Nomad Podcast

In this episode we speak with anabaptist, anarchist and Christian animist, Noel Moules. Christian and animism are perhaps two words you haven’t heard together before, in fact you may well think that animism sounds somewhat dodgy! Noel shows us though how Jesus himself held to this ancient indigenous worldview, where rather than matter and spirit being understood as dualistic opposites, the entire natural world is sentient, personable and alive.  So we ask Noel how this revelation has changed the way he understands and relates to God. And how he loves his neighbour now his neighbour includes everything from birds to trees?! It’s a worldview expanding and hope-filled conversation.  Interview starts at 15m 16s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community - which manifests as Nomad Book Club and The Beloved Listener Lounge - and bo

Ann Morisy is a community theologian, community worker and author who has researched and written on everything from the spirituality of public transport, through to the spirituality of ageing. Her works draws on a wide range of research and influences, including sociology, political science, economics and theology.  We ask Ann whether in these increasingly troubled times, her community work and studies are leading her to hope, what can get in the way of our discovery of hope, and what a genuinely hopeful Church looks like?  Interview starts at 17m 2s. If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community - which manifests as Nomad Book Club and The Beloved Listener Lounge - and bonus episodes, such as Nomad Contemplations, Nomad Devotionals and Nomad Revisited. And you may find yourself the proud owner of a Beloved Listener mug! Head o

There’s a handful of guests that have appeared on Nomad a number of times, and Steve Chalke is one. Why? Because he keeps speaking and writing about really interesting things. He was one of the first high profile evangelicals to critique the penal substitutionary understanding of the cross, and to bless a same sex marriage. Not only that, but he founded and leads one of the UK’s largest charities, whose volunteers, activists and professionals work in 36 communities across the country. In this episode we speak to Steve about the Apostle Paul and why he has often been presented as the champion of exclusion, when, as Steve believes, he was in fact the great includer; a revolutionary who saw a new inclusive world dawning and gave his life to help bring it in. Interview begins at 17m 49s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community

It's Christmas! And so we thought we'd share a festive Devotional episode with you all. Pub landlady, touring musician and anglican priest Em Kolltveit talks about community building and hospitality when there’s no room at the Inn. We produce Devotionals like this every month. If you're interested, you can access them by making a small monthly donation in $s on our Patreon page, or in £s on our PayPal membership page.  If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. You might also want to have a look at our blog, which we're now using to share the stories of the evolving faith of our podcast listeners.  And if you're looking for other people to share this journey with, then register on our Listener Map and our Nomad Gathering Facebook page, and see if any other nomads are in your area.

Rather than our usual interview format, in this episode we host a conversation between Zoe Heming and Nick Thorley. Zoe is a priest in the Church of England and for many years has suffered with chronic pain, which often means she has to use a wheelchair. Nick works for Christian Aid and (as you may be aware) hosts Nomad Podcast. He has been visually impaired since he was a teenager.  Zoe and Nick talk openly and honestly about their experience of disability, how it has shaped their life, faith, and experience of church, and how they’ve come to understand what it means to be whole. Conversation begins at 17m 25s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community - which manifests as Nomad Book Club and The Beloved Listener Lounge - and bonus episodes, such as Nomad Contemplations, Nomad Devotionals and Nomad Revisited. And you may fin

Richard Beck is Professor of Psychology at Abilene University, author, blogger and leader of a weekly bible study for inmates at the maximum security French-Robertson unit. He’s also a big fan of the country musician Johnny Cash (who also knew a thing or two about prison). David Blower (another Cash fan) asks Richard what we can learn from the faith of Johnny Cash, a man known for his deep empathy for the marginalised and who risked commercial success to stand in solidarity with them, but who wrestled with deep personal pain and struggled for years with drug addiction. It’s fascinating and challenging conversation about living out faith in a broken world.  Interview starts at 19m 28s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community - which manifests as Nomad Book Club and The Beloved Listener Lounge - and bonus episodes, such as No

In this episode we speak with writer, speaker and researcher, Vicky Walker. Vicky conducted a survey with nearly 1500 people about their experiences of the changing nature of relationships and how, if at all, their faith and churches have helped them make sense of this. It turns out (spoiler alert!) the Church hasn’t always been that helpful. So where do we look for signs of hope in these confusing times?  It’s a fascinating and challenging conversation. Interview starts at 14m 5s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listener Lounge, Nomad Contemplations, Nomad Devotionals and Nomad Revisited. And you may find yourself the proud owner of a Beloved Listener mug! Head over to our Patreon page for more information. If you want to donate in pounds sterling, you c

