The Safe House Podcast

Safe House Podcast Ep. 70 - Reflection Time Philippians 3:12-16

Live Service for June 11th, 2025

podcast notes 
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iv4h1VA2zvbgt0vE3NzMEsD2O1Tpzb0Z?usp=drive_link

Pastor Dr. Charles W. Ferguson 
Mitchell Harper

Reflection Time
Philippians 3:12-16
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Conversation 
1. Have we become the Safe House?
2. What have been the conversations that have stood out the most?
3. How do we continue to make this space safe?
4. Are you safe here?

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Safe House Podcast Ep. 69 - Rise Up: The Resurrection Moment Mark 5:35-43

Episode 69

Rise Up: The Resurrection Moment

Mark 5:35-43

While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Conversation 

1. Recap of Annual Conference 
2. What are we resurrecting?
3. When lament turns to laughter 
4. The Atmosphere to foster a Resurrection moment 
5. Will we rise truly?

Safe House Podcast Ep. 68 - The Conclusion or The Beginning Philippians 3:13-16

Live Service for May 21st, 2025

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podcast notes 
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iv4h1VA2zvbgt0vE3NzMEsD2O1Tpzb0Z?usp=drive_link

Pastor Dr. Charles W. Ferguson 
Mitchell Harper

The Conclusion or The Beginning 
Philippians 3:13-16
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Conversation 
1. How are you feeling?
2. What does the cross mean to you now?
3. The Gospel is not for the privileged…
4. Reclaim the Sword…
5. Begin Again…

Clair United Methodist Church - https://www.clairumc.com/​​
!!!!!DONATE TO THE AMAZING STREAMING TEAM @ - https://bit.ly/2CwmMwT​​
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We do not own the rights to this music.
Come join us every Sunday for a Live stream service and if you would like to donate for the church click the link above

Safe House Podcast Ep. 67 - Chapter 5 - Judges 4:4-9

Live Service for May 14th, 2025

order The Cross and the Lynching Tree
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podcast notes 
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iv4h1VA2zvbgt0vE3NzMEsD2O1Tpzb0Z?usp=drive_link

Pastor Dr. Charles W. Ferguson 
Mitchell Harper

Chapter 5
Judges 4:4-9
Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the LORD, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, 

Safe House Podcast Ep. 66 - Chapter 4 - Ezekiel 37:11-14

Episode 66

Chapter 4 (Part II)

Ezekiel 37:11-14

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD.”

 

Discussion 

1. Revisit Last Week
2. Open for Questions/Reflections
3. Can We Unite With Different Gifts?
4. What Is the Message Now?

Safe House Podcast Ep. 65 - Chapter 4 - Ezekiel 37:8-10

Live Service for April 30th, 2025

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podcast notes 
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iv4h1VA2zvbgt0vE3NzMEsD2O1Tpzb0Z?usp=drive_link

Pastor Dr. Charles W. Ferguson 
Mitchell Harper

Episode 65
Chapter 4

Ezekiel 37:8-10
And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Discussion
1. The Winds of Prophecy 
2. An Interesting Intersection 
3. Putting the Message Where You Can Get
4. Uniting as One (Truly!)

Clair United Methodist Church - https://www.clairumc.com/​​
!!!!!DONATE TO THE AMAZING STREAMING TEAM @ - https://bit.ly/2CwmMwT​​
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We do not own the rights to this music.
Come join us every Sunday for a Live stream service and if you would like to donate for the church click the link above

Safe House Podcast Ep. 64 - Chapter 3 - Galatians 2:15-21

Live Service for April 23th, 2025

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podcast notes 
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iv4h1VA2zvbgt0vE3NzMEsD2O1Tpzb0Z?usp=drive_link

Pastor Dr. Charles W. Ferguson 
Mitchell Harper

Episode 64
Chapter 3
Galatians 2:15-21
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Discussion 
1. Crucifixion (Lynching) as a catalyst for movement 
2. Identifying with Christ through crucifixion 
3. Discipleship & Suffering
4. All the Way to Calvary

Clair United Methodist Church - https://www.clairumc.com/​​
!!!!!DONATE TO THE AMAZING STREAMING TEAM @ - https://bit.ly/2CwmMwT​​
FOR ALL THE AMAZING WORK THAT HAS BEEN DONE DURING THIS TIME!!!!!
We do not own the rights to this music.
Come join us every Sunday for a Live stream service and if you would like to donate for the church click the link above

Safe House Podcast Ep. 63 - Chapter 2 (Part II)

