Tag: confession

EPS 46: Community Life and The Power of Confession (part 2)

As promised this is the part 2 with Tammy Perlmutter about Communal Life. Below are photos from Tammy.

To hear PART 1, click HERE.

Listeners asked questions about the particulars of communal life and I had questions too. Tammy and I recorded another episode and we also discuss the terrifying and powerful concept and discipline of confession in a way you may not have heard before.

This is a good one!

• Scroll for the detailed show notes by the minute, and please, please, please, share this episode with others!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:42 — 69.6MB) | Embed

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Show Notes

Tammy Perlmutter is a talented creator who lives (along with her husband and daughter) with the intentional community of Jesus People USA, a commune of Christians that dates back over 40 years.

tammy

MIN 2:
Q: What is the hardest part about living in community for people who first come to live with you?

MIN 4:
Q: How does the “common purse’ work? Can you make your own money and keep it for things you want to do or must everything you make go into the common purse?

MIN 8:
Q: How are conflicts dealt with?

MIN 10:
Q: How do shared meals, food, and cleaning work?

MIN 13:
Q: Personally, what is the hardest part about living in community and what’s the best part?

MIN 15:
Q: What are the main challenges and needs within the communal setting?

MIN 17:
Our Lady of the Mississippi Abby, Dubuque, Iowa.

Being an oblate near Chicago.

ladyofMissi

MIN 21:
On being downwardly mobile and simplifying things, and considering the essentials in our lives and relationships.

MIN 26:
On why Tammy started writing.

MIN 30:
Cornerstone Magazine 

MIN 32:30
Explaining “the gift of going first”

MIN 37:30
“Confession feels like a fever breaking.” (Lisa)

Jean Vanier

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

MIN 39: The power of confession to create breakthroughs.

“Confession is discipleship.”

Creating trust and community.

Depression and sin dissipate when exposed to community and life together.

MIN 44:
Tammy’s final thoughts on community. Being, not just doing.

MIN 48:
The invitation to those of us not living in communal situations.

PHOTO COLLAGE from TAMMY:

Jesus People USA is a self-sustaining , tent-making community. We support our home, church, and ministries through businesses we have created.

Jesus People USA: A church & an intentional community, living together, creating a place to discover who you are and to be challenged to live an authentic life in Christ.

Wilson Abbey: Community. Faith. Art. Concert venue, theater, art gallery, conference center in Uptown, Chicago.

JPUSA Internships: 3-12 month internships in specific businesses and ministries.

Group Missions: Bring your small group, church, youth group, family!

Cornerstone Community Outreach: Homeless shelter

The Rummage Room: A re-sale boutique whose proceeds go entirely towards Cornerstone Community Outreach.

Uptown Tent City: Providing protection, support, and material needs for homeless living under the viaducts in Uptown.

Zeppelin Design Labs: Avant-Garde Audio and Electronic Products.

Grrr Records:The home of Glenn Kaiser, GKB, The Crossing, Leper, Aracely, Exegesis, Resurrection Band (aka Rez), Anti-World System, and many others.

Everybody’s Coffee: Professionally-trained baristas devoted to making delicious, soul-warming, fresh brewed fair-trade coffee and urban artisan baked goods.

 

Nine3Nine Creative: A web and graphic design business doing top quality, cutting edge work. 

Belly Acres Designs: High-quality screen printing.
Deeply Rooted: A Gathering. A one-day faith and creativity gathering in Chicago for women, taking place in May and November.
 
Photos:
#1 Worship

#2 Fellowship

#3 Work

#4 Social Justice

#5 Art

#6 Music

1.JPWorshipCollage

2.

JPFellowshipCollage

3.JPFellowshipCollage

4.JPJusticeCollage

5.

JPArtCollage

6. JPMusicCollage

Dear listener,

What did you think about this episode?

• Have you too been guilty of ditching situations, relationships, and people when things get messy, uncomfortable, or inconvenient?

• What has helped you live a more authenticity community-minded life?

• You can share your thoughts at the Spark My Muse group page here.
If this topic interests you, listen to the episode with activist Shane Claiborne who started the intentional inner city community in Philadelphia called The Simple Way. HEAR that here. 

HOW Confession Heals

hearseesayOne aspect of the pre-Easter season (Lent) is confession…

Well, not really. The majority of Evangelicals avoid or ignore the command to confess and even the concept of confession. One great excuse is that we don’t have to be like Catholics who have to answer to a priest for our sins and then do penance. We don’t need a mediator between us and God. How empowering!

But, ignoring or avoiding confession also gives us a chance to hide in our sin and deceive ourselves and others…hum…not so empowering! That’s like putting our soul in jail.

True and thorough Healing and transformation come in and from the context of community.

Jame 5:16
International Standard Version (©2012)
Therefore, make it your habit to confess your sins to one another and to pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

But –Why would confessing heal us?

There is a kind of cleansing that happens in confession. That’s why it’s not optional. It’s not just a purge from our end either.

Revealing ourselves to others has transformative power. Thousands of 12 Step followers will tell you countless tales of life-altering transformation that came through this route.

Simply put–God purposefully makes healing real and possible when authenticity happens with others. It will not happen on our own. This is by design because it makes us healthier to be connected in such a way.

There are no AA groups with 1 member because that would ensure failure. Healing works the same way for all us in that regard. Isolation keeps us stuck and unwell. Blind.

