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Jesus shows up on a beach after the worst week of his friends' lives and asks a disarmingly simple question: have you eaten anything? This week we push back against the lie of scarcity and practice the defiant, countercultural act of believing there is enough.   LINKS:  Current Conversation | Connect | YouTube |  Coming Up TRANSCRIPT: Eat Something: Waking Up to Being Fed The Question That Shouldn't Be Radical A beat of honesty to begin… This week's message is built around a phrase that should not be controversial. It shouldn't raise anyone's blood pressure. It shouldn't feel political. It shouldn't require courage to say. The phrase is: There actually is enough. And yet… depending on your life experience, where you grew up, what your bank account looks like, what neighborhood you're in… that phrase might land anywhere from obviously true to laughably false to offensive, because you don't know my life. So before we go anywhere else, let's hold all of that. Let's hold the complexity of that sentence in the room together. The Story… Breakfast on the Beach (John 21:1–14) Tell the story… Let’s paint the scene: It's after the resurrection. The disciples are rattled, confused, grief-stained. They've seen what they've seen, but nothing has quite settled yet. So they do the thing people do when they don't know what else to do: they go back to work. Peter says, I'm going fishing. And the others say, We'll come too. They fish all night. They catch nothing. Then, as dawn is breaking, a figure appears on the shore. He calls out: "Hey, you don't have any fish, do you?" They say no. He tells them to throw the net on the other side of the boat. They do — and suddenly there are so many fish they can't haul the net in. And then — and this is one of my favorite mental pictures of Jesus ever — they get to shore, and he’s already has a charcoal fire going. Fish already on it. Bread already there. He doesn't wait for them to bring what they caught and make it into something. There is already something prepared. And he says: "Come and have breakfast." There’s no moment of like… “let's debrief the last week.” or “I need you to understand what just happened.” Come and have breakfast. Pull up some sand and have a seat. The first thing the newly-alive Jesus does with his bewildered, grieving, exhausted friends is to feed them. The Lie of Scarcity Now — here's where we need to be honest with each other, and honest about the world we actually live in. Because it is not true that everyone in this room or in this city, or this country has always had enough to eat. Or enough to feel safe. Or enough to rest. In 2024, nearly 1 in 7 U.S. households — that's 47.9 million people — experienced food insecurity at some point during the year. Nearly 1 in 5 households with children were food insecure, the highest rate since 2014.  And those numbers are not distributed evenly. Almost 1 in 4 Black households, 1 in 5 Hispanic households, and nearly 1 in 3 American Indian and Alaska Native households were food insecure in 2024 — at least double the rate for non-Hispanic white households. These inequities reflect the impact of structural barriers rooted in systemic racism and other forms of discrimination that result in higher rates of poverty.  So when we talk about scarcity — we have to say this plainly: for a lot of people in our lives and community, scarcity has not been a philosophical problem or a spiritual metaphor. It has been Tuesday. An embodied, lived reality. And we have to also say: that is not because the earth doesn't produce enough. It's not because there isn't enough food, or enough housing, or enough care to go around. The pie is plenty big. But the slices are cut unevenly.. Research from the Federal Reserve Board shows that Black families' median wealth was approximately 15% that of white families — $44,900 compared to $285,000 — in 2022. Studies indicate these racial disparities persist even when factors like income and education are accounted for, suggesting that pervasive racism embedded in historical, political, and economic systems continues to drive the gap.  