Ronnie McBrayer

Religion & Spirituality

About

This is the podcast of author, speaker, pastor, and spiritual teacher Ronnie McBrayer. This is his collection of talks, interviews, insights from the Enneagram, and conversations with friends on the ever-changing, ever-evolving nature of faith. It is especially for those who are “burned out on religion” - to quote Eugene Peterson’s marvelous paraphrase; for spiritual exiles; and those whose faith is in transition.

Episodes

  • Fire and Rain

    "God protects us from death and keeps us steady. Our God, you tested us, just as silver is tested. You trapped us in a net and gave us heavy burdens. You sent war chariots to crush our skulls. We traveled through fire and through floods bu…

  • Like a Rock

    When it comes to people who have truly suffered, who have endured so much trouble, they must have something extraordinary that sustains them. It must be something solid. Something stronger than anything else. Something that doesn’t move, t…

  • A Rolling Stone

    "Take in the scope of this ancient proverb: 'A rolling stone gathers no moss.' It emerged in ancient Antioch, was rediscovered during the European Renaissance, beloved in the peat moss bogs of the Scot-Irish, and institutionalized by the r…

  • "Your God Is Too Small," Part 2 of 2

    "Seventy percent of your body is water. Seventy percent of all you ingest is water. Seventy percent of this planet is water. Water is everywhere and in everything. Water is what each of us are made of, and water sustains us. Water sustains…

  • "Your God Is Too Small," Part 1 of 2

    JB Phillips coined the phrase, "God-In-A-Box." What did he mean? We have tamed God. We think we own or control God. Just look how God works through the religious machinery we have built, after all. God is reduced to a wafer in the hands of…

  • What Really Matters

    Francis de Sales said, "I would rather answer to God for being too lenient than for being too severe. Is not God all love? Is not God the Father the Father of all mercy? Isn’t God the Son as a gentle Lamb? Is not God the Holy Spirit like a…

  • Believe in the One, Part 7 (8 of 8)

    "I am the true vine," Jesus said. "Abide with me." My friends in recovery really get this concept of abiding - finding home on the way. It’s captured in Step 11 : “Seek - through prayer and meditation - to improve your conscious contact wi…

  • Believe in the One, Part 6 (7 of 8)

    “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” Only card-carrying Christians get to go to heaven? Not so fast. This statement has nothing to do with religion. Nothing whatsoever, for Jesus did not…

  • Believe in the One, Part 5 (6 of 8)

    "I am the resurrection and the life." - Jesus in John 11:25 Martha says to Jesus as he arrives too late to save her brother Lazarus, "Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died." Mary says the same thing to Jesus. Jesu…

  • Believe in the One, Part 4 (5 of 8)

    Maybe the cowboy is the consummate American. Driven. All in with big, thunderous, stampeding noise. Armed to the teeth, fighting, pushing, and eating everything from the head to the hoof on the promise of big payday. “I am the good cowboy.…

  • Believe in the One, Part 3 (4 of 8)

    Jesus said, "I am the gate." He didn’t speak of religion, sacraments, denominations, rituals, or even the Bible . He spoke of himself. If we take Jesus at his word, and if he is the living in-the-flesh representation of all that God is, th…

  • Believe in the One, Part 2 (3 of 8)

    Consider the sun: It protects us, orders out time and the seasons. It provides what is needed for plants to grow, thus giving us air to breathe. It warms the oceans and keep the water currents moving. It is the basis of all agriculture. It…

  • Believe In The One, Part 1 (2 of 8)

    In this second part of the Ronnie's series on the gospel of John and Jesus' "I Am" statements, he turns to John 6 where Jesus says, "I Am the bread of life." Jesus offered his listeners, and his readers today, a fulfillment beyond their sh…

  • Believe In the One: Introduction (1 of 8)

    This is an introduction to the Gospel of John, Part 1 of 8 : Of all the books in the New Testament, the Gospel of John sits unto itself. There is nothing else quite like it in the Christian Scriptures. Its most unique feature is its focus.…

  • Starfish

    This is my motivational talk for 2026. “You cannot possibly make a difference,” will be whispered into your year, shouted at your face, and felt within the deepest part of your heart this coming year. But you can make a difference for "one…

  • In A World Where You Can Be Anything

    In A World Where You Can Be Anything...Be Kind. This is Ronnie's take on the Bethlehem Innkeeper, with assistance from Frederick Buechner.

