An Advent Series. “Your ‘Kin-dom’ Come.“

“Your ‘Kin-dom’ Come” moves listeners from a Sunday morning prayer to a practice of relating that says we are ready—not just for Jesus, but for each other. Gathered around the story of Jesus’ birth, the Advent series from The Raceless Gospel podcast invites listeners to remember our relatedness and reconnect as family.

The title is an adaptation of the Lord’s prayer, which includes “thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” Georgene Wilson, a Franciscan nun, took one letter off to remove the sound of empire— “kin-dom.” The word also effectively dethrones patriarchy.

Ada Maria Isasi- Diaz popularized the neologism, adding it to the ecclesial lexicon through her work, “Kin-dom of God: A Mujerista Proposal” and the church is better for it. 

“The fact that ‘kingdom of God’ has remained the governing metaphor for Jesus’ vision of a world order centered on justice and peace, speaks more to the interests of those who exercise power in churches— institutionalized Christianity—than to the relevance it has in the lives of the common people, of the people of God,” she wrote.

It moves us from territorial claims to getting to know each other by first name, from the desire to rule over each other to the realm of deep and divine belonging. The word “kin-dom” brings us closer together and to answering the Lord’s prayer for unity (John 17:21-24). 

I want listeners to hear me clearly: Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. 

I took Latin in sixth grade and these words from Terence, a Roman playwright who was once enslaved. The English translation is “I am human; I consider nothing human alien to me.” We are human and there is nothing strange about the fact that we are here together.

To read the full press release, click here.

To listen to the series, click here.

Season 4. Body/Building.

Is the church a body or a building? Card- carrying member of a church or cross- bearer in the world, how do you view the body of Christ?

Season four of The Raceless Gospel podcast invites listeners to take a fresh look at what it means to follow Jesus — to the ends of the earth or into a church building. 

Faith expressed in our daily living versus sixty minutes of pew sitting, The Raceless Gospel podcast’s newest series, “Body/ Building,” questions how we look at the Christian faith as expressed as a body and a building while calling Jesus’ followers together — head, shoulders, knees, and toes.

Unpacking the meaning of discipleship and what it looks like to walk with Jesus, my guests and I will talk about an embodied faith and what often gets stuck behind church doors.

Not to be confused with the argument of which came first, the chicken or the egg, followers of Jesus joined a body — not a building. “Members of one another,” we are head, shoulders, knees, and toes. Body- temples, we host the Holy Spirit and are living souls.

To read the full article, click here.

To listen to the first episode, “Head,” click here.

A Lenten series. “Testing Testing, 1, 2, 3.”

The Raceless Gospel podcast provides listeners with a seven-episode Lenten series focused on the testing of Jesus. “Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3” offers a weekly meditation for the journey.

More than a soundcheck, it is an opportunity to consider more fully the call to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

Each episode aims to get your attention. The Lenten podcast series offers a reminder that Christians must have “ears to hear” what the Spirit is saying, namely that one’s calling comes with testing.

To read the full article announcing the new series, click here.

To listen to the first episode, “Testing the Water,” click here.

Season 3. Body Language.

“It’s written all over your face.”  Arms folded across one’s chest or feet pacing the floor, the body is one place we cannot hide our true feelings.

The body speaks louder than words and communicates anything left unsaid. It disregards the promises made to keep quiet, keep the peace, or to just keep it to ourselves. It negates everything we told ourselves we would not say.

Body language. It speaks clearly and gives us away every single time. The saying is true, “You can tell a lot by someone’s body language.”

Well, the church is called the body of Christ. So, what does our body language say about perennial and pressing hot- button issues?

What is costing us an arm and a leg? Who do we give the cold shoulder? Why are we keeping them at arm’s length? When have we put our foot in our mouth? Why do we continue to turn a blind eye? When are we going to get off our hands? Where do we toe the line? And why is the “kin- dom” that is coming not on the tip of our tongues?

Season three of Good Faith Media’s The Raceless Gospel podcast aims to answer these questions in eight episodes and I hope you’ll be all ears.

To download the listener guide, click here.

An Advent series. “Jesus is Coming!”

The season of Advent is one of preparation, a reminder of God the Family and that we are a part of it. Jesus’ birth foretold by prophets. His arrival announced by angels. His presence felt by his cousin John before he comes out kicking and screaming, a bouncing baby boy. Jesus is coming and he comes bearing good news and carries the government on his shoulders. Jesus is coming and coming to undue every unjust system that robs me of you.

