors note, address only the first three stages.

Victory Over the Darkness: Realizing the Power of Your Identity in Christ Neil T. Anderson (Bethany House) Source of the distinction referenced in this episode: “We are not trying to become saints; we are saints who are becoming like Christ.” Anderson’s work on Christian identity challenges the language of perpetual sinnership.

The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics Stanley Hauerwas (University of Notre Dame Press) Hauerwas develops the argument that Christian peacemaking requires giving up the right of violence, even a justified one, and that the cross is the model for this costly, nonretaliatory way of life. A foundational text in Anabaptist-adjacent ethics.

Historical Figures & Origins

Conrad Grebel (c. 1498-1526) Known as “the Father of Anabaptists,” Grebel performed the first adult believer’s baptism of the Reformation era on January 21, 1525, in Zurich, in the home of Felix Manz. The act was a criminal offense punishable by drowning. His story is the seedbed of both the Mennonite and Brethren traditions.

Alexander Mack (1679-1735) Founder of the Schwarzenau Brethren (later the Church of the Brethren) in 1708. Mack led eight Radical Pietists to baptize one another in the Eder River in Schwarzenau, Germany, choosing scriptural obedience over state-church compliance. “Radical Obedience” as a Brethren watchword traces directly to his witness.

Stanley Hauerwas Professor Emeritus of Theological Ethics and Law at Duke University, named “America’s Best Theologian” by Time in 2001. His work on nonviolence, narrative ethics, and the church as peaceable community informs the discussion of costly kindness and giving up rights in this episode.

Film

The Radicals (1990) Directed by Raul V. Carrera. Tells the story of Michael and Margaretha Sattler, early Anabaptist leaders who were executed in 1527 for their beliefs. Not the highest production value, but the history is real and the convictions are compelling. Available on Amazon Prime Video.

Further Listening

Faith in Process — Previous Episode: “Religious Trauma” with Lonnie Yoder Referenced in this conversation as background to the question of how communities talk about pain, and how understanding religious trauma can help congregations form more responsible, connected spaces.

Harry serves as pastor at a Church of the Brethren congregation in the Shenandoah Valley. This reflection was adapted from the Faith in Process podcast, produced with Grayson Preece.

One of the central ideas in this episode is that baptism is not about having everything figured out or reaching some kind of spiritual perfection. Instead, it is about direction. It is a way of saying that we want our lives to move in the way of Jesus. That shift in understanding opens up a much richer and more grace-filled conversation about faith, discipleship, and belonging.

Grayson shares some of his own wrestling with baptism and why it has felt difficult for him at times. Together, we explore how the Brethren tradition has understood believer’s baptism, why it matters, and how it can become a powerful and meaningful act when it grows out of genuine desire rather than pressure or expectation. We also reflect on the kind of church many people are longing for today, not a community built on fear or certainty alone, but one rooted in love, kindness, welcome, and transformation.

Later in the episode, Terry joins the conversation and adds another perspective on baptism, age, and personal choice. Altogether, this episode is an invitation to think more deeply about what it means to belong to the body of Christ and how the church can create space for people to grow into faith with freedom and sincerity.

Whether you have long been part of the church, are reconsidering the meaning of baptism, or are simply longing for a more compassionate and honest faith, I think this conversation will resonate with you.

Run of show

00:00 Introduction and episode setup
00:53 Baptism, confession, and discomfort with the language of sin
02:53 Baptism as direction rather than perfection
04:08 Chosenness, anxiety, and black and white religion
07:07 Stages of faith and moving beyond certainty
10:10 Contemplative faith, suffering, and deeper maturity
12:26 Why the Brethren tradition feels different
13:48 Kindness, peacemaking, and giving up our rights
16:27 Reaching young adults without oversimplifying faith
20:15 What kind of church young adults are looking for
23:03 The access point to faith community
24:53 Belong, believe, and behave
27:47 Grayson reflects on reconsidering baptism
29:42 Believer’s baptism in Anabaptist and Brethren tradition
31:07 Stories of baptism and transformation
35:37 God is less interested in perfection than direction
38:29 Terry joins the conversation
38:53 Baptism as personal choice rather than rite of passage

Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool

Recorded live on Sunday mornings at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett.

Join us in person or listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Substack.
Learn more about our congregation at pleasantvalleyalive.org

In our conversation, we used a simple yet weighty definition. Religious trauma is emotional and psychological harm that can happen when religious beliefs, practices, or communities produce fear, shame, control, or distress, especially over time. The keyword there is harm. That is where the conversation has to begin.

What concerned me as we talked was the complexity and pervasiveness of religious trauma. It is not limited to any single type of church or theology. Whether a community is conservative or progressive, trauma can occur wherever rigid control, coercion, or exclusion replaces honest, humble engagement. When orthodoxy or orthopraxy becomes domination, or when belonging is conditional on conformity, the institution meant to nurture can become a source of harm. This underscores why confronting religious trauma directly is essential. For leaders, the first step can be as simple as creating space for honest feedback, inviting members to share their experiences without fear of judgment or retaliation. Reviewing existing policies and practices with an open mind, possibly with outside guidance, can also uncover hidden patterns that contribute to harm. Even a single conversation or survey can begin building a culture of awareness and care around these issues.

One of the strongest themes in our conversation was power.