Episode 63

Chapter 2 (Part II)

Micah 6:6-8

With what shall I come before the LORD,

and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the LORD require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

Discussion

1. The Stress of Inner Conflict (Niebuhr has a complex perspective on race—at once honest and ambivalent, radical and moderate. On the one hand, he says that “in the matter of race we are only a little better than the Nazis”; and, on the other, he is urging “sympathy for anxious [white] parents who are opposed to unsegregated schools.” In terms almost as severe as those of Malcolm X, Niebuhr speaks about “God’s judgment on America.” He calls “racial hatred, the most vicious of all human vices,” “the dark and terrible abyss of evil in the soul of man,” a “form of original sin,” “the most persistent of all collective evils,” “more stubborn than class prejudices,” and “the gravest social evil in our nation.” “If,” he concluded, “the white man were to expiate his sins committed against the darker races, few white men would have a right to live.”[24] But, unlike Malcolm, Niebuhr also says that the founding fathers, despite being slaveholders, “were virtuous and honorable men, and certainly no villains.” “They merely bowed to the need for establishing national unity” based on “a common race and common language.” He even says that the 1896 Supreme Court doctrine of “separate but equal,” which made Jim Crow segregation legal in the South, “was a very good doctrine for its day,” since it allowed “the gifted members” among ex-slaves, a “culturally backward” people, to show, as a few had done in sports and the arts, “irrefutable proof that these deficiencies were not due to ‘innate’ inferiorities.” In my view these latter views amount to a moral justification of slavery and Jim Crow.)
2. Compromise vs. Justice (Niebuhr praised the 1954 Supreme Court decision ending segregation in public schools, which he claimed “initiated the first step in the Negro revolt.” Yet he was also pleased by the Court’s added phrase, “with all deliberate speed,” which “wisely” gave the white South “time to adjust” (while also opening a loophole to delay integration). “The Negroes,” Niebuhr said, “will have to exercise patience and be sustained by a robust faith that history will gradually fulfill the logic of justice.” Niebuhr’s call for gradualism, patience, and prudence during the decade when Willie McGee (1951), Emmett Till (1955), M. C. “Mack” Parker (1959), and other blacks were lynched sounds like that of a southern moderate more concerned about not challenging the cultural traditions of the white South than achieving justice for black people. He cited the distinguished novelist William Faulkner and Hodding Carter, a Mississippi journalist “with a long record of fairness on the race issue,” in defense of gradualism, patience, and prudence, so as not to push the southern white people “off balance,” even though he realized that blacks were understandably smarting under such a long history of injustice: “We can hardly blame Negroes for being impatient with the counsel for patience, in view of their age-long suffering under the white man’s arrogance.”)
3. Environmental Immersion (German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, during his year of study at Union (1930-1931), showed an existential interest in blacks, befriending a black student named Franklin Fisher, attending and teaching Bible study and Sunday School, and even preaching at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Bonhoeffer also read widely in African American history and literature, including Walter White’s Rope and Faggot on the history of lynching, read about the burning of Raymond Gunn in Maryville, Missouri (January 12, 1931), in the Literary Digest, “the first lynching in 1931,” and expressed his outrage over the “infamous Scottsboro trial.” He also wrote about the “Negro Church,” the “black Christ” and “white Christ” in the writings of the black poet Countee Cullen, read Alain Locke and Langston Hughes, and regarded the “spirituals” as the “most influential contribution made by the negro to American Christianity.” Some of Bonhoeffer’s white friends wondered whether he was becoming too involved in the Negro community.[30] Niebuhr, in contrast, showed little or no interest in engaging in dialogue with blacks about racial justice, even though he lived in Detroit during the great migration of blacks from the South and in New York near Harlem, the largest concentration of blacks in America. He attended socialist and leftist meetings when W. E. B. Du Bois and A. Philip Randolph were present and included such writers and artists as James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen of the Harlem Renaissance in his course Ethical Viewpoints in Modern Literature (a course that Bonhoeffer attended). But Niebuhr cites no black intellectuals in his writings. He repeatedly writes about “our Negro minority” (not “our brothers,” as he referred to Jews), a phrase that suggests white paternalism. Although Niebuhr allowed his name to be used for the support committee of the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP (1943), he did not join the organization or attend any of its conferences dealing with racial justice. He often used the word “negro” in the lower case, at a time when the NAACP fought hard to establish its capitalization. He seemed only marginally concerned about justice for black people, even though he firmly opposed racial prejudice in any form.)