19. Sara Groves (Singer-Songwriter) - Faith, Fruit of the Spirit, and a License to Love

🎙 19. Sara Groves (Singer-Songwriter) – Faith, Fruit of the Spirit & a License to Love

🕊️ Reconciling Faith | 💜 Fruit of the Spirit | 🌱 Culture Care > Culture War | 🧠 Mental Health & Church

This episode is for anyone holding grief, doubt, and hope at the same time—longing to keep Jesus at the center when public witness fractures. It’s for those learning to absorb harm without returning it, to practice active peacemaking, and to choose culture care in their actual neighborhoods.

It’s also a gentle challenge to churches everywhere: love is the measure. Make space for complicated people to belong—and to heal.

💡 Key Takeaways
• “Without love” is the metric of Christian witness
• Pacifism isn’t passive—it’s active peacemaking like Jesus
• Culture care > culture war—tend the garden where you live
• Faith can mature from certainty to curiosity and stay centered on Christ

🙏 For Listeners Questioning, Lamenting, and Rebuilding
Sara reminds us that love is not a soft retreat—it’s the hard, holy work. We become people of reconciliation by practicing generosity, kindness, peace, and patience—especially in conflict.

⛪ About Our Guest
Sara Groves (IG: @grovesroad • Web: saragroves.com) is a Dove-nominated singer-songwriter whose catalog (Conversations, Add to the Beauty, Fireflies and Songs, Floodplain, What Makes It Through) has accompanied listeners through seasons of doubt and renewal. She co-founded Art House North in St. Paul and has long partnered with International Justice Mission. This year, Sara celebrates 25 years of Conversations and is recording four new songs.

📚 Resources & Mentions
• International Justice Mission — @ijm
• Art House North — @arthousenorth / arthousenorth.com
• John Inazu — @john.inazu
• Makoto Fujimura — @iamfujimura
• Charlie Peacock & Andi Ashworth — @andi_ashworth / arthouseamerica.com
• Henri Nouwen Society — @henrinouwensociety
• The Porter’s Gate — @theportersgate; Climate Vigil Songs: climatevigil.org/album
• Dan McClellan — @maklelan

🎵 Music on This Episode (Sara Groves)
“He’s Always Been Faithful,” “Roll to the Middle,” “Without Love,” “Hello, Lord,” “What I thought I Wanted”

🗓 What’s New with Sara
Conversations 25-year celebration + new studio tracks in progress

Go in peace, friends. May you find sacred ground wherever your questions lead, and may the fruit of the Spirit guide you this week. If you’re longing for community, may you be encouraged to find one that embraces your

Transcript

Alexis Rice (00:00)
the one that I think about is without love, without love, without love. And I feel like that is more relevant now than ever before, at least in my lifetime, what is the purpose of this faith if we are not doing this in the context of love? So I'm curious about that song and what that song means to you, especially in the context of today.

Sara (00:19)
that's it. That to me is the overarching.

word, is a word of presence for each other. I'm gonna hang in here with I understand boundaries. there's in an abusive situation, but with each other, more bearing each other's burdens,

to that end the fruits of the spirit, if it isn't reconciliation if it isn't love then what is it Without love all my actions all this even activism even good stuff I might think is really good. I only have two eyes two ears I'm very limited,

I'm very finite. so the thing that I could do that would have impact as I understand it, would with my finiteness, enter into the world with a heart of generosity, of kindness, of love, of peace. in the face of conflict, I think about the download that Martin Luther King Jr. gets is

they were taking lessons on how to absorb violence into their own were like learning not return type of type of pacifism is not passive, it's actually very active. and Jesus, I he absorbs our violence. He absorbs our violence into his very self. It's just stunning. I mean, it's unbelievable.

Alexis Rice (01:23)
Hmm.

Sara (01:32)
And he's making a statement with that, And again, the theology of that, can go all around in there. That's got to be left to mystery. But we've made it all about God's anger. But whose anger is Jesus absorbing? he's taking the responding in

have to be changed by that. I am changed by that love, all this stuff I'm doing, you know, it doesn't matter.