We cannot talk about religious trauma without talking about power and authority. Lonnie said something important that has stayed with me since seminary. Power is a neutral reality. It is how we use it that makes it either good or not so good. That is true for pastors. It is true for professors. It is true for parents, teachers, musicians, church leaders, and really all of us in the roles we carry. The danger is not only in having power. The danger is in pretending we do not have it. If we are unaware of the power we hold, we can do real harm while telling ourselves we are simply doing our job or protecting the faith.

I encourage leaders to pause and reflect on their own relationship with power. Some questions to consider might be: When have I made decisions that affected others, and did I invite honest feedback? Have I ever dismissed someone’s concerns to maintain stability or avoid discomfort? In what ways do the structures I am part of encourage openness, and in what ways do they shut it down? How do I respond when my authority is questioned? Am I genuinely listening to those with less power, or am I protecting my own position? Honest self-reflection is the starting point for growth.

I remember learning in seminary that pastors carry power whether they recognize it or not. I have thought about that often in my own ministry. A pastor can shape atmosphere, conscience, belonging, and even a person’s imagination about God. Words from the pulpit matter. Private conversations matter. Decisions made in the name of faith matter. Handing someone a microphone is a kind of power. Choosing music is a kind of power. Setting the tone of a congregation is a kind of power. And if that power is used carelessly, manipulatively, or repeatedly in harmful ways, the consequences can run deep.

Another important distinction we made was that trauma is not the same thing as being offended.

Not every hurt feeling is trauma. Not every disagreement is abuse. But trauma does involve harm that embeds itself deeply. It often has a chronic and repetitive character. It continues to shape behavior, relationships, and even the ability to think clearly and trust again. Sometimes it can also be acute. A single devastating moment, such as having one’s credentials removed, can carry long-term consequences precisely because it lands inside a larger system of fear, pressure, exclusion, and loss.

For leaders seeking to respond compassionately, it is important to discern the difference. Offense is often situational, and while it may cause pain, its impact is typically temporary and does not fundamentally alter a person’s sense of self or their relationship with a faith community. Trauma, on the other hand, tends to leave lingering effects—such as anxiety, avoidance, deep mistrust, or changes in identity. Leaders can look for patterns: Is someone’s reaction disproportionate to the event, or is it tied to a series of experiences? Has this person withdrawn, changed their behavior, or expressed ongoing distress? Honest, empathetic conversations and inviting feedback without defensiveness can help clarify what someone is experiencing, allowing a more informed and compassionate response.

What makes religious trauma especially powerful is how comprehensive it can be.

When faith communities wound us, the injury is rarely confined to one corner of life. A person may lose not only a role, but also identity, livelihood, friendships, family ties, and a sense of spiritual safety. If the church has been the place where one made meaning, found belonging, and encountered God, then harm in that setting does not stay in one compartment. It spills over into everything. It reaches into the deepest questions of life. What do I believe? Who am I? Can I trust God? Can I trust myself? Is there any safe way to belong again?

Why this series matters to me.

I do not want the church to mask fear as faithfulness, control as discipleship, or shame as conviction. Most of all, I want us to move past defensiveness and confront the reality that church communities can and do cause deep harm. Recognizing this truth is at the core of the argument—a necessary first step toward accountability and transformation.

At the same time, I am not interested in tearing the church down.

I love the church and believe it can be a place of healing, truth, repentance, and grace. But we cannot achieve this without recognizing the unhealthy uses of power and naming the harm caused. If faith communities aspire to heal, they must learn to listen and take seriously those who have been changed by trauma. True faithfulness demands this honesty.

This first episode launches a pressing series where Lonnie and I will examine spiritual abuse, the emotional fallout of being removed from ministry for theological reasons, and the continuing effects of exclusion and persecution. According to Caroline Yih, spiritual abuse is still not clearly defined or widely understood, which makes it even more important for us to address these serious issues and work toward healthier faith communities.

My hope is not just that people will listen.

My hope is that people will reflect. That churches will become more self-aware. That pastors will become more ethically grounded. That those who have been hurt will know they are not crazy, not weak, and not alone. And that all of us might grow a little more careful about the ways we hold power in the presence of other human beings.

Faith should not have to be carried through fear.

And where fear has done its damage, I pray truth and grace can begin to do their healing work.

This conversation introduces several important themes that will shape the series ahead, including spiritual abuse, the trauma experienced by clergy who are defrocked for theological reasons rather than misconduct, and the lasting impact of persecution on faith communities. Along the way, Pastor Harry and Lonnie reflect on the role of pastors, teachers, and church leaders, the ethical weight of power in congregational life, and the need for healthier, more self-aware faith communities. This episode is a meaningful starting point for anyone who has experienced harm in religious settings or who wants to help build communities marked by wisdom, humility, and care.

00:00 Introduction to the series
04:28 Defining religious trauma
08:27 Power and authority in religious systems
12:43 Trauma versus offense
15:20 Preview of upcoming episodes
18:19 What does defrocked mean
22:14 Why people often miss their own power
31:14 Control, power, and authority in everyday life

Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool

Recorded live on Sunday mornings at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett.

Join us in person or listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Substack.
Learn more about our congregation at pleasantvalleyalive.org

Early in our talk, I shared a line I’ve heard in church all my life: “God is good all the time and all the time God is good.” Then I added something I think we need to say just as often, if not more: “God is good all of the time, but all times are not good.”

