15: Kevin Sweeney: The Joy of Letting Go

Jun 25, 2023

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

Today I talked to Kevin Sweeney about his newest book “The Joy of Letting Go…,” eventually we got there, at least. First we talk about a lot of amazing things, his journey as a teenager using psychedelic mushrooms and meeting God, his journey into Bible College, his deconstruction from that understanding and into Black Womanist Liberation Theology. Kevin is a wise man with a unique journey, and that makes it hard to sum up our conversation in a paragraph.

Kevin was co-founder and lead pastor of Imagine Church in Honolulu for almost ten years, He was co-founder of the Honolulu based creative collective The (un)Commons, He has also organized and taught multiple Enneagram Experience events in Hawai’i and California, he helped lead “Saying Grace,” a curated gathering of dinners and stories between the church and the LGBTQ community in Honolulu. He is the host of podcast “The Church Needs Therapy” and is a best selling author. His two books are “The Making of a Mystic: My Journey with Mushrooms, My Life as a Pastor, and Why It’s Okay For Everyone to Relax,” and “The Joy of Letting Go.” He currently lives and surfs In Honolulu with his wife and co-founder of Imagine, Christine, and their two kids, True and Mikayla.

Listen to his podcast: https://rb.gy/iwemt
Website: www.https://www.kevinsweeneynow.com/
His on Amazon: https://rb.gy/3i8sh

Time Stamps for the episode:

2:19: Faith Roots and leaving the Catholic Church
7:48: Meeting God on Psychedelic Mushrooms, and an existential crisis
13:02: The search for what’s real, not just what’s right
18:09: Building a system of Belief at Bible College, then “going emergent”
22:53: A call to be a pastor and not knowing what that meant
27:35: The Summer of Emergent
33:11: Finding truth in Black Womanist Liberation Theology
38:16: Voices who shape us along the journey, stages of beleif
45:07: Voices from higher up the mountain speaking to us at different stages in different ways
51:17: Writing The Joy of Letting Go
57:29: Letting go is not spiritual bypassing but walking the paschal mystery
1:03:13: The Gospel narratives of Letting Go.
1:08:25: We don’t want to wake up
1:10:18: Conclusion

All Music for this episode is provided by Axeltree:
@axletree

Sponsors
Quoir Square 2 Class: https://www.bk2sq1.com/square-2-next-steps-into-reconstruction (Promo code: Liminal for 10% off)

Kineo Center: https://www.thekineocenter.com/cohort (mention "Liminal" in Application for $100 off)

Monk Manual: https://monkmanual.com/LIMINAL (10% off all merchandise)

Connect
Find us on the web: https://liminalliving.simplecast.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.