Scarcity, as most of us experience it, is manufactured. It is the product of systems — empire systems, to use a biblical word — that concentrate abundance at the top and make the rest fight over the remainder. The problem is not that there isn't enough fish in the sea. The problem is who controls the nets. What Jesus Keeps Doing And this is where the Easter story opens up into something larger than one morning on a beach. Because if you read the Gospels as a whole — if you trace the arc of what Jesus actually did — you start to notice a pattern. Feeding keeps happening. Abundance keeps showing up in the middle of scarcity. Five loaves and two fish for thousands of people, and there are baskets left over. Water turned to wine at a wedding — not a trickle, but somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons. A woman who loses a coin and sweeps her whole house until she finds it, then throws a party that probably costs more than the coin. A father who sees his prodigal kid coming from a long way off and kills the fatted calf — we're celebrating tonight. Over and over, Jesus enacts this: there is enough. More than enough. Abundance is the character of the divine, not scarcity. And then he dies. And the people who crucified him — Rome, the religious gatekeepers, the systems that depended on keeping people in their place — they thought that was the end of it. But here's what resurrection means, in part: his teachings didn't die with him. The practices didn't die. The communities he formed kept forming. Throughout history, untold numbers of people, inspired by this life and death, have put their bodies and their resources on the line to insist — there is enough, and we're going to share it. The church at its best — not its worst, not its empire-adjacent self, but its best — has always been a community that takes the fish off the fire and says come and have breakfast. That is what resurrection looks like in a neighborhood. In a coalition. In a food pantry. In a protest. In a community that shows up, over and over, to say: the story of scarcity is a lie, and we're not going to live by it. What We’re Doing Here, Fabric… And here's where I want to get concrete, because I think this community is doing exactly that kind of work — and I don't want us to miss it or undervalue it. Our new partnership with ISAIAH — a statewide coalition of congregations and allies working for racial and economic equity in Minnesota GuideStar — is one expression of this. ISAIAH was founded in 2000 and has won real, tangible things: healthcare access for all children regardless of immigration status, billions in public transit funding, paid leave, homeowners' rights. These are not small things. These are exactly the kind of retooling… taking systems built on scarcity and bending them toward abundance… that the beach breakfast points toward. When Fabric shows up in public — at Fabric on the Town events like this past Friday at Midtown Global Market, for Fabric in Action events, or simply at tables in the neighborhood— we are not doing outreach in the old-school sense of trying to recruit people to our club. We are practicing what it looks like to be a community that shows up and says: we're here. We see you. There's room at the table.  When you show up on Sunday, or in your Fabric group, or check in on someone during the week — you are participating in this same movement. You are part of a network that is slowly, stubbornly, defiantly insisting that there is enough connection, enough care, enough belonging to go around. This is not soft or peripheral… this is the work. The Hard Part: Receiving But here's where I want to gently push, because there's a move in this story that's easy to skip over. The disciples don't just witness the breakfast. Jesus tells them to bring what they caught — and they do. And then he says: come and eat. Receiving is part of this. And for a lot of us — especially those of us who've been trained by scarcity, by systems that told us our needs were a burden, by communities or families that taught us to make do and not ask — receiving is actually the harder practice. Self-compassion researchers Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer have spent years documenting something that resonates here: one of the key barriers to human flourishing is not a lack of generosity toward others, but an inability to extend that same generosity to ourselves. Their work in Mindful Self-Compassion identifies a move they call mindful awareness — which is simply this: noticing what is actually happening in your experience right now, without immediately narrating it, judging it, or trying to fix it. Not: I shouldn't feel this way. Not: Other people have it worse. Not: If I just work harder, I'll feel okay. Just: This is what is happening in me right now. That kind of honest, gentle noticing — of your own hunger, your own exhaustion, your own longing — is actually a prerequisite for being able to receive. You can't take food you don't know you need. Closing Practice So let's close with something simple. An invitation to practice mindful awareness — and what this story might call coming to the fire. Take a breath. Let your feet feel the floor. And ask yourself — without judgment, without fixing — one of these questions. Just one. Let whichever lands, land. Where am I running on empty right now? What kind of nourishment have I been telling myself I don't need, or don't deserve, or can wait?