That’s not being cynical. It’s being honest. It’s a real part of pastoral life. You learn this after enough hospital visits, gravesides, hard goodbyes, and seasons when you keep working even as your heart breaks.

Audri reminded us that grief isn’t only about losing someone to death. It can be any real loss, whether it’s public or private, clear or hard to name. You can grieve a relationship, a role, a dream, changes in your body, a shift in belief, a community that no longer feels safe, or the moment you realize you can’t go back to who you were.

So grief isn’t just about death. It’s also about losses as life changes. The grief we don’t name still affects us.

We kept returning to the idea of identity and role, a theme that felt especially relevant to my own experience. Many of us are shaped by what we do—pastor, parent, son, daughter, teacher, nurse, farmer, caregiver, volunteer, leader, and more. I have found that these roles can become not just part of our daily routine but also the foundation of our self-worth, shaping how we see ourselves and how we navigate periods of change or loss.

I’ve seen this in church life, especially with people who have served faithfully for years. When their role changes and they can’t serve others anymore, grief can show up in unexpected ways. It might look like irritability, numbness, anxiety, or even unexplained tiredness and illness.

Later in the episode, someone asked Audri about retirement. I think it’s an important topic because it’s really about any big change where you leave behind a world that once defined you. The question was, “Have you ever in your study and your work seen people go into retirement and leave the workforce? Do you ever see that grief manifest itself in health issues?”

Audri did not portray grief as a simple experience; rather, she repeatedly emphasized the significance of bodily awareness, the necessity of rest, and the spiritual discipline of truth-telling. This aligns with theological understandings that regard the body as an integral part of the human person, not separate from the soul, as reflected in biblical themes of embodiment and Sabbath rest. In my experience, unaddressed grief often resurfaces through our physical health, echoing the scriptural notion that spiritual and emotional burdens can manifest in the body. In this sense, our bodies bear witness to the reality of our suffering, underscoring the holistic nature of grief as recognized within both theological reflection and pastoral care.

The church has a gift to offer people, but we sometimes forget to offer it. We are not meant to hurry along suffering; we are meant to accompany each other through it. In many congregations, this looks like support groups for grief and loss, Stephen Ministry teams who walk alongside the hurting, prayer partners, or meal trains for those in difficult seasons. If you are carrying grief, know that you do not have to bear it alone—there are people and ministries ready to sit with you in your pain.

One of the strongest moments in the conversation for me was the way Audri framed rest as part of grief work. She said, “Rest is very important to grief in the sense that I’ve heard it put, you think about grief as waves on a beach where you need to feel the grief in a wave, and then you need to allow that wave to retreat and do some kind of restoring rest.”

That image rings true for me as a pastor. Many of us let the waves of grief crash, but we don’t let them retreat. We live with constant noise, stimulation, and busyness. We rarely pause to breathe, and then we wonder why grief feels overwhelming.

I’ve seen this happen in church leadership too. We keep showing up, working, and caring for others, but we don’t take a Sabbath from our roles to let ourselves feel what we need to feel.

I said this directly in the episode because I needed to hear it myself: “If we don’t give ourselves the permission to rest or take a Sabbath from that role, then it seems like we also can’t grieve. If you don’t take a Sabbath from the role, you also can’t fully grieve whatever it is that you need to grieve.”

If you’re a caregiver, you know this. If you’re a leader, you know this. If you’re the person everyone relies on, you know this. There’s always more to do. Grief doesn’t go away just because you stay busy. It simply waits.

When I think about Sabbath, I remember it’s not just a personal wellness practice. In Scripture, Sabbath is something we do together, with our bodies, and it’s deeply spiritual. It pushes back against nonstop work and anxiety. As Walter Brueggemann notes, Sabbath functions as a form of resistance, countering a culture of endless work. With this understanding in mind, it is important to consider how such a practice can be applied in our contemporary lives, particularly as we navigate grief.

I keep thinking of it this way: Sabbath is God’s mercy woven into time. It’s a boundary that reminds you you’re not a machine. You’re not just what you produce. You are loved. And in the end, grief is the measure of how we have been loved by others and how we have loved them.

Audri brought a Scripture into the conversation that most of us will be reading in our churches soon. She said, “I think about a scripture which is going to become very relevant soon, which is the scripture from Luke 23, verse 55,” and then she walked through the scene after Jesus’ death: “They prepare the spices and perfumes, but then it is the Sabbath. And so in obedience to the commandment of the Sabbath, they can’t actually go and take the spices and perfumes to his body because they have to rest on that day.”

This line stood out to me as a model for our lives: “even in the midst of the most difficult time of stress and worry, Jesus’ followers had to practice Sabbath. They had to rest before they could prepare his body. Even when everything in them was probably screaming not to,”

Do you hear the wisdom in that?

Sometimes life hits a wall, and we can’t do what we want. We can’t fix it, speed it up, or control the outcome. We’re forced to wait. In those moments, Sabbath isn’t just a practice we choose. It becomes something we have to live through. And the resting gives up time to prepare for the grieving.

That is why Holy Saturday matters. And I have missed that day forever, it seems.

I mentioned in the episode, “And a lot of churches don’t do anything on that Saturday. And that in itself is a chance to rest.” As a pastor, I’ve felt this more and more. Sometimes we’re so eager to get to Easter that we forget about the quiet, in-between day. And its importance.

