Faith Made Welcome faithmadewelcome

Love. Is it really all we need? As we move into Week 4 of advent this week, we settle in for a close look at this expansive topic. As you might know, for each week of advent, the FMW team brought you a deep-dive conversation featuring special guests from the CBC community. Who do we have on the pod for this special week?  Well, who better to talk to us about love than CBC’s most recently engaged couple: Tameika Holly and Courtney Hodge (back from Episode 2!)?
In this episode, they join the FMW crew to discuss the wonders and trickiness that are inherent in love. We discuss what it means that we’re called to love God AND to love one another as we love ourselves. Along the way we explore how love grows, how we must sometimes love from afar, and how challenging it can be to really accept the love that’s offered to us. 
About This Podcast
This podcast was envisioned as means to foster spiritual growth and conversations about faith, both within and beyond the faith community at Commonwealth Baptist Church. 
Got a question or want to reach out to the Faith Made Welcome team?  You can reach us at faithmadewelcome@gmail.com.
Faith Made Welcome is produced by Cheri Spiegel, Paul Fitzgerald and This Most Unbelievable Life.
 

It’s pink candle week, ya’ll! As you might know, for each week of advent, the FMW team is bringing you a deep-dive conversation featuring special guests from the CBC community. 
Where do we go this week?  To joy, of course! This year has been one where it’s been hard to keep hope, to cultivate peace, but has it been one short on joy?  This week you’ll hear Robin, Marty, Cheri and Paul sit down with church members Marcia Call and Lenny Wrigley to talk through our relationship with joy. In this one you’ll get to hear us explore what brings us joy, how joy operates in our everyday lives, and the unexpected ways we’ve seen joy emerge.
Where do you see joy listeners? What have you done to cultivate it this year and when and where has it snuck up on you?  We hope this episode - and the Taylor Swift name drop count within it - will bring you joy.  Check it out - and learn how many times T-Swizzle gets mentioned during the joy-cast with Lenny!
About This Podcast
This podcast was envisioned as means to foster spiritual growth and conversations about faith, both within and beyond the faith community at Commonwealth Baptist Church. 
Got a question or want to reach out to the Faith Made Welcome team?  You can reach us at faithmadewelcome@gmail.com.
Faith Made Welcome is produced by Cheri Spiegel, Paul Fitzgerald and This Most Unbelievable Life.
 

We’re now in our second week of this season of anticipation. As you might know, for each week of advent, the FMW team is bringing you a deep-dive conversation featuring special guests from the CBC community. 
Where do we go this week?  Yesterday marked the lighting of the Peace candle and so today we bring you the “Peace” episode. What a theme for us all to wrestle with this year, right listeners? 
This week you’ll hear Marty, Cheri and Paul sit down with church members Jenelle Rosecrance and Athena Burkett to talk through each of their journeys with peace. In this one you’ll get to hear both Jenelle and Athena talk through their struggles with peace and also the ways they’ve learned to cultivate peace in their daily lives. We take space in this one to look at peace as both the promise God brought to earth through Jesus and we explore it as a personal, internal thing we seek as humans walking our journey together.
How do you relate to peace? What things bring you peace?  What ways do you seek peace today? What does your relationship with it look like this year in particular?  We’d love to hear from you and keep our peace conversation going throughout the week! Join us to chat about it on the CBC Facebook page!
About This Podcast
This podcast was envisioned as means to foster spiritual growth and conversations about faith, both within and beyond the faith community at Commonwealth Baptist Church. 
Got a question or want to reach out to the Faith Made Welcome team?  You can reach us at faithmadewelcome@gmail.com.
Faith Made Welcome is produced by Cheri Spiegel, Paul Fitzgerald and This Most Unbelievable Life.

Week 1 of Advent has arrived! How are you observing it this year, Faith Made Welcome listeners? Over the next four weeks the FMW team is observing it by way of deep dive conversations with CBC community members. 
Yesterday marked the lighting of the Hope candle and so today we bring you the “Hope” episode. If you’re expecting a cheery conversation about all the things we’re hopeful Santa (or Jesus) might bring us this year...well, you might need a different podcast!
This week you’ll hear Robin, Cheri and Paul sit down with church members Eric Spiegel (back from our Hocus Pocus episodes and still Cheri’s man friend!) and Casey Pick (church finance committee chair, musician, activist, and woman always ready to drop some KNOWLEDGE) for a frank conversation about how we approach hope; wrestle with hope; and try to keep hope while working for a better reality. Casey helps us to think about the role of anger and courage in hope, while Eric helps us remember why all hopeful souls need skeptics in their lives. 
How do you relate to hope? What does your relationship with it look like this year in particular?  We’d love to hear from you and keep our hope conversation going throughout the week! Join us to chat about it on the Commonwealth Baptist Church Facebook page thread!
About This Podcast
This podcast was envisioned as means to foster spiritual growth and conversations about faith, both within and beyond the faith community at Commonwealth Baptist Church. 
Got a question or want to reach out to the Faith Made Welcome team?  You can reach us at faithmadewelcome@gmail.com.
Faith Made Welcome is produced by Cheri Spiegel, Paul Fitzgerald and This Most Unbelievable Life.
 