  • The Serenity Prayer, Part 9

    In this conclusion to Ronnie's 9-Part series on The Serenity Prayer, the last word is happiness. "So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with him forever and ever in the next:" Is the last line of the prayer. An…

  • The Serenity Prayer, Part 8

    "I really thought I had come up with something a few years ago. But it wasn’t me. It wasn’t John Lennon either, no matter what you read on the Internet. It was Brazilian writer and journalist Fernando Sabino: 'Everything will be okay in th…

  • The Serenity Prayer, Part 7

    Here is the world as it is: There are those tortured by evil and injustice; there are those desperate for help and answers; there are those without the will or ability to be a part of any solution; and there are those who callously point t…

  • The Serenity Prayer, Part 6

    Part 6: "...Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace..." If I could take you back to the moment you first drew air into your lungs; if I could take you back to the swaddled little baby that you were and reveal to you all that was going t…

  • The Serenity Prayer, Part 5

    The Serenity Prayer, Part 5: "'God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.' But the prayer continues. The next line: 'Living one day at a t…

  • The Serenity Prayer, Part 4

    Part 4 of Ronnie's series on The Serenity Prayer: "God grant me wisdom." Ronnie says, "Optimism is a false hope. Pessimism is as suicide pact. Idealism is a fool’s errand - as a recovering idealist, it pains me to say that. This world can…

  • The Serenity Prayer, Part 3

    In this third installment of Ronnie's current series, he picks up the theme of courage: "Having the courage to change the things we can." Ronnie says, "We all have internal insecurities, negative voices that shout out from the basement of…

  • The Serenity Prayer, Part 2

    "Oh, God, grant me there serenity to accept the things I cannot change." And by acceptance, what is meant? It means you cannot deny reality. You cannot successfully resist the facts of your situation. Take people and things as they are. Th…

  • The Serenity Prayer, Part 1: Introduction

    Reinhold Niebuhr, a legendary ethicist and theologian from the previous century, may have produced the greatest single slice of spirituality in the history of North America when he penned a profound prayer in 1932. That prayer begins: "God…

  • "Why Can't I Be Baptized?"

    "Why would someone wish or ask to be baptized in the first place? Well, that depends upon who you ask. And then, of course, there is the question of how we baptize properly? Do we pour, sprinkle, immerse, dip, spray, squirt, squeegee, soak…

  • Welcome to the Table

    "So, it's true after all: God is out to get you! Just like the sandwich-board evangelists have always said...But it’s not with the closed fist of anger and punishment. God arrives with an invitation in hand. God invites you to the party. G…

  • Parties...Pride...and Peacocks

    "Have you ever seen a peacock? It's a strutting parade. He's popping his feathers...all territorial...marking their boundaries. He makes noise, trying to get attention. And they might shine, but he mostly makes a mess and disturbs the neig…

  • Push The Sky Away

    "If I lose hope – I have lost the very vitality of my present life and given up on the possibility of a more loving future – for myself, and all who will come after me. Without hope, I can only leave my children, my grandchildren, and thei…

  • Set The World On Fire

    “How can we regain the ability to form Christian disciples who will actually be guided by Jesus, instead of politics or economics or the fashionable? Can we infuse those in our congregations with such courage, that they will be able stand…

  • Yesterday

    There are some puzzles that simply cannot be solved. We don’t have the ability. We don’t have the time. So, we twist and writhe, losing sleep and years in the process, trying to find answers. The better part of wisdom might be to put such…

  • To Uphold the World

    “ The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of just a few people. ” That quote from James Baldwin captures the idea of the "Tzadikim" from Jewish mysticism. Tzadikim means, “the righteous ones." Ba…

  • The Essentialist

    "My wife calls me a minimalist. But a new word has been introduced into my vocabulary: Essentialism. As I am learning, a minimalist is concerned with having less stuff; fewer possessions; buying less. I like all that for sure. "But an esse…