In this episode Jemimah speaks with Irish poet, storyteller and theologian, Pádraig Ó Tuama. It’s a profoundly wise and insightful interview, touching on themes of language, story, gospel, power, community, sexuality and religion. It’s not an interview you can listen to just once!  Interview starts at 16m 10s During the conversation, Padraig reads the poems Narrative Theology 1 & 2, which are taken from Readings from the Book of Exile (Canterbury Press, 2012), and he reads a prayer from Daily Prayer from the Corrymeela Community. These are used with permission by Canterbury Press. If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listener Lounge, Nomad Contemplations, Nomad Devotionals and Nomad Revisited. And you may find yourself the proud owner of a Beloved Listene

When Jennie Hogan was 11 years old she had a brain haemorrhage. Then at the age of 14 she had another one. This devastating experience left her with a brain injury that would transform her life.  So we met up with Jennie at Goodenough College where she is a chaplain, to talk with her about how her experience of trauma, illness and disability has caused her to reflect on how she relates to her body, what an embodied faith means to her, how she’s learnt to live with uncertainty, and about the emergence of a new identity through her experience of brokenness. Interview starts at 17m 17s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listener Lounge, Nomad Contemplations, Nomad Devotionals and Nomad Revisited. And you may find yourself the proud owner of a Beloved Listener

Author, speaker and activist Brian McLaren knows a thing or two about navigating an evolving faith. He was raised in the fundamentalist Plymouth Brethren tradition, but is now a passionate advocate for "a new kind of Christianity" - just, generous, and working with people of all faiths for the common good. He also knows a thing or two about raising children, with four of his own, grandchildren, and he’s the author of the children’s book Corey and the Seventh Story. So he seemed like the perfect person to talk to about how to raise your children in the faith, when you’re not sure where your faith’s at.  It’s a must listen for anyone raising children, or who knows someone who’s raising children, or who was once a child themselves. Interview starts at 17m 1s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such way

Fr. Greg Boyle is a Jesuit priest, who in 1986 was appointed pastor of a church in one of the most deprived areas of Los Angeles, in a church that sat between two large public housing projects, which had the highest concentration of gangs in the country.  Amidst shocking levels of violence and murder (Greg himself buried some 229 young men), Greg slowly began to make connections with the gang members, and eventually established the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world.  Needless to say, our conversation is overflowing with wisdom and challenge as Greg talks about the God he discovered on the margins. Interview starts at 16m 12s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listener Lounge, Nomad Contemplations, Nomad Devotionals and Nomad Revi

Instead of our regular show we're treating you to a Nomad Devotional. Community development worker Simon Jay reflects on life in his neighbourhood and his discovery of urban walking as a form of prayer and community building. David Blower responds with music and ambient sounds. You can enjoy devotionals like this every month, along with Nomad Contemplations and access to our Listener Lounge. Simply donate $5 a month, either through Patreon or PayPal.  If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. You might also want to have a look at our blog, which we're now using to share the stories of the evolving faith of our podcast listeners.  And if you're looking for other people to share this journey with, then register on our Listener Map, and see if any other nomads are in your area.

How do we face change? How do we move through suffering? How do we receive joy? And how do we mature in service? According to psychologist, spiritual director, liturgist and author Alexander Shaia, these four questions are the questions of our lives. They are universal, sequential, and cyclical, and are recognised by every major religious faith and school of psychology and forms the very heart of Christian belief and practice. In fact, Alexander made the startling discovery that each of the four gospels were written to address each of these four questions. So if we long for transformation, then we need to join the gospel writers in wrestling with these questions.  Needless to say, this is a very interesting episode!   Interview starts at 15m 30s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad

Episcopal priest, professor, theologian and author Barbara Brown Taylor, joins us on Nomad.   In the early 2000s Barbara left the ministry, an experience she described in Leaving Church, the first of a trilogy of books about redefining her faith. But it’s what Barbara got up to after church leadership that we want to talk about. Barbara spent 20 years teaching world religions, and forming relationships with local leaders from a variety of other faiths, a journey which she describe in her latest book Holy Envy. So we quiz Barbara on what she’s learnt about finding God in the faiths of others. As you’d expect from Barbara, it’s a conversation overflowing with wisdom, humility and challenge.   Interview starts at 18m 16s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved List

In this episode we bring together London based sociologist, pastor and community theologian Sally Mann and Philadelphia based social activist and author Shane Claiborne. Shane had crossed the pond to join Sally and others in launching Red Letter Christians UK. So we took the opportunity to quiz them about the state of evangelicalism in both the UK and US, what lies at the heart of their faith, their concerns about post-evangelicalism, and why they see signs of hope in the Red Letter Christians movement. It’s an inspiring and challenging conversation.  Interview starts at 12m 30s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listener Lounge, Nomad Contemplations and Nomad Devotionals. And you may find yourself the proud owner of a Beloved Listener mug! Head over to our

Cynthia Bourgeault is a mystic, priest, and author, who is committed to teaching and spreading the recovery of Christian contemplative practices. So she’s the perfect guide for nomad’s ongoing exploration of contemplative practices.   She’s been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer, and so that’s what we quizzed her on. The conversation is soaked in deep wisdom and insight. You won’t be disappointed.  Interview begins at 14m 30s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listener Lounge, Nomad Contemplations and Nomad Devotionals. And you may find yourself the proud owner of a Beloved Listener mug! Head over to our Patreon page for more information. If you're not fussed about the bonus content, you can make a one-off or regular donati

Christopher Collingwood is an Anglican priest - Canon Chancellor of York Minster, no less. And… he’s a Zen Buddhist teacher. So clearly he knows a thing or two about navigating an evolving faith, and the pushback that can come with it. So we quiz Chris on his journey, and ponder how, if at all, Zen can help us on our journey of faith reconstruction. Interview begins at 16m 30s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listener Lounge, Nomad Contemplations and Nomad Devotionals. And you may find yourself the proud owner of a Beloved Listener mug! Head over to our Patreon page for more information. If you're not fussed about the bonus content, you can make a one-off or regular donation through PayPal, the links to which you can find on our support page. You might al

Tim and Jemimah sit down with David to talk through his new album - We Really Existed and We Really Did This. It's a conversation in which David wrestles with faith and theology, and searches for signs of hope in the increasingly chaotic times we live in. As you'd expect from David, it's deeply reflective, insightful and challenging. It's a must listen (even if we do say so ourselves). Go to David's Bandcamp page to get a copy of the album. Interview starts at 4m 25s If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listener Lounge, Nomad Contemplations and Nomad Devotionals. And you may find yourself the proud owner of a Beloved Listener mug! Head over to our Patreon page for more information. If you're not fussed about the bonus content, you can make a one-off or regula

Natalie Collins is a gender justice specialist, who speaks, writes and trains on issues of violence against women and wider gender injustice. In trying to make sense of her own experience of domestic abuse - and the fact that over the course of a lifetime over a quarter of women experience domestic abuse - Natalie began to ask questions about the patriarchal nature of our society (and Church) and how this shapes the way men view women and themselves.  It’s an honest, insightful and challenging conversation. Interview begins at 10m 44s If you want to learn more about Natalie’s writing, consultancy and activism, then check out her website, and her book Out of Control: Couples, Conflict and the Capacity for Change.    If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listen

Rather than based around an interview, this episode is in the style of our Nomad Devotionals, which our patrons enjoy each month. Ruth Wilde of Christian Peacemaker Teams reflects on the practice of "getting in the way", and John-Philip Newell reflects on a spirituality deeply rooted in the material creation. And we ask what does it look like to become peace makers between humanity and creation? David weaves these reflections together with readings, music and songs. If you want more from Nomad, check out our website, and follow us on Facebook and twitter. Nomad can only keep going because a small group of faithful listeners help us pay the bills. Our donors gain access to the Nomad community, which manifests in such ways as Nomad Book Club, The Beloved Listener Lounge, Nomad Contemplations and Nomad Devotionals. And you may find yourself the proud owner of a Beloved Listener mug! Head over to our Patreon page for more information. If you're not fussed about the bonus content, you can make a one-off or regular