Special Delivery: Rise Above It Sermon Feed
We're going to try something new, here at TheoBlog.com: a "special delivery" series of podcasts. If this works out, maybe we'll do another one down the road, some time. This first one will be focused on the multi-congregational Rise Above It! campaign that started this past weekend.
To catch you up, Rise Above It is a book and a program created by Ray and Star Silverman. In it, readers/participants go through each of the Ten Commandments, comparing them to similar teachings from all the great world religions, and then further illuminating them with ideas from the doctrines of New Christianity. Each commandment is brought to life—quite literally: participants don't just discuss and study the sacred texts, they are given real tools to help them live the commandments with a new depth of self-awareness. It's a very powerful and enlightening program, with real potential for changing a person's life for the better.
Now, starting September 17th, eight New Christian congregations across the United States will be offering an adapted form of this program to their surrounding communities. Each week begins with a Sunday sermon on one of the commandments. Then, later in the week, participants will meet in small groups in peoples' homes to discuss what it is to live the commandment, and to share their experiences from the previous week. Throughout the week, there are short daily readings to reflect on.
As an experiment, I've decided to try pulling together the Sunday sermons from those congregations that produce digital audio files, and make them available as blog postings and as podcasts.
I still have one or two details to work out (including how to cleanly seperate the Rise Above It podcasts from our regular podcast without creating a totally sperate blog), but hopefully you'll be seeing a collection of sermons on the first commandment, all delivered last Sunday, on this site soon. Each Sunday there will be a post that is updated throughout the week with material on that week's commandment. You will be able to download individual sermons, or, if you find you really like one particular congregation's style, you will be able to subscribe to all the Rise Above It sermons coming from their pastor(s), directly through iTunes.
Stay tuned this week for the launch of this new offering.