Holy Saturday is the day when the disciples didn’t know how the story would end. The body was still in the tomb. Faith felt absent, and hope felt like just a rumor. It’s a day of unresolved grief.

Moreover, some Christian writers have called attention to this, especially in seasons when the world itself feels like it is holding its breath. One reflection on Holy Saturday describes it as a day of waiting and desolation, a way of naming the space between horror and joy. Another calls Holy Saturday a day that holds grief and disappointment, and that language feels right to me. I am finding as I listen to people name their grief in honest, restful ways that healing, even physical, is close behind.

I’m not saying we should live in Holy Saturday forever. I’m saying we need to learn how to be there without panicking. Part of spiritual maturity is being able to stay present in the unresolved middle. That middle place is where many of us really live.

Another gift from Audri was the reminder that writing can be a spiritual practice, not because it makes us clever, but because it helps us tell the truth.

Audri teaches writing, and she described a simple exercise that I can picture immediately. She said, “I take a piece of paper out of the cup, and we hardly ever make it through the day.” Then she explained the point of the exercise: “the cup is a metaphor for each of us,” and “when we reach a point of exhaustion where we’re running on empty, then it’s a need to refill our cups. It’s not just something indulgent. It’s not just something that’s a reward for when we get all our stuff done. It’s actually a need.”

I love how practical and real that is. It’s not about guilt or scolding. It’s just the truth. We run out. We need to be refilled.

And then Audri shared a writing practice that I have recommended pastorally as well, one that can have profound healing results: “One of the writing exercises that I mentioned in my resource is to write a letter that you don’t have to send. And you can write that letter to someone who is gone,”

A letter you don’t send can be a safe place for feelings that are too hard to say out loud. It can hold gratitude, anger, regret, love, confusion, and sadness. It can name what you wish had happened, bless what was good, and grieve what was not.

Research shows that “Writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events has been found to result in improvements in both physical and psychological health, in non-clinical and clinical populations.” (Baikie & Wilhelm, 2018) While the research is not Scripture, I see it as another witness to a truth the church has long known: naming our pain matters.

When you put grief into words, you carry it differently. It’s not smaller or less important, but it’s something you can hold.

And then, near the end of the episode, a line that felt like a benediction. “And there is a pen or a pencil and a piece of paper waiting for you, right?”

That’s a gentle invitation—not pressure, not performance. Just an open door.

Grief comes in waves. You’re not failing when it returns. So, I want to return to the waves image for a moment, because it can help people avoid shame.

If grief comes in waves, its return doesn’t mean you’re broken or haven’t healed. It shows you loved and that something mattered. Waves come back—that’s what they do.

The goal in grieving is to not stop feeling and to learn how to live faithfully while feeling deep sadness.

That’s why Sabbath matters. It’s the space where the wave can retreat. It’s the pause where your body can relax. It’s the moment when you’re allowed to be human, not heroic.

For those who may recognize themselves in these reflections—especially if you are carrying an unnamed grief—I would like to offer some practical suggestions inspired by our conversation.

• First, you are allowed to call it grief. If it is a real loss, it is grief.

• Second, you do not have to earn rest. If you wait until everything is finished, you will never rest. As Audri said, refilling the cup “is actually a need.”

• Third, try choosing one small practice this week that lets the wave retreat. It could be a quiet walk, an hour without your phone, a nap, lighting a candle and praying, or writing a letter you don’t send.

• Fourth, don’t rush yourself from Friday to Sunday. True faith in God means living in the middle for a while. Sometimes the most faithful thing you can do is let Saturday be Saturday.

• Finally, remember this. God is good all the time. But not all times are good. Some are terrible, horrible, horrific, traumatic, and grief-inducing. If you are in a not-so-good time, you are not abandoned. You are not disqualified. You are not forgotten. You are not failing. You have no reason to be ashamed. You are simply human.

And in that humanity, there’s grace.

If you want something concrete, here’s one practice I’m going to try again myself.

Write a letter you don’t send. Start with a single sentence you’ve been afraid to say. Don’t worry about making it pretty or fair. Just tell the truth on paper.

When you’re done, read it once, slowly. Then fold it and burn it to ash, somewhere safe. Or, you can keep it, tear it up, pray over it, or come back to it later. The point isn’t what you do with it. The point is that you gave your grief a place to speak.

And maybe that is how healing begins, not with a dramatic breakthrough, but with a quiet, faithful willingness to tell the truth, and then to rest.

References:

Baikie, K. A. & Wilhelm, K. (2018). Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment. https://doi.org/10.1192/apt.11.5.338

Together, Harry and Audri widen the definition of grief beyond death to include less visible losses like shifts in belief, changing communities, aging, retirement, and the quiet ache of losing roles and identity. They explore why many of us hesitate to name these losses as grief, and how our values can get tangled up in the roles we once held.

Audri offers a gentle framework of “grief and rest” held in harmony, using the image of waves that come in and recede. You will hear concrete Sabbath practices for real life, including journaling to release what you are carrying, creating a simple ritual of “trust,” small daily moments of restoration, and writing exercises like letters you do not have to send. Harry reflects on the often overlooked Holy Saturday pause between Good Friday and Easter morning, and why that day matters when we are learning to live faithfully through loss.

