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"At the Threshold" is a podcast for ministry leaders during this new, unsettled season in the life of the Church. Join hosts the Revs. Ashlee Alley Crawford and Shelly Petz as they host a conversation with and for clergy to describe what’s happening, ask questions to help us get “unstuck," and encourage the heart of pastors and leaders in this liminal time in which we find ourselves. The hosts' goal is to find a little light at the threshold.podcast weblog
Episodes
Wednesday Nov 18, 2020
Health, Habits, and Hibernation: Bonus Episode
Wednesday Nov 18, 2020
Wednesday Nov 18, 2020
In this bonus episode, Ashlee and Shelly share a little bit about how they navigate some of their own health challenges during this season. Ashlee shares a framework for a Rule of Life and Shelly shares about her own experiences in the last few months.
Wednesday Nov 18, 2020
Health, Habits, and Hibernation: Connecting our bodies with our discipleship
Wednesday Nov 18, 2020
Wednesday Nov 18, 2020
This episode is about something that may be challenging: our personal health. Talking about our personal health is just that, personal. It requires vulnerability, courage and invites us to listen to our bodies. Our bodies are the vehicles that God’s given us to move about in the world and it’s often really hard for us to make peace with those bodies. And since our bodies, minds, and souls are all connected, as we grow in health with one, we move toward health in all. Caring for our physical bodies really is an aspect of our discipleship. Today’s conversation is with Rev. Cindy Watson, Rev. Dr. Lisa Wiens Thompson, and Rev. Dennis Livingston who share their stories who invite us to consider how our bodies are a blessing, how we steward them, and share some practical ways that we can take care of them.
Monday Nov 02, 2020
Bridging the Divide: Ministry in Divisive Times
Monday Nov 02, 2020
Monday Nov 02, 2020
Our culture is hotly divided on many different issues, and this division comes at a cost to us in the Church. When we read scripture, we are encouraged to “keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” and see how the Church is connected to one another as the Body of Christ. We even read in John 17 where Jesus prays that all believers would be “one … so that the world would know” that Jesus was sent by the Father.
Our unity — or lack of it — is a witness to Jesus’ work in the world. As the Church we send confusing messages to those who are watching because of how Christians are representing diverse viewpoints. Today’s conversation invites us to consider how we can engage in difficult conversations in our local churches.
Rev. Nancy Lambert, director of Clergy Excellence and assistant to the bishop for the Great Plains Conference, joins Shelly and Ashlee to share about the invitation offered to Rev. Dr. Leah Schade, to join the clergy in the upcoming Orders and Fellowship event. Schade is the assistant professor of preaching and worship at Lexington Theological Seminary in Lexington, Kentucky, and is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Her book, Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide, which came out in 2019, explores how clergy and churches can address controversial social issues using nonpartisan, biblically centered approaches and deliberative dialogue.
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
Theological Foundations in an Unsettled Season
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
This third episode in a three-part series, “Back to School: Theology 101,” focuses on the Church, with a “big C.” By that, we mean the Body of Christ, the believers across the world and in our own congregations. Our individual churches — little “c” — are experiencing disruption as we can’t gather in ways that we’re used to gathering. We’ve invited two early church scholars, Dr. Amy Oden and Rev. Austin Rivera to join us to help us look behind us in order to look ahead to a future with hope.
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Theology 101: Psalms and Lament
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
Tuesday Sep 22, 2020
This is the second in a three-part series, “Back to School: Theology 101,” where we are looking at theological concerns during this season of pandemic. Grief is a part of the human experience, but typically the entire world isn’t grieving all at once. Our guest today acknowledges this grief and the soul shaping aspects of this season by pointing us to the worship book of the ancients, the Psalms. Dr. Kris Kvam, professor of Theology at Saint Paul School of Theology in Greater Kansas City and Oklahoma City, guides us through some painful and healing words of scripture that point toward a faithful witness of God in these turbulent times.
