On the spiritual path, we all seek meaning: ways to connect personal fulfillment to something larger. Meaning is here as a conversation partner in our shared quest for spiritual understanding. In each episode, host Chris Bohnhoff engages members from Plymouth Congregational Church of Minneapolis in a conversation about the deeper significance of the things they do. A series of questions ends each episode, helping you to reflect on each guest’s wisdom and how it may illuminate your own spirit ...
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Ep 27 | Carrie Sauter: The Meaning of Birth
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Plymouth member Carrie Sauter has attended hundreds of births as a Certified Nurse Midwife. What does attending such a powerful experience with so many individuals and families have to teach us about the divine’s presence in the world? We sat down the day after Mother's Day to talk about community, transformation, pain, and the sacred.…
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Ep. 26 | Madeline Severtson: The Meaning of Experimentation
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There’s a new face here on the staff of Plymouth Congregational Church: our new Director of Spiritual Formation, Madeline Severtson. Madeline never dreamt she’d be working in a church. But a life of spiritual exploration and experimentation has led her here, to what she says might just be her dream job. We talked about her winding path and where sh…
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Ep. 25 | Mary Kay Sauter: The Meaning of Discernment
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Whether we like it or not, change is an ever-present facet of church life. Clergy and community members come and go, buildings arise and decay, ministry priorities shift. But even when change is healthy and necessary, it can still bring anxiety. So the question arises: when the anxiety and disorientation of change comes up, how can church communiti…
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Ep. 24 | Toni Azad: The Hospitality of Teaching
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The Plymouth Church community works collectively to welcome recent immigrants to Minnesota through the work of the Immigrant Welcoming Working Group. But individuals in our community are also at work. Plymouth member Toni Azad teaches English to adults from around the world, from Guatemala, to Somalia, to Ukraine, to Afghanistan. We talked about he…
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Ep. 23 | DeWayne Davis: The Meaning of Wholeness
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As this episode hits the interwebs, we find ourselves early in the season of Lent: a special time in the Christian church for contemplating our own spiritual state in the time leading up to Easter and the resurrection story. We’re invited to follow the example of Jesus, who spent 40 days praying in the wilderness before starting his healing work. A…
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Ep. 22 | Manny Gabler: The Meaning of Memory
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This past month, Plymouth Church has hosted Transfer of Memory, an exhibit of portraits of Holocaust survivors, accompanied by brief biographical sketches of each person’s story. And so you may have seen photos of this episode’s guest, Manny Gabler, hanging near the door of Jones Commons and read how his family escaped the war when Manny was a baby…
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Ep. 21 | Seth Patterson: The Meaning of Performance
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Host Chris Bohnhoff and Rev. Seth Patterson unpack the meaning of 'performance' and how it relates to acting, preaching, public speaking, and everyday interactions.By Plymouth Congregational Church of Minneapolis
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Ep. 20 | Jay Matre: The Evolving Meaning of Church
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Today’s conversation partner is Jay Matre, who began a two-year term as church Moderator in the summer of 2022. In Plymouth’s system of governance, the Moderator is the chair of the Board of Deacons, who you could think of as the church’s board of directors. We talked about Jay’s relationship to Plymouth, about what he’s learned so far in his time …
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Ep. 19 | Beth Hoffman Faeth: The Meaning of Rest
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In this episode, Plymouth Minister Beth Hoffman Faeth shares the joys, lessons, and unexpected obstacles (like the restlessness of rest) from her three-month sabbatical over the summer, as well as her efforts to find new sabbath practices now that she's back.By Plymouth Congregational Church of Minneapolis
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Ep. 18 | Dan Dressen: The Meaning of Voice
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Central to Plymouth Church’s identity is the recognition that the arts are a conduit to the sacred. And in the universe of artistic expression, choral music holds an honored place in Plymouth life. I spoke with Dan Dressen, now in his 45th year as the Tenor soloist in the Plymouth Adult Choir about the voice, and about the magic of ensemble singing…
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Ep. 17 | Pierre Fulford: The Meaning of Story
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This fall, the Plymouth community has been gifted with the presence of spoken word artist, rapper, teacher, and preacher, Pierre Fulford. Pierre brought his love of language and storytelling to the church’s Midweek Mingle Wednesday night activities, working with our youth to help them develop a spoken word piece that was performed at the October 16…
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Truth telling can mean different things in different contexts: from the legalistic reporting of objective facts, to the more vulnerable task of naming the motivations and underpinnings of events that are ambiguous or fraught. In this episode, host Chris Bohnhoff and talks with Plymouth Lead Minister DeWayne Davis about how truth telling has shown u…
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Ep. 15 | Tara Bauer: The Meaning of Relationship
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To introduce our guest, Tara Bauer, I need to do a little quick nerding out. If you were to click around Plymouth’s website to the Clergy and Staff page, you’d see that Tara is listed as a Covenant Partner. If you’re not a seminarian you’d be excused for not knowing what that means, but it’s rooted in how the United Church of Christ thinks about se…
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Ep. 14 | Seth Patterson: The Meaning of Perceived Barriers