Mentioned in this episode
Audri’s book: Between You and Me (available at Brethren Press)

Segment guide with timestamps

00:00 Welcome and introduction to Audri Svay
00:03 What counts as grief: roles, identity, and less visible losses
00:07 Why rest and Sabbath matter for grief processing
00:09 Practical Sabbath in grief; Luke 23 and the forced pause of rest
00:11 Writing practices for sleep, trust, and letting go
00:13 The cup metaphor; why rest belongs on the to-do list
00:18 Holy Saturday and the blessing of the pause
00:21 Community, listening, and telling the grief story
00:25 Poetry, letters, and honest writing as grief work
00:31 Retirement, identity, and the body keeping score
00:35 Closing encouragement

Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool

Recorded live on Sunday mornings at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett.

Join us in person or listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Substack.
Learn more about our congregation at pleasantvalleyalive.org

The conversation grew out of the first chapter of Let Our Joys Be Known, a Brethren heritage curriculum we’re working through together on the podcast this year. And the chapter is titled: Called to Radical Obedience.

That phrase alone is worth pausing on.

A River, a Crime, and a Choice

In 1708, Alexander Mack and seven young adults waded into the Eder River in Germany and baptized one another as believing adults. What strikes me every time I revisit this story is not just the spiritual significance of that act, it’s the sheer audacity of it. In that time and place, adult baptism was illegal. It was not a mild eccentricity or a minor liturgical disagreement. It was an act that could bring persecution, imprisonment, or worse.

Grayson pointed out something I think we easily miss when we read this story from the comfort of 2026: the region where Mack and his companions lived had changed its official state religion five times in the previous century. Five times, people were told that the religion they were expected to practice had changed, not because of their own searching or conviction, but because of who happened to be in power. Faith, as far as the state was concerned, was a census tool. Infant baptism wasn’t just a theological rite; it was how the government counted citizens, tracked families, and eventually conscripted soldiers. To refuse it was not merely a private matter of conscience. It was a disruption to the machinery of the empire.

And Mack and his little band knew all of this. They stepped into the river anyway.

The Pietist Heart Behind the Act

What drove them? I think it helps to understand the Pietist movement that had been forming these early Brethren. The Pietists weren’t simply rebels. They were people longing for something more alive, more real, more embodied than what the state church was offering. They wanted intensive Bible study not as an academic exercise, but as a living encounter with God. They wanted faith practiced in daily life, not just performed in formal settings. They wanted the inner life of faith and the outer working of it to be inseparable. As the Letter of James puts it, “faith without works is dead.”

They also, and I find this fascinating as a pastor, wanted more edifying preaching instead of rhetoric about doctrinal disputes. When I read that aloud in our conversation, I caught myself wondering whether my own congregation might nod at that one. There’s always the temptation in ministry to address the theological chess match rather than the actual hungers of the people in the pews.

But the Pietists also added something important that shaped the early Brethren: they wanted lay activity. They didn’t want faith to belong exclusively to the professionals and the credentialed clergy. Every believer had a role in the community of discernment. And I think that’s part of why the movement that became the Church of the Brethren felt so threatening to those in power, because it distributed authority in a way that systems of control simply cannot tolerate.

Counting the Cost, Then and Now

What moved me most in our conversation was Grayson’s observation that, for the early Brethren, the Bible itself became a kind of anchor in a sea of constant change. When everything around you has shifted, kings, official religions, national allegiances, the one thing that stays the same is your relationship to God’s word and what you believe it requires of you. In some ways, their radical obedience was not only a theological statement; it was also an act of profound stability.

And that raises the question I kept wanting to push back to Grayson, and to all of us: what is radical obedience for us, in this moment?

I shared a little of my own story in the conversation that, as a young adult, I was drawn deeply into the Anabaptist and Mennonite tradition, and that there was this burning interior desire to be faithful to Jesus no matter what it cost. I was captivated by these movements of people who went all-in, who didn’t hedge, who let the fire of obedience reshape their entire lives. That kind of discipleship still inspires me. It still keeps me up at night, figuratively speaking, because nothing keeps me up at night, in the best possible way.

But I’ve also learned, and I feel this more with every passing year of ministry, that the desire for radical obedience must be held alongside something equally essential: humility. Because here is the uncomfortable truth that the Brethren story also teaches us: the state church that opposed Alexander Mack also believed it was following God. The authorities who labeled these early believers as heretics were, many of them, sincere people who were certain of their own righteousness. Both sides were reading the same scriptures. Both sides were convinced of their faithfulness.

The Great Schism of 1054, the Reformation, and the countless fractures within Christianity all share this same painful feature: people on opposing sides, each reading the Bible and arriving at incompatible conclusions, each believing God is on their side.

Being on the Right Side of History

Grayson asked a question near the end of our conversation that I think is one of the most important we can ask: Were they on the right side of history? And the follow-up: how do we know if we are?

I believe Alexander Mack and his companions made the right choice. I believe that stepping into that river, in defiance of a state that had conflated its own authority with God’s, was an act of genuine faithfulness. But I also know that in 1708, only eight people agreed with them. And even the most righteous historical movement has had people in it who did the wrong thing, said the wrong thing, or hurt people they shouldn’t have hurt.

This is why I keep coming back to the combination that I think marks genuine radical obedience: a willingness to count the cost, and a willingness to remain teachable. To say, “I believe this deeply enough to suffer for it,” and also, “I could be wrong, and I will keep listening.” To hold both of those together is one of the hardest things in the Christian life.

