Vanessa Maleare launches our fall vision series, Tethered to Belonging: A Theology for Wanderers, Skeptics and Believers, with a reflection on unity in diversity. Drawing from Philippians 2:1–8, she invites us to consider how humility, shared love, and care for one another can hold us together amid our differences.

Reflection Questions

1. How are you peculiar?
2. Do you have resistance to deep conversations about faith?
3. What beliefs about faith and belonging are baked into your DNA?

1. What has been entrusted to my care?
2. Where am I holding on too tightly?
3. What from my past can I receive with gratitude, and what am I still learning to release?

Vanessa Maleare leads us through a study of magical objects, Moses’s staff, and the movement from destruction to provision. In Exodus, the same staff once used to turn the Nile to blood becomes a tool for bringing life-giving water from the rock. What might this transformation teach us about redemption—and how might we discern our own place in bringing real, good change to the situations around us? [Exodus 17:1-7]

Reflection Questions

1. Has your freedom come at the cost of something else?

2. What is something in your life that perhaps once was used to bring destruction and has been redeemed for a more life-giving use?

3. Do you feel comfortable "putting God to the test?