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It's happened to all of us. An amazing idea comes to us and practically as soon as it does, our inner critic throws up a cloud of reasons why it can't happen: not enough resources, not enough know how, nobody to help make it real. And this doesn't just happen to individuals; institutions have their own inner critics who are skeptical of growth and …
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Ep. 13 | Kareem Murphy: The Meaning of Spiritual Integration
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Like many people, Plymouth member Kareem Murphy kept his distance from organized religion in his twenties. Then, in the midst of a successful career as an equity partner at a Washington DC lobbying firm, he found the right moment to re-engage with his spirituality. Now, as the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for Hennepin County, Kareem integr…
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Ep. 12 | Karen Barstad: Making Meaning In Community
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Not long ago, Plymouth member Karen Barstad had a conversation with her sister about where they find the divine. Her sister’s answer was in nature; Karen’s answer was in community. From musical groups, to friendship circles, to groups whose purpose is to walk with people through life transitions, Karen has been a member of many sub-communities at P…
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Ep. 11 | DeWayne Davis: Finite Disappointment and Infinite Hope
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The summer of 2022 has not been an easy one for people in progressive spaces. We’ve seen the overturning of Roe vs Wade, multiple mass shootings, more instances of police killing of unarmed Black men, the congressional hearings on January 6, the war in Ukraine. . . all significant steps backward in terms of the struggles for peace and social justic…
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Ep. 10 | Annette Atkins: Making Meaning Through Studying History
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How do you think about the study of history? Many of us were conditioned to think of history as a set of dates and names to memorize: a static set of facts that suggest the story of the past. But according to longtime Plymouth member Annette Atkins one studies history to bring today into contact with other times and populations. In the process, new…
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Ep. 9 | Seth Patterson: Finding Meaning in Discomfort
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What is your response to uncomfortable situations? How do you respond when confronted with a person or conversation that you disagree with, or that reveals a side of society or yourself that is hard to see? If you take your cues from social media or our popular culture, you might respond with anger, or defensiveness, or by distracting yourself from…
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Ep. 8 | EJ Kelley: The Meaning of Presence at the Groveland Food Shelf
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EJ Kelley has followed a unique path: in the midst of a successful career, he followed a persistent internal voice that kept telling him that he could do more to help the marginalized in our community. Instead of sticking it out until traditional retirement age and then devoting himself to philanthropy, he left his paying job and, as a way of recha…
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Ep.7 | Beth Hoffman Faeth: Meaning in Small Groups
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At Plymouth, like everywhere, groups form for all kinds of reasons: to work on projects, to learn about specific topics, to work on boards and committees, and often just for fun. But is there something that makes small groups formed in spiritual community unique? I talked about it with Plymouth’s Minister for Congregational Care and Worship, Beth H…
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Ep. 6 | Larry Johnson: A Safe Space for Mental Health
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Larry Johnson, the Plymouth Drop In Center’s coordinator, is a guy that loves a good story. Before coming to Plymouth, he served in Vietnam, then held a long career in classroom education that turned into educational video production. An activist at heart, Larry now creates a safe, caring environment for adults in Plymouth’s neighborhood with a men…
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Ep. 5 | Rev. DeWayne Davis: The Meaning of Meaning
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Today we talk with Plymouth’s Lead Minister, DeWayne Davis. The topic for our first podcast episode in conversation with a member of Plymouth’s clergy team was an appropriate one: how DeWayne thinks about the making of meaning. From his Pentecostal faith origins, to the relationship between meaning and happiness, DeWayne talks about how he began to…
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Ep. 4 | Hannah Campbell Gustafson and Nina Jonson: Flipping Church Walls Inside Out
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Hannah Campbell Gustafson, Plymouth’s Outreach Coordinator, and Nina Jonson, Plymouth’s Director of Youth and Family Ministries, are part of a cohort exploring Plymouth’s boundaries and pushing them further past the church’s physical walls. They lead Plymouth’s involvement in the Riverside Innovation Hub, a network of churches convened by Augsburg …
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Ep. 3 | Ashawnti Ford and Nora Montañez Patterson: Building Community through Theater
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Two of the directors of Theater 45°, Ashawnti Ford and Nora Montañez Patterson, took to the stage in the summer of 2021, after a year away from live theater due to the pandemic, and after the civil uprisings of 2020. We discussed what theater is for in their work, and how theater encourages the growth of listening skills and empathy.…
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Ep. 2 | Dylan Church: Truth and Accountability
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Plymouth Youth Specialist Dylan Church reflects on his own childhood experiences in the Plymouth community, as well as what he's learned from the youth he works with today. Among the questions on Dylan's mind: what is truth and how do our education systems - both school and church - equip kids for a search for truth? What is community? What are our…
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Ep. 1| Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew: Stillness and Action
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Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew is an author and writing coach. She is also one of the founders of the Plymouth Contemplatives, a group that travels across Christian and other spiritual traditions exploring what emerges out of silence. Elizabeth and I sat down to discuss her pathway into contemplation through memoir writing and how that path led to a shif…
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