  • The Examined Life

    "People behave the way they behave because they are driven by what is within them. That’s simply how the human heart works. If it’s all garbage and rubbish on the inside of a person, then garbage and rubbish is the only possible outcome, a…

  • The Idiot

    Taking a slice from Revelation 7 and the writings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ronnie speaks to how, "beauty will save the world." He says: "You can call me a dreamer. But I’m not the only one. You can call me a foolish idealist. I’m most comfor…

  • Fear And Faith

    "Doubt alone won’t keep you where you are, for honest doubt is a good thing. But fear? Fear stops all forward motion. Fear disables and immobilizes. Fear strangles the courage right out of you. Fear becomes the controlling, overpowering, p…

  • Deep Waters

    "Here is an invitation that is too rarely extended: Come to Jesus and find joy. Find adventure. Find yourself...then, find yourself challenged. Find yourself stretched. Find yourself pushed; pushed into deep water; pushed beyond safety, co…

  • Communion Over Isolation

    "We are a communal species, made in the image of God - for God is a communal being as well: The Three in One. It’s a variation of UBUNTU: We are, because God is. We are not isolated individuals - we are community - we are we. Simply by pra…

  • Recombobulation

    A shout out to the Milwaukee Airport...the Ascension of Jesus...and the "recombobulation" of the days to come: Jesus said, "The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times.” Yes, a day will come when this same Jesus who asc…

  • To Believe in God

    “The books of the Holy Bible never say but one time just exactly what God is, but in three little words it pours out a hundred million college educations and says, ‘God Is Love.’ And that is the only real definite answer to ten thousand wi…

  • Into the Light, Part 2

    "When it is love that overturns and redirects your life, how can one not become loving? When light leads you out of darkness, how can you not be a person of the light? "Enough of this 'Personal Profile' Christianity You know what I mean: G…

  • Into the Light, Part 1

    "Saul of Tarsus was a fundamentalist; and very little can be more damaging, more hurtful and harmful, than hard-shelled, hard-hearted fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is spirituality gone wrong; it is piety turned sour. It is a form of compr…

  • Easter, 2025: We Shall All Be Changed

    Prenatal Conversations... Moksha and Olam Ha-Ba ... Albert Einstein and the First Law of Thermodynamics... Monarch Butterflies... The Apostle Paul as the Primary Source of the Belief in Resurrection... Listen to this Easter episode to disc…

  • The Last Temptation

    "I suspect that knowing God’s will is not the real challenge for us. Knowing God’s will is the easy part. Doing it is the hard part. As living sacrifices we keep crawling off the altar when the flames get hot. No, I don’t know the will of…

  • "Hanging By A Thread"

    This Lenten talk from Psalm 32 is about weight; internal weight upon the conscience; let it be an act or a past behavior that worries your heart, that you cannot get off your mind. It hangs over your head like the Sword of Damocles. Exhaus…

  • "You Never Ask Questions, When God's On Your Side"

    Jesus' message from Luke 14 is simple, but start: "Violence will only lead to more violence. Compromise will only lead to more compromise. It’s death and destruction down both of those roads, as it has been for all of history. If you want…

  • "Unnecessary, Unlawful, Ungodly, and Unchristian"

    In this talk on the "Temptations of Jesus," Ronnie centers the reformer Roger Williams and his critique of corrupting power. Williams, the eventual founder of Rhode Island, rejected the use of abusive power as a means of religious ends; as…

  • Genesis at the Movies, Part 9: The Shawshank Redemption

    Last in the series on Genesis: "'The answer is in the story, and the story is still being told.' That story - your story, our story - will keep being told as long as we live and breathe - and then long after we have lived and breathed - ev…

  • Genesis at the Movies, Part 8: The Wrestler

    God asks Jacob question: “What is your name?” It is an invitation to confess. He answers, of course: “My name is Jacob.” I’m a rascal - trickster - a fraud. Never had the man been so honest. And that honesty - that confession - changed his…

  • Genesis at the Movies, Part 7: The Village

    Ronnie's exploration of Genesis arrives at one of the book's most difficult passages: What Jews call, "The Binding of Isaac." Ronnie says, "All ancient religions were built on the same foundation: 'God is angry…We stand in constant danger…