How can we create a shared world where God’s love is experienced? On the fourth week of Advent, Vanessa Beltran highlights how moments of shared vulnerability–like Mary’s journey to Elizabeth–are essential to becoming who God created us to be, so we can truly understand God’s blessings. [Luke 1:39-45]

Reflection

• How can you open your heart and life to others in ways that allow both you and them to experience the blessing of God’s love, even in moments of vulnerability or unknowingness?
• In what ways do you sometimes forget that you are blessed by God, and how can community—your relationships with others—help you remember and live into this truth?
• How can you actively create spaces of relational freedom and blessing in your daily interactions, allowing both yourself and others to experience God's love and affirmation?

Is there a part of your life that feels exiled or stuck in a rut? On this third week of Advent, Christopher Mack hears in the message of John the Baptizer, an invitation for our lives to be joyfully undone in the wilderness of waiting. [Luke 3:7-17]

Reflection

• When have you experienced a disruption that led to transformation?
• How can this season of waiting re-envision our way in the world?
• Where is there an invitation for God’s newness in this current disruption?

What comes up for you when you think about uncertainty? Weylin Lee begins our season of advent with three markers for wading into waiting and uncertainty: discerning with imagination; recalling God’s gifts; and embodying a path of love. [Psalm 25]

Reflection

• How might we practice discernment with imagination?
• What are some of God’s gifts that you can recall in this current season?
• What is the path of love you are invited to walk and embody?

How powerful can we be when our one voice is not just one voice? Vanessa Maleare tends to our collective healing with four admonitions inspired from Ecclesiastes: grab your people; conserve energy; grab hold of your joy; and make decisions. [Ecclesiastes 4:9-12]

Reflection

1. What are my non-negotiables?
2. Who do I have to have around me?
3. What is true for me right now?

What does it look like for you to listen to your whole life? Christopher Mack looks for a way see God in those who see differently than us and how to experience communal solidarity in uncertain and challenging times. [Psalm 146:2-3, 5-10]

Reflection

• How might we be centered in God’s Peace this week?
• Where do you find it challenging to bear witness with your whole life?
• How might you reconnect with the larger worlds of creation and community this week?

Resources

1. Book: Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun
2. Website: Hokusai: Waves of Inspiration https://nelson-atkins.org/art/exhibitions/hokusai-waves-of-inspiration-from-the-museum-of-fine-arts-boston/ :

How do we practice radical welcome? Gena St. David explores how inside each of us exists a wanderer, skeptic, and believer as we conclude our fall series “Who is Vox?” She uses the practice of walking a prayer labyrinth to help us recognize vulnerability, value the winding path, and practice small experiments. [John 3:3-8]

Reflection

• What does the wanderer inside you want from Vox?
• Who at Vox do you trust with your inner skeptic?
• How does the believer inside you wish to participate in Vox?

What is Vox’s invitation and practice of pursuing justice as a spiritual community that seeks to embody Christ? Weylin Lee considers our hospitality to the vulnerable, embodied presence for solidarity, and nonviolent resistance for flourishing in our fall series “Who is Vox?” [Matthew 5:3-6, 10]

Reflection

• Where are the places we can practice hospitality as an act of justice?
• What are some practical ways you can meet physical needs of the vulnerable?
• How might our nonviolent resistance be needed for restorative justice?

Do you have fear around showing up in church spaces? Kimberly Culbertson invites us to embody Jesus together by becoming a community of repair and wholeness in our fall series “Who is Vox?” [John 14:18-19, 25-27]

Reflection

• Thank you for being part of my healing. Love, Kimberly.
• How might God be healing you in this season, both through and for deeper community?
• Who is God asking you to see or champion or smile on in this season?

What is an indicator of a healthy spiritual community? Christopher Mack focuses our fall series “Who is Vox?” on the centrality of community as a rhythm that forms us in the Jesus Way of living, dying, and rising. [John 13:1, 35-38]

Reflection

• What wisdom could we learn if we explored the broader history of the church with humility and curiosity?
• Are there areas of Christian tradition that are unhelpful to our growth, and what would it look like to let go of them and explore other areas?
• What are some ways we might embrace our collective imperfection as a community?

Nic Acosta continues our fall series “Who Is Vox?” by connecting us to being the Body of Christ by delving into what it might mean to embrace both our  Christian pluralism and our collective imperfection. [Colossians 1:15-23]

Reflection

• What wisdom could we learn if we explored the broader history of the church with humility and curiosity?
• Are there areas of Christian tradition that are unhelpful to our growth, and what would it look like to let go of them and explore other areas?
• What are some ways we might embrace our collective imperfection as a community?

What’s your reason for getting out of bed? Vanessa Maleare begins our fall series “Who Is Vox?” by introducing our communally crafted purpose statement: Vox Veniae (Voice of Grace) is a spiritual community that seeks to embody Christ by fostering collective healing, pursuing justice, and welcoming wanderers, skeptics, and believers.

Reflection

• How have I defined my personal purpose in the past?
• How do I define my personal purpose now?
• What is Vox doing right now that excites me?