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Theology 101: Foundations in an Unsettled Season
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Monday Sep 14, 2020
Theological Foundations in an Unsettled Season — The first in a 3-part series, this conversation names some of the questions that are facing Christians in these unsettling times. The local church has been brought into the headlines of the pandemic in several notable ways—namely, whether churches should/can be restricted from meeting and even the role of churches in the earliest spread of the virus through funerals, weddings, and worship. These scenarios reveal something about our theology of the church, and of God. In this conversation, we invite Dr. Jackson Lashier and Rev. Dr. Jonathan Redding to help us tease out some of the theological foundations that point toward a faithful witness of God in these turbulent times.
Monday Aug 31, 2020
Discerning Spiritual Direction in a Season of Uncertainty
Monday Aug 31, 2020
Monday Aug 31, 2020
Our topic today is Discerning Spiritual Direction in a Season of Uncertainty. The practice of spiritual direction is an act of paying attention to God in an intentional way. It’s always a good idea to cultivate a relationship with a spiritual director, but if ever there was a time to do so, this season of uncertainty and possibility is it! Some may call it spiritual companioning or spiritual friendship, but the key elements in spiritual direction are attending to the presence, the activity, and the Voice of God in one’s life through the gentle direction of another. We hear from three trained spiritual directors— Rev. Dr. Connie Wilson, Rev. Steve Griffith, and Matthew Johnson — who speak to the power of attending to God’s presence, leaning into the solitude and vulnerability of this season, and find partners who can hold safe space for us as we navigate new possibilities.
Tuesday Aug 25, 2020
Material Poverty in the Midst of a Pandemic
Tuesday Aug 25, 2020
Tuesday Aug 25, 2020
This episode's topic invites us to dig beneath the surface on those who are experiencing poverty of material resources in this season of economic and health insecurity in which people with little financial insulation are finding themselves struggling for material resources. Those who are experiencing this are our neighbors. They are our family and friends. They are us. We hear from two people who can help us see those who may be invisible and discuss ways that we might be able to share hope in tangible ways: Rev. Kalaba Chali, the Conference Mercy and Justice Coordinator and Rev. Marcee Binder, the newly appointed Mission Outreach and Justice Ministries Coordinator for the Missouri River District.
This episode debuted on Aug. 13, 2020.
Friday Jul 31, 2020
The Church as an Educational Partner
Friday Jul 31, 2020
Friday Jul 31, 2020
This conversation is the second of a two part series about education. As we shared previously, the Founder of the Methodist Movement, John Wesley, thought that one of the ways that society could be re-formed was through education for all (Listen to our last conversation here). Because of Wesley’s emphasis on instructing children both at home and in formal schools, hundreds of schools, colleges, and universities were founded and the influence of Sunday School in the US and England took root. We are privileged today to have National Teacher of the Year, Tabatha Rosproy, Early Childhood Educator who directs a preschool in a nursing home in Winfield, KS and Dr. Tawana Grover, superintendent of schools at Grand Island (NE) Public Schools. Since March, they have navigated the educational challenges that have emerged during the Coronavirus. They share about their experiences in this challenging season and identify ways that churches can partner to support this important work on behalf of our children.
Tuesday Jul 28, 2020
Children's Ministry in Liminal Time
Tuesday Jul 28, 2020
Tuesday Jul 28, 2020
In recent years, Christian Education has often been left in the hands of church leaders. In the disrupted season in which we now find ourselves, churches and families are trying to figure out how to partner together to spiritually form their children in ways that are new and different than before the stress of a pandemic, economic difficulties, social injustices, and uncertainty shifted the day-to-day of “normal” life.
This episode explores the spiritual needs of parents and children during this season of the coronavirus crisis, ways that families can engage in discipleship together, and what churches can do in terms of outreach, mission, evangelism, and discipleship during this season. Shelly and Ashlee are joined by Rev. Melissa Collier Gepford who serves as the Intergenerational Discipleship Coordinator of the Great Plains Conference, Mona Candea who currently serves as Children’s Ministry Coordinator at Grace United Methodist Church in Olathe, KS, and Madison Stumbough, who is the Family Ministries Director at Grace United Methodist Church in Winfield, KS.
This episode debuted July 16, 2020.