I think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom I mentioned in our conversation. I believe he really knew that the cost of the civil rights movement might be his life. And I don’t think he would have done anything differently to avoid it. That kind of faithfulness moves me in ways I find hard to articulate. I want that. I want, if someone reads my story two hundred years from now, for them to be able to say: he did the right thing.

But I also want them to be able to say: he did it with love. Even for those who opposed him. Even for those he disagreed with deeply.

A Living Question

We are, right now, in a moment very much like the ones we’ve been reading about. There are people protesting, resisting, and speaking out. There are people on one side of the church saying, yes, that is exactly what Jesus calls us to do, and people on the other side saying, no, that is a profound mistake. Both sides are reading the Bible. Both sides believe they are being faithful.

I don’t think the answer to that tension is to retreat into passivity, to shrug and say “who can know?” I think there is such a thing as being on the right side of history. And I think the work of faith is to be honest enough with ourselves, humble enough before God, and brave enough in community to discern where that is and then to act.

The early Brethren inspire me to act. The long history of Christians who were absolutely certain they were right, and who were later judged to have been absolutely wrong, keeps me humble.

That is the tension I want to live in. Not comfortably, but faithfully.

If this conversation stirred something in you, I’d encourage you to keep processing it with a friend, in your church community, in the pages of your journal, on Substack or stop by my office sometime for coffee. That’s what Faith in Process is all about. And it’s what Alexander Mack and those seven remarkable people were doing when they walked toward a river in 1708 and changed the course of history.

This reflection is based on the first episode of our 13-part series on Let Our Joys Be Known: A Brethren Heritage Curriculum for Adults by Richard B. Gardner and Kenneth M. Schaffer. You can find the full podcast episode here. The previous sermon series can be found here.

What would it take to follow Jesus if it were illegal?

Travel back to 1708, when Alexander Mack and seven others stepped into the Eder River in Germany to baptize one another as adults. This act was not just symbolic. It defied both church and state. In a world where infant baptism functioned as a civic registry tied to taxation and military service, choosing believer’s baptism carried real social, economic, and political consequences.

Harry and Grayson explore:

• Why this act of baptism was considered dangerous
• How Pietism shaped the Brethren’s emphasis on Bible study, lay leadership, and lived faith
• The tension between Luke 14 and Matthew’s call to love God above all
• The cost of dissent in a church-state system
• What “counting the cost” means for young adults today navigating money, vocation, and meaning

This conversation moves beyond history. It asks whether radical obedience still has a place in a culture of distraction and financial pressure. What does it mean to prioritize Christ when everything else competes for attention?

Recorded live at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia, this episode launches a 13-part series examining the theological callings that have shaped the Brethren for more than three centuries.

If your faith is still forming, still questioning, still becoming, you are in the right place.

Welcome to the process.

Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool

Recorded live on Sunday mornings at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett.

Join us in person or listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Substack.
Learn more about our congregation at pleasantvalleyalive.org

It wasn’t just a catchy tune for children. It was theology. It was a ministry. It was, as Fred himself understood it, a radical invitation to a different way of being in the world.

And right now, in the frozen streets of Minneapolis and in communities across this nation, that question is being answered in powerful ways that should make every follower of Jesus sit up and pay attention.

The Birth of Neighborism

Journalist Adam Serwer recently coined the term “neighborism” to describe what’s happening in Minneapolis: a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. It’s not activism in the traditional sense. It’s something deeper, something more elemental.

It’s ordinary people deciding that they won’t let their neighbors be hunted.

As Serwer observed, these are communities of people who say, “You are my neighbor whether you were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. You are my neighbor, and I’m going to protect you. I’m going to walk your kids to the bus stop because I know you can’t go outside. I’m going to bring you food if you need to stay at home”.

In my recent conversation with Dr. Scott Holland, Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies at Bethany Theological Seminary, we explored this very question: What does it mean to be good neighbors in times of political division, immigration enforcement, and social upheaval?

Scott shared a striking narrative: One woman at the Minneapolis protests, when asked how she got involved in activism, said simply, “I’m not so sure that I am involved in activism. I think I’m involved in neighborism. I’m simply here to be a good neighbor.”

That distinction matters.

The Secret Fear of the Depraved

Serwer wrote something that cuts to the bone: “The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone”.

Think about that. What if goodness isn’t rare? What if loving your neighbor isn’t naive idealism but the most natural response of people who haven’t had their humanity stripped away?

What we’re seeing in Minneapolis is proof that neighborism works. Despite the rhetoric of fear and the machinery of enforcement, people are choosing solidarity over safety, connection over compliance. They’re living out what Jeremy Jernigan calls “an inherent struggle against any system that oppresses people”.

And here’s what should terrify us as the church: These acts of radical neighborliness are happening with or without us.

Mr. Rogers and the Radical Act of Foot Washing

Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. His show was his ministry. And one of the most powerful sermons he ever preached, he preached without saying a word.

In 1969, at the height of racial segregation and swimming pool integration conflicts, Mr. Rogers invited Officer Clemmons, a Black man, to cool his feet in a small wading pool alongside his own, and then shared a towel with him. Twenty-four years later, in Officer Clemmons’ final appearance, they recreated the scene.