The Holy Spirit uses our honesty and uses our transparency and does his good work. Transformation! A confession is not just an apology (“Hey, sorry I made you feel that way.”) but rather it’s a careful decision to be authentic, to expose one’s self to the light of truth, to change, and to take a new course. So it is blessed.

This is the power and efficacy of prayer and repentance.

 

In the next post I’ll cover who we should or could confess to…

Do you think it matters who we confess to? (leave me a comment or voicemail)

Do you confess your sins and shortcomings regularly? (leave me a comment or voicemail. Yes or no and why or why not.)

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LASTLY- Is there anything you should confess? You are invited to do that here, or simply admit to confessing to some other human here (if you want to confess in another venue).

photo image found here:

Path to Porn..for women (part 1)

(click image for photo source)

Confession: I recently viewed porn. It’s not the first time.

And so have you.

Porn: noun
1 pornography.
2 television programs, books, etc., regarded as catering to a voyeuristic or obsessive interest in a specified subject.

In this case, it was clips from a primetime television show on NBC, not graphic and explicit sexual content. But, porn has much to do with lacking purity, and self-discipline. I wasn’t interested in either at the time. It doesn’t matter how graphic it was or wasn’t, I picked a path.

I know it’s a common path, so I’m starting a post series on porn, to get the topic out in the open. You’ve seen porn. Of course you have. That’s just simple statistics. The only thing in question is for how long, or how often…but far more importantly, why are you, and are you hiding it, and do you feel stuck or trapped? Well, the gig is up.

7 Reasons this porn stuff is a typical situation:
• Television/especially cable/dish/satillite

• Smart phones/phone with internet access or image viewing capabilities

• Internet…duh. It’s got to be reason # 1. (plenitude of images & privacy to do as one pleases=lack of discipline.)

• Over-Sexualized culture/media, especially in advertising

• Plentiful supply normalizes or excuses inappropriate or damaging behavior/habits.

• Video games/books/products

• Cultural Idolization of beauty, youth, virility, and social acceptance.

We’ll get into the heart of the issue, behaviorally, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and find some ways to detour this path that will damage us and our relationships. We’ll help each other out, okay?

I will speak from my purview, as a women. We live in a time that is highly visual, tied to fantasy, that supplies huge amounts of voyeuristic material. It’s not something mostly “men do” (look at or participate in). Women do too.

However, I challenge you men reading to cover this topic in the next two weeks in a post or post series, or at least link to this post to support bringing this topic to light.

And ladies reading today, I challenge you to take on this topic, too, not as something that you wish guys wouldn’t do, etc., but as something that somehow effects your life somehow personally, and convicts you to somehow find a better way.

Often “Literature” and Story/Fantasy are like gateway drugs to this type of porn for women…I wrote a bit about this sort of thing in a past article, 5 Reasons I Don’t Read (Christian) Chick Books. 

Confess what trips you up.

Coming up in the next post…thoughts, feelings, and reasons you and I try the Path to Porn.

In later posts, we’ll work together to discover some resources to help and guide us: detours from the path. 

But, here’s the question for today: What particular vehicle makes porn all too accessible for you or someone in your life? Anonymous comments are always welcomed.

Oneness/Unity (Flow Chart)

I snapped this photo of a white board at Evangelical Seminary on Tuesday. I think a Marriage and Family Therapy class was in before I got there.

The word unity can be used for oneness here.

Really absorb the elements of this visual. What do you notice?

It seems the path diverges at choice. Reflection and Confession can be chosen over blame. The result is restoration and forgiveness instead of isolation and brokeness.

It’s a lesson I need. It’s a lesson I have to impart to my kids.

What are Your thoughts?

Lay Your Burden Down.

"self-portrait"

Does this look like a helpless ass, to you? To be honest, it looks like me.

Today, I had an insightful time of devotional reading and prayer. I was convicted to lay my burdens down. I hadn’t properly realized how heavy my load of worries has been.

After I gave them to God to carry, I noticed how exhausting it has been to leverage them. My epiphany: I can be inadvertently as stubborn and pathetic as an overburdened ass, to the point where my load masters me.

Maybe you need to find some relief too.

There are about 20 days until Easter (Resurrection Sunday). The time is ripe to take a potent inventory of your worries, sins, and burdens. You are tired. You are more tired than you know. Don’t be stubborn, like me. Relent and give up your load.

Be encouraged–right now as you read this–to really take a two or three minutes to be aware of the weight and hardship of your current load.

For a minute, picture all of that as a huge backpack or bundle (see photo below for visual inspiration). Ask yourself: What are my burdens? Ask: Why am I carrying them so long?

Do you want relief?

female porter sherpa, mountain climbing

Accept God’s relief.

Now, put down your load. Put it all the way down. Try to stay with that visual image, and pray about it. What would you like to tell God?
What have you sensed in this short time of thinking about it?
And, what, if anything, is God prompting you to do?

Will you follow your savior up the mountain, and give up your load?

God’s strength and forgiveness is critical for us to recognize and accept. It is our saving grace. What a cathartic gift it is to lay our burdens down. Remember the joy of your salvation today.

Today’s verse for prayer reflection:
Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. -Jesus, the Christ

 

Feel free to share your thoughts, insights, reflections, random comments, or silly observations. We’re in this together. May your day be blessed.