Show Notes
KEVIN SWEENEY is co-founder and lead pastor of Imagine Church—an urban church in Honolulu that is welcoming of all people, sees imagination as the key to the future, chooses authenticity over performance, substance over hype, and quality over quantity. He is the host of the podcast “The Church Needs Therapy” and is the author of the forthcoming books, “The Making of a Mystic: My Journey with Mushrooms, My Life as a Pastor, and Why It’s Okay For Everyone to Relax,” out on May 31st, and “The Joy of Letting Go” which will be out in January 2023. Both on Quoir Publishing. He lives In Honolulu with his wife and co-founder of Imagine, Christine, and their two kids, True and Mikayla.
Follow Kevin Sweeney on Instagram @kevinsweeney1 Follow Drew Hart on Instagram and Twitter @druhart. Follow Jarrod McKenna on Instagram and Twitter @jarrodmckenna. Discover our global community on Twitter and Instagram @inversepodcast. Become a Patron of Inverse at https://www.patreon.com/InVerse Inverse Podcast is produced by Jen Kinney @iamjenkinney
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A continuation of our conversation with the late Walter Brueggemann.- Brueggemann wasn’t simply a scholar, he was a prophet. This is not hyperbole. This is a precise analysis of his vocation as one who devoted his life to the Sacred Scriptures of a dangerously free God. He was a poet as are the prophets, he would insist. His “prophetic imagination” was shaped by a lifetime of dedication to the texts that demanded of him pathos, lament and a consciousness counter to empire. He was a person of the kind of prayer that undergoes the kind of grace that requires doing justice, and loving mercy and a scholarship from a deep humility before the Scriptures while walking with the God they witnessed to. I will tell my grandchildren of the three days my brother Don and I stayed with Tia and Walter Brueggemann. I will tell stories of how Elaine and Ched Myers introduced me to Walter a few years prior and how I got to have lunch with one of the greatest Hebrew Bible scholars in the world and start a friendship. I will tell of how I got to introduce my mate Jono Martin to Walter and how I snapped a cheeky moment as my friend Traci took a selfie with the Bruggz coz we are giddy fans. I will tell of his humour, humility and indomitable brilliance that was paired with a warm kind curiosity. Unquestionably one of my biggest influences, I’m always reading Walter when preparing for a sermon, and not merely in the Old Testament. I first read Walter at the age of 22 and haven’t stopped. Yet I haven’t come close to reading his over 100 books. I’ve literally led hundreds of people through his “The Prophetic Imagination” and it is in my top 5 greatest books of Christian discipleship. Walter, your life was a blaze with God’s justice and I’m thankful for the ways you set me on fire. Rest in Peace.- Jarrod McKenna