Hello friends!

This week, we are talking to a new friend, Ell.

Ell is a co-host for The Word in Black and Red podcast, a member of the IWW, and a board member at her church. She was raised Presbyterian, sent to catholic school as an atheist, and then graduated with a BA in anthropology and classics. She’s worked in various industries and is a passionate advocate of intersectional workers rights and building community solidarity.TWIBAR

Hello Friends.

This time, we are talking to Adam Ericksen.

Adam Ericksen is....The Pastor Clackamas United Church of Christ in Milwaukie, Oregon who is always posting provocative church signs calling out injustice, rebuking police brutality, standing up for rights of refugees, the humanity of Muslims, and the dignity of trans people...you know, like Jesus would.Bluesky: Pastor Adam

Instagram: Adam Ericksen

This week we get to meet a new friend, Char Mansfield.

Char Mansfield, co-founder of the public theology podcast Barefoot to Emmaus, is a Princeton Seminary MDiv and soon to be Rutgers University MSW. They plan to use the two master's to pursue a bivocational ministry of pastoral leadership and psychotherapy. Char is an anarchist in the style of the first church, with their deepest convictions surrounding the centrality of interdependent community and renunciation of private property to the Christian calling.

https://barefoot2emmaus.weebly.com/

https://www.instagram.com/barefoot2emmaus/

Barefoot2emmaus@gmail.com

This week we get to talk to the delightful Jennifer C. Martin.

Jennifer C. Martin is a writer, editor, and speaker living in Richmond, VA, with her two partners and two children. She writes, reads, and speaks about religion, politics, polyamory, sexuality, culture, entertainment, and more. When she's not trolling on social media or updating her Substack blog, Dirtbag Christian, she's in the kitchen making baked goods, doing yoga, editing, writing, gaming, gardening, or going to therapy. Raised in the Church of God denomination in a conservative home, she is now a member of the United Church of Christ and a communist.
website: https://jennifercmartin.com/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/notreallyjcm.bsky.social
Substack: https://dirtbagchristian.substack.com/

This week we are talking to my friend Aaron Epperson.
Aaron Epperson is a writer, social services worker, and a lover of Oregon's wild places. He has a BA in Conflict Resolution from Portland State and spent years working in the tech industry before pivoting to social services where he helps families through difficult circumstances.

aaronepperson.com

Bluesky: @tacojolly

This week on All Things Made New, we're talking with Marc Alan Schelske about his new book, Walking Otherward.

Marc Alan Schelske is a happily recovering fundamentalist praying for the restoration of all things. He writes and teaches about spiritual maturity, emotional growth, and the other-centered, co-suffering way of Jesus. He is a small-church pastor nearing thirty years of experience as a big design and technology geek and sometimes musician.

Marc earned a Bachelor's in Theology at Walla Walla University and a Master’s in Theology and Culture at St. Stephen’s University. He is the author of several books, including The Wisdom of Your Heart and Journaling for Spiritual Growth. Marc serves as the teaching elder at Bridge City Community Church in Milwaukie, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, where he lives with his nearly-adult children, Emerson & Lucas, his partner, Christina, as well as an aging mutt, Jackson, and a vindictive once-feral cat named Bellatrix, who demands affection at knife-point twice a day.
Preorder the book here.

Friends, today we goet to talk to Byron Borger.

Before opening the Hearts & Minds Bookstore, Byron worked in college ministry for the CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach), working on staff of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in McKeesport, PA, as well as working on various peace and justice issues while being an Associate Director of The Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh. In 1982 he and his wife, Beth, opened Hearts & Minds, an independent bookstore in Dallastown, PA. Besides managing the small town shop, he has served congregations, denominations, and organizations as conference booksellers, has spoken extensively about relating Christian faith to society (and the role of reading) at clergy convocations, colleges, church retreats, and events such as the Calvin Festival of Faith & Writing. He has worked in social change organizations and has written for several print and on-line journals, including Sojourners, Comment and CPJ's Capitol Commentary. They have set up large book displays at conferences for CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts), Evangelicals for Social Action, The Redeemer Center for Faith and Work, Q, Bread for the World, The Christian Legal Society, the C.S. Lewis Institute, and the CCOs annual Jubilee Conference, although most days they labor in the world of small businesses. He has edited a book for college graduates called Serious Dreams: Big Ideas for the Rest of Your Life (Square Halo Books) and has a chapter (about working in retail) in Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God (edited by Ned Bustard, published by Square Halo Books.) Byron reviews books regularly at BookNotes, the almost weekly newsletter of Hearts & Minds. (www.heartsandmindsbooks.com.) He attends First Presbyterian Church, York, PA.