A season of preparation for a ‘kin- dom’ that is coming. Back up. Give everyone some space. There is “plenty good room.” Come one, come all to Jesus.

Season 2. Bodywork.

The doors of the church are open, open on Sundays but closed on most others.

Closed mouth to some conversations. “No comment.”

Closed eyes to some views. “See no evil.”

Closed off to some bodies that we recreate as “other” as if a human being can be something other than that. “Hands off. Don’t touch that—not even with a ten- foot cross.”

The doors of the church are open and “All are welcome,” reads the church sign. But that’s all we really say about that. Not too specific because not all are welcome. There are a few conditions and restrictions. Don’t “come as you are” but as we expect you to be. And that’s just one sign of our hypocrisy.

We have rules for your body. Shake our hand and receive this right hand of fellowship. We have a deal and you agree that we bless and baptize bodies then bless and curse certain bodies. We turn nobodies into somebodies, celebrating ourselves instead of Christ’s body.

We point fingers and judge some but not all bodies. We cannot get rid of the dead weight of these busybodies because they give too much money. Yet, we swiftly excommunicate those who ask too many questions like, “Why aren’t they welcome here?” Because that’s nobody’s business but ours.  We just need your hands and feet; keep your nose out of it and we’ll be one body.

Season two of the Raceless Gospel podcast and we are calling for all noses, all body parts to assemble here. The Apostle Paul is clear:

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (First Corinthians 12.12-13, NRSV)

One, the number is tight squeeze. We won’t be able to add our divisions. Hyper- politicized, racialized and capitalized on, the Church in North America, this body of believers, has some bodywork to do.

To download the listener guide, click here.

Season 1. Where Word Meets Flesh.

Christianity and complexion are not synonymous. Nothing taboo, no topic off limits, the Raceless Gospel Podcast is where Word meets flesh. Sharing stories of where that word, race, met our own, when its meanings were rubbed into our skin, why it gets under our skin, how current events fit in and what the Church in North America can do about it. Segregated on Sunday mornings, the Raceless Gospel Podcast is the church service I have always wanted. Modeled after a worship service and complete with the call and response of guests, it captures the liturgy of life, the hymn singing of the hum drum, the unbelievable and everything in between with testimonies of the new creation, the new kin- dom on the way. It is a conversation about words that we need to flesh out.

The Raceless Gospel podcast with Good Faith Media launched in March 2021 with five episodes, sponsored by the New Baptist Covenant and supported by Christian Citizen. Imagined as five Sundays, the podcast is presented as a church service and Starlette Thomas is your podcast pastor! The podcast aims to address that taboo trinity– race, religion and politics, which all need to be taken to task and taken to church if Christians are to better understand our human being and practice hospitable human belonging. You can follow and subscribe to the podcast all streaming platforms to include Apple and Spotify. You can read the official press release here, find the trailer here and a listening guide can be found here in “Five things to listen for in the Raceless Gospel podcast.”

Consider this, our church program or bulletin, if you will.

Season One.

First Sunday| “Flesh it out” with Josina Guess

This Sunday, we aim to flesh out what race means to us and for the Church in North America, how we were introduced to it and the implications of its embodiment.

Second Sunday| “A Thorn in the Flesh” with Michael Bledsoe

This Sunday, we aim to address a thorn in the flesh, the consistent poke and prick of politics and the intersections of race and religion.  We hope to address the necessity of politics, its negligence and nuances, what it means when racialized and the fine line that separates Church and State.

Third Sunday| “In the Flesh” with Jeremy Bell

This Sunday, we aim to talk about race and incarnation, how Christ is present in our many segregations, what the word has done to the Body of Christ and the ministry of reconciliation.

Fourth Sunday| “Flesh & Blood” with Thomas Bowen

This Sunday, we aim to talk about the struggle for equality and justice for all, the role of power in human being and belonging and why we fight like foes when we are all flesh and blood.

Fifth Sunday| “One Flesh” with Leslie Copeland Tune

This Sunday, we aim to talk about unity and the nouns, adjectives and verbs that divide the Body of Christ though we are supposed to be one body, one flesh.

To download the listener guide, click here.

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