This week on the podcast we take some more time to anticipate the season of anticipation! We build on last week’s history of Advent episode with this one wherein you’ll hear Marty and Robin sit down with Cheri and Paul to look at what the advent season means for the CBC pastors and their hopes for what it will bring in this most unprecedented year for the CBC community. 
In this one you’ll get to hear more about Marty and Robin’s own Advent experiences and hear more about CBC traditions around the season. Then we dig in with the big Advent themes: hope, peace, joy, and love. This episode isn’t about being grateful for how these show up in our lives, but instead we acknowledge how we wrestle with cultivating and losing each of these concepts. Are the Advent themes something you count on year after year? Or does this season help you to re-discover where these themes are within you? Can it help you see God in the world, here with us? How might we see these themes as confessions of the faith?
About This Podcast
This podcast was envisioned as means to foster spiritual growth and conversations about faith, both within and beyond the faith community at Commonwealth Baptist Church. 
Got a question or want to reach out to the Faith Made Welcome team?  You can reach us at faithmadewelcome@gmail.com.Faith Made Welcome is produced by Cheri Spiegel, Paul Fitzgerald and This Most Unbelievable Life.

This week on the podcast we continue our fireside chat with Lonnie Rich! In this part of the conversation you’ll get to hear Lonnie, Cheri, and Paul take a closer look at the Advent season and its history. We look at early celebrations of Advent, how the tradition came to the Baptist church, and how it's celebrated within the CBC community. 
 
Along with the pilgrimage through history and tradition associated with Advent, we get an opportunity to explore Lonnie’s overall approach to faith and Christianity. Listen in to learn: what brought Lonnie back to the church? We also consider why periods of preparation (Advent and Lent) are tied to both high holy holidays of the faith (Christmas and Easter). Is all this preparation really just advertising for Jesus? And finally, we ultimately fail to fully answer Paul’s burning question: what’s with the pink candle? You’ll have to tune in next week, as we chat with CBC pastors Robin and Marty to see if we’ll get an answer to that question from the real pros!
 
About Our Guest
Lonnie’s a long-time student of history. Once upon a time he was a history major. He’s long been a devoted reader of all things history, and just a few years ago he taught a multi-week class in the history of Christianity for CBC.  He also long served as a deacon at Commonwealth Baptist, and Cheri likes to joke that he’s “the closer” for the church. Many, many current church members might recall they went to coffee with Lonnie not long before they decided to make this place their church home. He’s a true embodiment of faith made welcome! 
 
Topics Mentioned this Episode
While there are fewer direct references in this episode than we often have, listeners might enjoy reading further into key topics discussed in our recording:
Lonnie notes that advent may have first been celebrated in Spain and Gaul as a preparation for baptism, evolved into an anticipation of the second coming, and then into a celebration of the coming of Jesus. These theories of its evolution are discussed further in this article from Christianity.com, which also provides a nice overview of the Advent tradition: What is Advent?
We note that the celebration of advent became typical within the Baptist tradition only more recently. The Baptist Press article “Advent Rediscovered by Southern Baptists” discusses the impetus for this change in tradition.
Lonnie notes that Constantine helped establish the tradition of Christmas being observed in December, which can be explored further in this 
Lonnie mentions his stance on propitiation (appeasing the gods) vs. soteriology (faith driven by salvation)
We discuss the Hanging of the Greens, chrismons that don the chrismon trees of CBC, as well as traditions involving advent wreaths and advent calendars.
About This Podcast
This podcast was envisioned as means to foster spiritual growth and conversations about faith, both within and beyond the faith community at Commonwealth Baptist Church. 
 
Got a question or want to reach out to the Faith Made Welcome team?  You can reach us at faithmadewelcome@gmail.com.
Faith Made Welcome is produced by Cheri Spiegel, Paul Fitzgerald and This Most Unbelievable Life.