But here’s what many miss: The scene was recreated in 1993, and in that final episode together, Mr. Rogers didn’t just hand Officer Clemmons a towel; he helped dry his feet. As Clemmons recalled in interviews, “As I was getting out of that tub, he was helping me dry my feet.”

This act was intentional. Both Rogers and Clemmons, as Christians, understood the biblical reference to Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. It was John 13 lived out on public television.

That’s neighborism. That’s what it looks like when you take Jesus seriously.

How Did We Get So Far From This?

I find myself asking this question constantly these days: How has the Christian church strayed so far from Jesus’ explicit mandate to love God with all our heart and soul AND to love our neighbor as ourselves?

As scholar Bart Ehrman argues in his forthcoming book on altruism, this sense of moral obligation to strangers in need wasn’t part of the human DNA, nor did it exist in ancient Greek or Roman civilization. The impulse to help strangers became part of our modern moral conscience, Ehrman contends, because of the teachings of Jesus.

In other words, Jesus literally changed the moral fabric of Western civilization by centering the neighbor.

And yet, here we are. A world where Disney posts a prompt asking for Disney quotes that sum up how people are feeling, gets flooded with responses about resisting tyranny and protecting the vulnerable, and then deletes the entire post. Quotes from their own movies. Because apparently, standing against injustice is now too controversial.

As Jernigan asks, “If Disney’s deleted post bothers you, how much more should it bother us when a church decides not to allow these conversations?”

Too many churches have decided that loving our neighbors is divisive. That protecting the vulnerable is political. That following Jesus might make people uncomfortable.

We’ve chosen theoretical neighbors over actual neighbors. We’ve chosen the comfort of our buildings over the chaos of the streets. We’ve chosen to be “nice” instead of good.

The Church of the Brethren and the 318 Year Experiment

This is precisely why I’m part of the Church of the Brethren.

For over 300 years, since 1708 when eight radicals were baptized in the Eder River in Germany, the Brethren have been committed to a simple, dangerous idea: Jesus intended for his followers a different kind of life, one based on peaceful action, plain and compassionate living, and a shared search for truth.

Our founder, Alexander Mack, stated firmly: “No [Ana]Baptist will be found in war”. And we haven’t been. Through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, both World Wars, and every conflict since, Brethren have maintained our peace witness, often at great cost.

But our peace witness isn’t just about refusing war. The Church of the Brethren has grown in its understanding of the complexity of violence beyond warfare to include economic, spiritual, emotional, and physical violence. Today, the church seeks peace as not merely the opposite of war, but as a system where all of God’s creation is given just treatment.

That’s neighborism.

Our denominational motto is beautifully simple: Continue the work of Jesus. Peacefully. Simply. Together.

Those aren’t just nice words. They’re a 300-year-old commitment to being the kind of people who protect our neighbors, who wash feet, who stand between the vulnerable and those who would harm them.

What Neighborism Looks Like in Practice

Scott Holland shared with me the story of Fred Rogers’ connection to Pittsburgh, where Scott now has an office not far from Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. After Fred Rogers’ death, Presbyterian churches in Pittsburgh installed peace poles in his memory.

But neighborism isn’t just about monuments. It’s about daily choices.

The Brethren have a long history of this:

• In 1983, Brethren churches were declared sanctuaries for Central American refugees

• In 1986, the Church of the Brethren opposed investing in any company doing business in apartheid South Africa

• Through organizations like On Earth Peace, Brethren have trained thousands in Kingian nonviolence

• Through Brethren Volunteer Service, we’ve sent workers around the world to serve neighbors near and far

This isn’t about being heroes. It’s about being faithful.

As the prophet Jeremiah told the exiles in Babylon: Seek the peace of the city where you find yourself, for in its peace you will find your peace (Jeremiah 29:7).

The Call to Join the 318 Year Effort

I want to extend an invitation.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “This is what church should be,” consider joining us. The Church of the Brethren isn’t perfect. We’re messy, we’re struggling with many of the same questions every denomination faces. But at our core, we remain committed to this radical neighborism that Jesus modeled and Fred Rogers reminded us of.

We need people who understand that loving your neighbor means deciding that everyone is your neighbor and committing to protecting anyone who needs it.

We need people who understand that your neighbors are the people of Minnesota, even if you live in another state or another country. Your neighbors are the undocumented people living in proximity to you. Your neighbor is the person being targeted and singled out by those in power.

We need people who, like Mr. Rogers, understand that ministry happens when we ask, with genuine care: Won’t you be my neighbor?

Living the Questions Together

In my conversation with Scott, I confessed my confusion and struggle with everything happening right now. How do we navigate such complex issues? How do we know we’re on the right side of history?

Scott’s response was both challenging and freeing: “These are not easy answers for these difficult questions. They’re really calls and challenges to continue living the questions and living into the questions, and also living into our relationships with others.”

He reminded me that the early Anabaptists said we are “baptized to join a struggle.” This work isn’t easy. It won’t always be clear. There will be disagreement even among people of good faith.

But as Scott quoted Walt Whitman: If we want to see a deep democracy in society, equality, justice, freedom, dignity for our neighbors, we must first cultivate a democracy of the soul.