Mary stands weeping at an empty tomb, convinced she's alone — until someone says her name. This week we explore what it means to be truly seen, and why that experience might be more essential to our survival than we've been taught.   LINKS:  Current Conversation | Connect | YouTube |  Coming Up TRANSCRIPT: For the next several weeks, we're going to hold some of the Easter resurrection stories up to the light the way you hold a ViewMaster slide up to the light. You don't travel to those places. You hold the image up, and something in it travels into you. The depth, the color, the detail — it gets in you. And when you set it down, you're back in the room — but you've changed. You're carrying something you didn't have before. That's the invitation. We're not asking you to settle theological debates about what literally happened. We're asking: What do you see, when you really look? What wakes up in you? This series follows the thread we pulled on at Easter — "He is Woke Indeed." Woke, in its original 20th-century AAVE meaning: alert, awake, seeing clearly. These stories are about people who suddenly started seeing what they couldn't see before. That's what we're after. The Story: Mary at the Tomb (John 20:11–18)  Read it… invite people to really take it in… "Mary stood outside near the tomb, crying." She's not praying. She's not worshipping. She's wrecked. She looks into the tomb and sees two angels, and even this doesn't pull her out of her grief. Wild. She turns and sees Jesus but doesn't recognize him. She thinks he's the gardener. Then: "Mary." One word of recognition: her name. And everything shifts. She wakes up to what’s happening…  Sit with that for a moment. What just happened? He didn't offer an explanation. He didn't prove anything. He simply said her name. And she woke up. This is the moment we're exploring today: the experience of being truly seen. Called by name. Recognized. The Lie We’ve Been Told: Connection Is a Luxury We live in a culture (and many of us carry a theology) that quietly teaches: survival first, connection later. Get the basics handled. Then, if there's time and you've earned it, relationship. This is, in fact, the story we absorbed from one of the most influential frameworks in modern Western thought: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Food, water, shelter. Safety. Then belonging. Then esteem. Connection shows up only after your survival needs are met. But here's something worth knowing about where that model came from — and what it left out initially In 1938, Abraham Maslow visited the Blackfoot (Siksika) Nation in Alberta, Canada. He was stuck on his theory of human development and went to spend time with their community. (Grow Your WHY article) What he encountered there profoundly shaped his thinking — but when he built his famous hierarchy, he "borrowed generously" from the Blackfoot worldview and then made that source essentially invisible. And here's the deepest problem: he inverted what he found. In the Blackfoot model, which uses a tipi rather than a pyramid, self-actualization sits at the base — not the top. It is the starting point. Community actualization comes next, and the highest aspiration is called "cultural perpetuity" — the ongoing flourishing of the people across generations. In other words: you don't earn love or belonging after you've survived. Love and belonging is what makes survival possible in the first place. While in Maslow's model we find love and belonging only after attending to basic needs and safety, the Blackfoot model describes that our tribe or community is the very means through which we are fed, housed, clothed, and protected. (PACEsConnection) The pyramid we all learned? It's a Western, individualist distortion of an Indigenous communal wisdom that was never given credit. For the record, I think the same distortion has happened to the wisdom of Jesus and his people; it’s been whitewashed to center the individual… What Science is Actually Catching Up To The Siksika/Blackfoot Nation understood something our public health system is only now naming as a crisis. In his 2023 report "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation," Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote that loneliness is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. In fact, lacking connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. And social neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman's research shows that our brains react to social pain and pleasure in much the same way as they do to physical pain and pleasure. Social connection ensures infants' survival; their safety and physiological needs are dependent on it. Unmet social and psychological needs create pain that is just as real as physical pain. Connection isn't a reward for getting your life together. It is how we stay alive. Back to Mary So when Jesus says her name… this is not a small thing. This is not a warm gesture. This is an act of resurrection in itself… of coming back to life. She was invisible to herself in her grief. She couldn't see clearly. She was looking right at the one she was looking for and couldn't see him. And then: her name. And she sees. This is what being truly seen does. It wakes something up in us that grief, fear, and shame had put to sleep. We can't fully come alive alone. We come alive when we are recognized — when someone looks at us and says, in word or action: I see you. You are here. You matter. From a womanist theological perspective, this moment carries particular weight. Mary Magdalene — a woman, the first witness, the one the tradition has spent centuries trying to sideline or diminish — is the first person Jesus appears to. He doesn't appear to the disciples gathered in the upper room. He appears to her. By name. The people Empire tends to undervalue, or say they don't matter are often the first to see clearly. Invitation: What Does It Mean to See and Be Seen Here? Two movements: First, receiving: Is there a part of you that's still at the tomb — still in grief, still unable to recognize what or who might be right in front of you? What would it mean to let yourself be called by name? To let yourself be seen, not as you should be, but as you are? Second, offering: Who in your life needs you to say their name? Not fix them. Not explain things to them. Just see them. Call them by name. The Easter story suggests that is what resurrection looks like in everyday life. This week's practice: Say someone's name — really mean it. Or let yourself be known in one small way you normally hide. Notice what wakes up.

