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A Halloween concert doesn’t have to choose between serious musicianship and pure fun, so we refuse to pick. We kick things off with a simple goal, raising funds for the music department, then lean straight into an autumn-themed night where the laughs are real, the playing is strong, and the room feels like a community that actually knows how to show up for each other.

From a spirited poll about when The Nightmare Before Christmas “belongs” on your screen to a run of live performances that move from spooky-adjacent to warmly romantic, we follow the thread of what makes music feel like October. You’ll hear jazz players come together in real time, a story about rediscovering the drums after years away, and the delightful idea that Bach can sound like Halloween even if he never meant it to. We also stretch the setlist with a Moondance moment, a Fly Me to the Moon nod, and a mix of jazz standards that keeps the room listening.

The night keeps surprising us: a joke about preserving “artistic integrity” by not practicing too much, an original seasonal song that turns falling leaves into heartbreak, and a few darker, story-driven tunes that still land with charm. We close by putting the spotlight on participation, inviting everyone to sing along in a silly, spooky Halloween medley connected to the Inner Rhythm Choir tradition.

If you love live jazz, Halloween music, community choir energy, and behind-the-scenes musician stories, hit play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review telling us what song feels most like fall to you.

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Poverty doesn’t look like one problem and it doesn’t have one clean fix. We start our group book study of Poverty, by America by challenging the most common shortcut definition of poverty as simply “not enough money” and instead tracing it as a web of housing instability, health gaps, neighborhood violence, education barriers, addiction, and chronic stress that steals attention and options. We keep coming back to the human side of the data, where survival schedules, missed sleep, and constant tradeoffs are not exceptions but patterns.

From there, we dig into why progress against poverty in America can feel so stubborn. We talk about poverty myths that shape public opinion, the red tape that makes benefits hard to navigate, and why some funding never reaches individuals. We also wrestle with how low wages, inflation, and modern job design push people into working multiple jobs while still being unable to cover basics. Childcare comes up as a pressure point that can make work impossible, even when parents are doing everything “right.”

One of the hardest threads is personal responsibility versus systemic responsibility. We explore the uncomfortable idea that poverty can persist because it benefits others through cheaper labor, higher corporate profits, and choices made by people with more power as consumers, voters, and shareholders. That leads to a practical question we all have to answer: what can we do differently, personally and politically, if we want real change?

If you found this meaningful, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation. What’s one poverty myth you once believed that you see differently now?

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Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Texts: Exodus 32:1-14 & Matthew 22:1-14

A wedding invitation turns into a city on fire. A camp cookout turns into a golden calf. If that sounds like whiplash, you’re hearing the same tension we wrestle with today: God keeps setting the table, and we keep grabbing for control when fear kicks in. We read Matthew 22’s wedding banquet parable alongside Exodus 32, and we don’t try to “fix” the weird parts. We name the violence, the refusal, and the uncomfortable question of what it means to be called and chosen.

Then we stay with the golden calf, because it’s funny until it isn’t. When Moses delays and the people get bored, they spiral into scarcity thinking and build a god they can manage. That’s not just ancient history. It’s a spiritual pattern. We talk about how trauma and a ruthless economy train people to believe there will never be enough, and how idolatry can look like a quick solution to anxiety. We also linger on Moses as mediator, pushing back on God and pleading for mercy, and on the shocking grace of a God who relents.

Finally, we bring it home: the church as a weekly feast where we practice unlearning. We name modern idols that beg for our attention, including violence and scapegoating immigrants, and we challenge the low bar of “neighborliness” that asks only that we not be jerks. The invitation is bigger: share resources, loosen our grip on control, and trust the God who welcomes everybody to the table. If this connected with you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review. What’s one “idol of control” you’re ready to put down this week?

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Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Text: Matthew 21:33-46

A preschooler asks, “Do you own the church?” and suddenly a famous Bible story stops being abstract. We take Jesus’ Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Matthew 21:33–46) out of the “ancient vineyard” and into everyday church life, where control, fear, and entitlement can creep in fast. The question underneath it all is simple and unsettling: what happens when we start acting like God’s gifts belong to us?

We also slow down for something Christians have too often ignored: this passage has been used for centuries to justify anti-Semitism and the false idea that God “replaced” Jewish people with Christians. We name that harm clearly, refuse to weaponize scripture against our Jewish siblings, and return to a more faithful reading. The vineyard is not “theirs” or “ours” to claim. The vineyard belongs to God, and we are tenants and stewards together, accountable for the fruit we bear.

From there, the message turns practical and hopeful. If the church is God’s, then generosity is not a tax and stewardship is not hoarding. Giving tithes, offerings, and pledges becomes a joyful way to guard a good treasure and share it with our neighbors. We even find theology in a closing hymn, tracing the pivot from “I come with joy” to “together met,” because we come to the table as individuals and leave as neighbors.

If you’ve ever felt protective, weary, or cynical about church, this is a reset worth hearing. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review that tells us what “shared stewardship” looks like where you live.

