Today we are thrilled to introduce you to the Listening in Place Project with Cassie Carroll (, 鈥�16), which we will be featuring monthly here on the Intersections blog. After graduating from 天美视频, Cassie launched , a venture in which she is collecting stories from church planters, practitioners, pastors, social entrepreneurs, and theologians throughout the United States who are practicing new, innovative, and compelling visions of what it means to be the church.
In this first episode, Cassie talks with Ryan Althaus, founding pastor of who also works with the in Santa Cruz. In this 20-minute conversation, Ryan shares his experience of going to seminary and beginning to wonder if we are missing out on something in our traditional notions of church. 鈥淚 guess what I came up with,鈥� he says, 鈥渋s there鈥檚 no real reason why we do church the way we do.鈥�
Ryan: 鈥淕od鈥檚 Word is omnipresent. It鈥檚 by no means restricted to a creed or a hymn or a verse. Yeah, the Bible is the Word of God. But so is the seagull. […] When I try to box in the organic stuff that鈥檚 happening, the indescribable, when I try to label the ineffable, that鈥檚 when I lose hope.鈥�
Cassie: 鈥淲e鈥檝e abandoned mystery, in a lot of ways. […] When we step into that mystery it鈥檚 too unknown, too terrifying, it鈥檚 letting go of too much control, when in reality following Christ is about letting go of control.鈥�
You can learn more about the vision behind the Listening in Place Project , read more from Cassie鈥檚 time with Ryan over on the Listening in Place blog: & . And for more from Cassie, check out the presentation of her Integrative Project,
https://soundcloud.com/user-958825369/listening-in-place-project-ryan-althaus
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