We’re living in a moment that feels deeply divided—where fear, violence, and separation can feel almost inevitable. Easter tells a different kind of story; one where people thought it was over, only to begin waking up to the possibility that love might still have the final word.  Maybe we could hope for that same kind of waking up...   LINKS: Current Conversation | Connect | YouTube |  Coming Up

Prayer doesn’t have to be polite or perfect it can be truth-telling– anger, doubt, gratitude, grief, longing– and honest prayer weaves us more deeply into community and even action. If God can handle the universe, maybe God can handle your real feelings.

What if prayer isn’t about convincing God to act, but about becoming more awake to ourselves and each other? This episode explores prayer as self-honesty, integration, and connection, discovering that we can’t draw closer to the divine without also drawing closer to our own souls and our neighbors.

For many, certainty is the assumption before approaching prayer. This week, we’ll gently unpack the “God boxes” we’ve inherited and consider whether prayer begins not with certainty, but with an openness to mystery. If God is bigger than our categories, maybe prayer starts with wonder. We might even discover that we pray a lot more than we thought…

In a world often filled with anxiety and uncertainty, comedy serves as a vital tool for connection and healing. In this special podcast episode, Ian sits down with Emily Schmidt, a talented comedy writer and producer of the hit CBS show "Ghosts," to explore the role of humor in navigating our tumultuous times and the significance of storytelling in our lives. To be human is to be a storyteller, it turns out. It's deep in us. How we tell— and see— our stories matters to how we interpret our lives!

When the circumstances we find ourselves in are beyond imagination, what does it mean to live as humans with integrity? How many times do we get to try again with second chances?  Join Chris Tripolino as he explores the post-apocalyptic science fiction western, Fallout!

This episode of FabricTV+ shares a Star Wars story about ordinary people living under occupation. Through powerful scenes of community, fear, courage, and awakening, Ian McConnell explores what it takes to stay human in inhuman times, how stories shape resistance, and why telling— and listening to— our stories matter now more than ever.

In moments of crisis, people show up. But what does it mean to stay? In this conversation, Ian McConnell sits down with Greg Meyer, founding pastor of Fabric (originally Jacob’s Well), to reflect on community in the midst of upheaval, and the deeper work of building something that lasts. Recorded during a period of intense disruption and fear in Minnesota, this episode explores why short-term surges of care matter, but why long-term commitment matters even more. Together, Ian and Greg talk about the “three bowls” of community life (gathering, small groups, and personal practice), the difference between showing up for our preferences versus our purpose, and how real community asks us not only to receive care, but to offer it; to be present for others even when it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable. This is a conversation about resisting isolation, choosing relationship over retreat, and weaving ourselves into something stronger than any one moment of crisis. Come for the urgency. Stay for the wisdom.

It takes courage to show up in public situations...and life! The Rehearsal is about, well, rehearsing these moments! We’re thrilled to welcome Fabric’s Danny McMillian up front for the first time for a less-rehearsed conversation with Melissa Lock to introduce The Rehearsal to us, and to take a meta look at the power of showing up and doing a hard thing, even if it’s not perfect.

Stories Matter. The stories we imagine, tell, and give our attention to shape us and our reality. And in the spirit of “life mirrors art, and art mirrors life,” we’re using the art of TV storytelling to help us see ourselves and our relationships with others and God– with a little more clarity and compassion. This episode features Fabric’s own Jessi Bergh talking with Ian McConnell about Stranger Things.

Generosity… in this economy?! Money might make things weird, but it also can make things beautiful. In our final week, we’ll talk about generosity: what it is, what it isn’t, and what it actually does to us (turns out, there’s fascinating brain chemistry involved). In a world that treats generosity as foolish or unrealistic, we’ll explore how this particular shade of green might be the one that frees us— not just spiritually, but practically, too.

We decided to make a quick turn from money to CareIQ in this episode in hopes of resourcing one another in the wake of violence and cruelty that much of the Twin Cities and beyond are feeling.

“What’s mine is mine,” right? You earned it, it belongs to you, and you get to decide what to do with it. That’s the story most of us have inherited...and it makes sense. But that particular shade of green has also gotten us into trouble for, oh… a couple thousand years. In this first episode, we’ll step back and ask a more honest question: what do we really own, and what are we simply holding for a while? Changing the lens might just change how we live.