Thin Places: Recent Episodes
Malcolm Duncan
This talk is based on a passage from Philippians 3 v 17-20
By Vicky and Barry Thompson.
The Good News changes everything, yet so often we have locked it into a narrow cell of domesticated doctrine.
The purposes and plans of God are bigger than we could ever understand and more secure than we could ever hope.
What we want to leave behind after we have gone is one of the most important important things we have to decide.
We have a choice: we can build our lives on what others think of us, or what God thinks of us
The most exhilarating and perhaps the hardest thing to do is live the life that God intended for us.
In this, the last episode in the Good Grief podcast series, we face the ultimate question that lurks in the shadows of sorrow and loss and our sense of pain and devastation. The hardest question to ask is also the hardest question to answer - and only you can answer it.
The resurrection of Lazarus offers us hope about life after death, but the Resurrection of Jesus changes everything. What does the promise of 'Resurrection' mean and how can it temper and transfigure our sorrow and pain?
If all that we have explored thus far in the Good Grief Podcast is true, why do we still go through death, sorrow and loss? Can we find a way of seeing our sorrow and loss redeemed?
Death lies to us, trying to convince us that it gets the last word. What if this isn;t true? The story of Lazarus;s resurrection exposes some of our confusion around death, and some of Jesus's answers. This episode explores those answers.
Why do we have to weep? Is there anything good that come of the grieving process? In this episode, I pick up the story of Lazarus and explore why Jesus let Martha and Mary weep, and why He lets us weep too.
We can often feel like our grief journey is a solo affair, or one that we walk through and ask God to help us. In this episode, and the ones that follow, I explore the single Biblical story of death, sorrow, loss and hope that has shaped my grief journey more than any other. I invite you to make the journey with me.
How do we navigate the deep sense of aloneness, abandonment and absence that accompanies loss? In this episode, I explore how the experience of Mary, Martha and Lazarus help us look at absence differently, perhaps hopefully.
So often our cultures, out communities, and perhaps our churches, expect us to live our lives in the major keys of celebration, hope and joy. But what if life is written in both a major and a minor key, and to live well is to learn to recognise and express the major and the minor keys?
We spend our lives holding the hands of those we love. When we lose someone, we do not want to let them go and we do not know how to do it. What if we don;t have to? What if we simply need to learn to change our grip?
Always remember that a child might hear what you say ‘amen’ to. Rev Malcolm Duncan explores a response to racism and its challenges.
Grief is not linear. Learning to walk through grief as a seasonal experience helps us to identify what is happening in our grief journey at a particular moment and enables us to respond in ways that can not only help us to survive, but see us begin to grow.
Grief and Loss don't come in neat little boxes so we can emotionally wrap them up. They are chaotic and painful - but there are things that will help us navigate the journey. This episode explores three metaphors for grief and loss - the storm, the desert, and the hurricane.
Loss brings us into a very strange experience of time. In this episode, we explore how we cope with feeling like we enter a parallel universe in our sorrow and yet the world seems to carry on around us. How do we cope with this and what can we do to manage it?
Death and sorrow are often described as unwanted guests or visitors. In this episode, I explore why that may be a deeply unhelpful way of looking at grief and loss. Instead we explore what it might mean to identify death and loss as squatters and how being honest about that changes our ability to deal with them.
In this second episode of the series, we explore ways in which grief and loss can feel like entering the shadowlands, and how we can navigate the uncertainty and the sorrow without being consumed by it.
With so many theories and ideas being pushed around the internet, articles and pulpits, how do we make sure that we are not being led down a blind alley? When does theologizing about conspiracy theories become damaging and how do we avoid it.
We will all by confronted by grief and sorrow, therefore we need to work out how we will face it.
‘Leading through Crisis: Presence in the Pain’
We are in unchartered waters socially, spiritually and politically. As we walk through the Covid-19 crisis, and into a new landscape, how will we help people to navigate their grief, questions and uncertainty.
Christians believe that Christ will return but what does this mean? How will it happen?
What happens to us immediately after we die? Do we rest in the grave or go to be with Christ?
(Philippians 1:20-27; 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10)
Do we get new bodies? What is our life after death like?
(1 Corinthians 15; Philippians 3:10-12)
When do we get our resurrection bodies? How does that tie in with Christs return?
(1 Corinthians 15; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)
Will Christians face judgment and is this different to the judgement of the world?
(Daniel 12:1-4; John 5:28-29; 2 Corinthians 3:10-16; 5:1-10)
The Bible speaks of God's throne room. What does this mean about God's greatness and majesty?
Does Covid-19 get the last word?
A podcast exploring the challenges that have a risen since Covid-19 has come about. Rev Malcolm Duncan explores how we as Christians respond to covid and how does this change how we should be? Who gets the last word? Covid or God...