Zao MKE Church

Trust and Believe

Who do we believe and who do we question? The story of "doubting Thomas" shows us that the truth of oppression can be believed through the revealing of our wounds. And yet Jesus follows that up blessing anyone who hasn't seen or touched the pain of others and still believes what they say about who they are and what they have been through.

 

What does this story have to teach each of us about trusting BIPOC, queer & trans folks, disabled people, and all those with marginalized identities who speak out their truth?

Built in the Struggle

Solidarity isn't an idea, its an orientation to life - and it's built on love forged in the fire of liberatory life together. Hear how the earliest Jesus communities put it all on the line, for their faith and for one another.

Give All You Can, Take All You Need

Solidarity is a radically different way to approach meeting our needs. How would our communities change if we offered what we had with bold generosity, and received what we needed and desired without shame?

Easter Sunday

From executed political dissident to risen Lord, the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has radical and revolutionary implications for those seeking liberation, justice, and hope.

 

This Easter Sunday, we reframe the Easter story in light of Jesus's context as a community organizer, the abolition of eternal incarceration (hell) and the long view of God's plan for the salvation of all creation.

Protest Sunday

Palm fronds or protest signs?

 

Modern re-tellings of Palm Sunday cast it like a parade, but the original march into Jerusalem had the vibe of a rowdy protest. Come hear more about the political theater Jesus employed as he squared off with the Roman Empire in the days before his death and resurrection.

Re-Release: Living as Resistance (Palm Sunday 2019)

This is a re-release of a sermon from 2019, recently featured on an episode of The Collective Table.

The name "Zao" is a greek word that means "to be among the living". This sermon highlights the ways that Zao as a community joins Jesus and the tradition of Jesus followers in seeking the fullness of life.

Our world is a mixture of creative, vibrant, beautiful life, alongside systems of death, destruction and oppression. At Zao, we look to Jesus and one another to fully seek life and dismantle the mechanisms of death that plague us as individuals, communities, and the world.

Lent: Bad Apples

God's love is subversive, powerful, and threatening to the systems of empire and oppression. That's why Jesus' preferred metaphors, like mustard seed and yeast, have bad connotations.

 

Jesus calls us to be modern day bad apples--ready to spoil the bunch for the kingdom.

Lent: Students of Love

Love is not simply a feeling or even a clear set of actions. It is an orientation to the world that changes everything. Following Jesus means studying the ways of love and letting it transform us into new beings.

Lent: Who Can Be Against Us?

Rapidly escalating anti-queer, anti-trans, and anti-drag rhetoric is turning into proposed or passed legislation all over the country. Adding in the layers of oppression for BIPOC, women, people with disabilities and more, it can feel like everyone is against us or someone we love.

 

But the scriptures promise that God's love is for us, and that no opposition, persecution, or structural oppression can overcome the power of God's love.

 

Love gives us the power of solidarity, which is the labor of hope for a new future in which all are free. Who can be against us?

Lent: Fruitful

With so many people arguing about "what the Bible says" and certainly what it all means, it is scripture itself that tells us how to determine what is true: examine the fruit a belief, a teaching, or a behavior bears.

 

What fruit has your life and belief borne? How can you cultivate a faith that nourishes, heals, and transforms?