That’s what church is for. Not to give us all the answers, but to help us cultivate that democracy of soul. To remind us of what we already know but too easily forget. To practice together what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The Intangible Dreams That Change the World

Scott shared a powerful quote from James Baldwin: “The intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world”.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream speech, the one Mahalia Jackson encouraged him to share at the March on Washington, literally changed America. Not because it was a policy paper, but because it was a dream, a vision of neighborism so compelling that people couldn’t help but work toward it.

Fred Rogers had a dream, too. A simple one: What if we treated children (and really, all people) with the dignity, respect, and unconditional love they deserve? What if we helped everyone realize they are unique and valuable exactly as they are?

Critics called him soft. They said he created a generation of narcissists. FOX News even called him “an evil, evil man” who “ruined a generation”.

But neuroscience now proves that warm, sensitive relationships and healthy environments with maximized interpersonal interactions have a significantly positive impact on the infant brain, laying a foundation for intelligible, healthy, productive future decisions.

Love works. Neighborism works. Jesus was right.

The Story Happening Around Us

As Jernigan writes, “Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out why almost all of our great stories involve people standing up to corrupt governments to protect others, yet countless people seem to be missing this reality when it’s right in front of our faces in real life”.

Can you see the story happening around us?

The people of Minneapolis are living out Star Wars, Harry Potter, and every great story we’ve ever told. They’re the ones who decided that some things are worth standing for, even when it’s cold, even when it’s risky, even when the powers that be would prefer they stay home.

And the question for the church for every person who claims to follow Jesus is simple:

Will we join them?

Will we be neighbors?

Or will we be the religious leaders who walk past on the other side of the road, muttering about how complicated it all is while someone bleeds in the ditch?

A Beautiful Day in This Neighborhood

Every episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood began the same way: “It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine?”

That question, “Would you be mine? Could you be mine?” isn’t passive. It’s an invitation to a relationship, to commitment, to the hard work of being in community with people who are different from us.

The Church of the Brethren has been answering “yes” to that question for over 300 years. Through persecution in Europe, through the wilderness of Pennsylvania, through every war and conflict this nation has faced, through the civil rights movement, through apartheid, through the refugee crises of our time.

We’re not perfect at it. God knows we’ve failed and will fail again. But we keep showing up, keep trying, keep washing feet and breaking bread and standing with the vulnerable.

Because that’s what Jesus did. And we’re committed simply, peacefully, together to continuing his work.

So I’ll ask you the same question Fred Rogers asked millions of children, and that Jesus asks each of us:

Won’t you be my neighbor?

The world is desperate for people who will answer yes.

If you want to learn more about the Church of the Brethren’s peace witness and work of neighborism, visit brethren.org or reach out to your local congregation. If you want to explore training in Kingian nonviolence and peacemaking, check out On Earth Peace.

And if you want to hear the full conversation with Scott Holland about faith, peace, and being good neighbors in complex times, consider pledging $5/month to support this podcast. Your support makes these conversations possible.

Drawing inspiration from Fred Rogers’ ministry of neighborliness, Scott reframes activism as neighboring—a practice of loving our neighbors as ourselves, even when we disagree on solutions. The discussion tackles pressing questions: What does the way of Jesus look like amid ICE raids in Minneapolis? How do we cultivate a “democracy of the soul” in our divided democracy? How can we move beyond doctrine to create cultures of peace?

This episode offers no easy answers but provides thoughtful guidance for processing faith in the real world. Scott and Harry explore the tension between different visions of peace, the power of prophetic imagination, the importance of wonder and empathy, and practical ways to engage in peacemaking—from contacting representatives to being present with those who are threatened.

Whether you’re confused, concerned, or searching for faithful next steps, this conversation offers wisdom from the Church of the Brethren peace tradition, insights from thinkers like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Walt Whitman, and an invitation to continue “living the questions” together.

Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool

Recorded live on Sunday mornings at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett.

Join us in person or listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Substack.
Learn more about our congregation at pleasantvalleyalive.org

What does it mean to truly embody God consciousness in our everyday lives? In this organic, unscripted conversation, hosts Harry and Millard dive deep into the contrasts between ego consciousness and God consciousness—exploring how Jesus modeled a nonviolent, loving, and persuasive way of being that stands apart from the dominant cultural paradigms we navigate today.

Millard frames the discussion around “the end times”—but not in the way you might expect. Instead of apocalyptic predictions, the conversation shifts to examining how we think, act, and relate to power and politics through the lens of faith. From the founding principles of the American republic to the challenges of living faithfully in a culture driven by self-interest and disinformation, the discussion raises critical questions about what it means to follow the way of Jesus in any political or social context.

Harry responds with his own perspective: that followers of Jesus are called to live as “salt and light” in every culture and system, embodying the timeless principles of the kingdom of God rather than pledging ultimate allegiance to any earthly nation or government. The conversation touches on virtue, shared facts, and whether America’s founding ideals align with—or fall short of—the kingdom Jesus proclaimed.

This episode is more conversational and exploratory than usual, so we’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a comment or email us with your reflections as you continue processing these themes in your own life.

Topics explored:

• Ego consciousness vs. God consciousness

• The nature of God as love and nonviolence

• Living out Jesus’ way in different political systems

• American civic principles and their relationship to faith

• The enduring nature of the kingdom of God

Faith in Process: Sunday’s Cool

Recorded live on Sunday mornings at Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Hosted by Pastor Harry Jarrett.

Join us in person or listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or Substack.
Learn more about our congregation at pleasantvalleyalive.org