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Special Guest Preacher: David LaMotte

The Good Samaritan might be the most quoted story in Christianity and also one of the most misunderstood. We sit down with singer-songwriter, speaker, and author David LaMotte to hear why Jesus tells this parable in a way that would have sounded outrageous to his first listeners, and why its sharp edge still matters in a time of polarization, war, and rising dehumanization.

We talk about how stories work on us differently than lists of rules, and why “being good” can shrink into “not doing wrong” instead of becoming active love. David unpacks the real historical hatred between Jews and Samaritans and shows how separation fuels bigotry when we only know one another through distorted narratives. We also explore a key spiritual framework: the law is love God and love your neighbor, while statutes are the rules we build around that law, and sometimes those rules collide with love.

Then the sermon takes its hardest turn: the Samaritan is not the person in the ditch but the hero, which means Jesus is asking us to see through the eyes of the person we least want to understand. David connects that to reconciliation stories from Northern Ireland, the work of standing with the marginalized, and the demanding truth that peacemaking is not making nice and justice is not retribution. If you want a deeper take on the Good Samaritan, empathy, and what it means to love your neighbor in real life, this conversation will challenge you in the best way.

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Special Guest: David LaMotte

Something is off in the gut, and we can feel it. Sitting down live with songwriter and activist David LaMotte, we start with “splengnitzomai,” a Greek word for compassion that describes the bodily jolt of realizing the world is not as it should be. From that first question, we wrestle with a tension many of us carry: suffering is everywhere, injustice is real, and joy still has to be part of our spiritual vocabulary. David makes the case that joy is not denial, it’s endurance, and without it we quietly give up.

We move from the big picture into the painfully concrete as David reflects on visiting an ICE detention center and the deep harm of treating human beings as disposable. Then the conversation turns toward a surprising form of faithful resistance: creative nonviolence. David retells the real-life story behind "White Flour," when activists met a Klan rally with a clown rally, shifting the energy with humor instead of feeding hatred with more hatred. It’s a masterclass in “third way” action that neither runs away nor escalates.

Hope shows up with mud on its boots when we talk Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. David shares stories of neighbors feeding strangers, sharing Wi‑Fi, clearing roads with chainsaws, and helping without asking who anyone voted for. We also dig into his song Look Away, written after George Floyd’s murder, and the hard but necessary difference between blame and responsibility when facing family history and public memory. If you’re searching for an honest faith-and-justice podcast conversation on compassion, immigration, community resilience, Christian nationalism, and what it means to join a movement instead of waiting for a hero, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

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Guest Speaker: David LaMotte

We’ve all seen the plot: a crisis hits, a special person shows up, dramatic action saves the day, and everyone else claps. David LaMotte argues that story is not just entertainment, it quietly trains us to feel powerless. If you’ve ever looked at the news, felt the weight of the world, and thought “What am I supposed to do,” this conversation gives you a different and far more workable map.

We start by naming what welcome really means in a faith community, not as a polite word but as a promise that all of each person belongs. From there, David lays down two foundations for faithful living: stories shape how we act, and people who take Jesus seriously cannot settle for the status quo. Along the way we practice community building with Vincent Harding’s lineage questions, then define the words that get blurry fast: love as more than preference, hope as something deeper than optimism, and justice as restoration rather than punishment.

Then we get practical about faith based activism. David reframes “activist” as anyone who chooses action over passivity, not just protest, and introduces the movement narrative: large scale change happens when lots of people make small intentional efforts in the same direction. A powerful subway rescue story shows why hero moments inspire us but do not scale, and why real leaders invite us into the work instead of doing it for us. If you want a hopeful, grounded take on Christian social justice, community organizing, and making change where you live, this one is for you.

Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us: what’s one small action you can take this week to practice the better?

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Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Texts: Jonah 3:10-4:11

God’s generosity can be the most comforting thing in the world until it shows up for someone we think doesn’t deserve it. We start with Jonah watching Nineveh get mercy and realizing he would rather have fireworks than forgiveness. When God raises a bush, sends a worm, and lets the wind beat down, the story turns into a mirror for our own hearts: how often do we confuse our comfort with righteousness, and our anger with justice?

Then we listen to Jesus’ parable of the laborers in the vineyard, where workers hired late in the day receive the same wage as the ones who carried the heat for hours. We dig into why the landowner pays the last workers first, why that choice “stirs the pot,” and what it reveals about entitlement, comparison, and the stories we tell ourselves about being “first.” Along the way, we share a funny but pointed college memory about a professor’s grading curve and what it taught us about fairness when the rules suddenly benefit everybody.

The thread tying it all together is simple and hard: we keep trying to make God into Lady Justice with a blindfold and a scale, but Scripture keeps showing us a God whose defining trait is goodness. We also unpack the Greek idea behind “Are you envious because I am generous?” as the “evil eye,” a way of seeing that can’t celebrate grace. If you’ve ever struggled with envy, burnout, church resentment, or the fear that someone else is getting what you worked for, this message is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves Bible teaching, and leave a review with your answer: where do you feel the pull between fairness and goodness?

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