Faithful Discourse with Chris Henry, Episode 27: Richard Propes is on a quest to raise one million dollars toward eliminating medical debt for fellow Hoosiers. He joins Chris to share his remarkable story – a story of deep suffering and unmatched determination and grit – and his experience traveling the roads of Indiana in his wheelchair on The Tenderness Tour. Listen to the latest podcast: Apple, Spotify, or PodBean

Content Warning: This episode contains references to trauma, depression, suicide, domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse, and infant loss.

If I were to describe the church at the center of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eliza Griswold's "Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church," I would likely use a term popularized by folks like Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne - "red letter Christian."

Started by Rod White, Circle of Hope could easily have been seen as a cousin to The Simple Way, the intentional community co-founded by Shane Claiborne that burst to familiarity after the popularity of Claiborne's "The Irresistible Revolution" became a bestseller. Claiborne's was a, and still is to a degree, the kind of popularity to which Jonny, one of the Circle of Hope pastors chronicled by Griswold, would likely aspire.

It has been these kinds of churches that have drawn a broad tapestry of believers. These are people tired of church in the traditional way yet not quite ready to let it go. They want to do church differently. When White and his family founded Circle of Hope in hopes of creating just such a home, a different kind of church that would love all and include all. Words like emergent, new monastic, and others offer a way to understand these churches, but they have always tended to draw the "other Christians" - people wounded by the church or deconstructionists or people who simply believe there has to be a better way.

READ MY REVIEW OF "CIRCLE OF HOPE"