Alexis (06:14)
Welcome to the Sacred Slope, I'm Alexis Rice, and today I'm so excited because we're gonna talk to Sara Groves. I have been listening to Sara Groves since I was in high school. Well over 25 years ago, I found her she has been able to help me connect with Jesus through music throughout so many different periods of my life.

whether that was hymns and being able to connect in a beautiful way, whether that was raw, honest conversations about not being able to hear God's voice at a certain time, whether that's conflicts with a loved one, whether that is the holy fire of what burns in the bones of somebody,

that our Christian center should be all in love. so I reached out to Sara and I was just elated when she said she wanted to do this interview

when someone has not just a celebrity impact on your life, that's super fun, but when someone has had a deep spiritual profound impact on your life and you get to talk to that person and thank them, was just a really special thing to of you listening to this and have been cheering Sara on for

many, many years and she will have touched your hearts just like she has touched mine. Some of you may not know Sara's music, but I highly encourage you to jump in now because she has some very powerful and prophetic things to say about the moments that we're living through right now how we're trying to navigate those as Christians, keeping love at the center and producing the fruit of the spirit.

it was super fun to hear how her faith has changed and evolved over time. And I love how open she is about what she has let go of what she has kept and what she has learned about her faith in Jesus. And no matter what, she always goes back to the Lord

who gives her strength and hope and allows love to flourish all around the meaning of her work, in my opinion. This episode is full of her music. So enjoy, rest in that music when it's on. Let your mind wander where it needs to connect with yourself, connect spiritually.

hope that she can provide for you what she provides for so many others. So without further ado, here's Sara Groves.

Alexis Rice (12:18)
Welcome back to the sacred slope. Today I am joined by singer songwriter, Sara Groves. Hi, Sara. Sara's music, ⁓ it has carried me through some of my hardest seasons. It has really augmented my faith and allowed me to have this connection with Jesus over the last 20 plus years.

Sara (12:26)
Hey Alexis.

Alexis Rice (12:42)
I'm so thankful to be able to speak with you today. thank you Alexis So the other side, other side of something, for example, was on repeat when I really needed to believe that God was still moving. songs like Jeremiah, Roll to the Middle, And then there's He's Always Been Faithful to Me that I have on repeat still.

Sara (12:46)
you, Alexis.

Alexis Rice (13:06)
these songs, they remind me of hope and holy fire and the best of Christianity and of Jesus, which to a theme that shows up for one another. and all together in this body of Christ.

Sara (13:21)
I love that. Well, one of the things I was drawn to about your podcast is the title, Sacred Slope. I've always been frustrated with the slippery slope remember one day it dawned on me, everything's a slippery slope. I dessert is a slippery slope. Chocolate covered almonds are slippery slope. Other food references are slippery slope. So what does it look like instead to kind of like strap on your hiking boots and

It just creates such an atmosphere of fear and that can't be the thing. yes, I loved the sacred slope. Love it.

Alexis Rice (13:55)
thank you so much. And for those of us who decided to venture out into those boundaries of fear, I think a lot of us have realized that this journey is sacred and beautiful ⁓ and that God is bigger and more full of mystery we been your experience as well?

Sara (14:00)
You

Yes, I have a funny story about a Jehovah's Witness that came to my door and we were having conversations. I think because the conversation continued, more people were coming to the door. But I just remember having this feeling partway through our conversation that, you know, I just got one box. I'm not going to climb into your box. not over, you know, not for a million dollars, not for anything. And

that sense of having more room for mystery, but also more room for ⁓ just to love people, to be curious and see people made in the image of God, in their infinite worth, every single person. it's a journey it's good to grow. It's just good to mature. You wouldn't want to stay a baby your whole life.

Alexis Rice (15:02)
Yeah, exactly. I'm sure the vast majority listeners are familiar with you and your music, but for those who aren't, I want to tell them a little bit more about you. you've been for more than 25 years, one of the most accomplished and respected voices in Christian music. Sara is a Dove Award nominated artist whose song, He's Always Been Faithful, been a modern classic.

Also her albums conversations, ooh, I was listening to that again this morning, Add to the Beauty, Fireflies and Songs have been hailed as some of the most important of their time. Add to the Beauty was named album of the year by CCM Magazine and Fireflies and Songs by Christianity Today. Sara's performed on iconic stages from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville to Carnegie Hall in New York and at major festivals like

LiFest and Soul Fest. also featured on an album that I on repeat this year called Climate Vigil Songs, is a collaborative album. that's from the Porter's Gate with several Christian artists who come together to lament the crying earth and advocate for climate justice. So thank you for that

You got to check out Keep Watch and Pray, which is on that album. So Beyond Music, she's partnered with the International Justice Mission. That's to fight human trafficking. That's also something that I've been contributing to for years, And she's traveled to Rwanda for reconciliation work and co-founded Art House North in St. Paul. This is a creative hub for beauty, justice, and community.

Sara's legacy is one of honesty, artistry, and love. We need more of this in the world. And today she joins us as she celebrates the 25th anniversary of conversations. And Art House is coming 15 years, so congratulations on that as well. And then most recently, Sara has written floodplain, which is about mental health.

Sara (16:46)
Yes.

Alexis Rice (16:53)
and also what makes it through, which is about cultural reconciliation. Can you tell us a little bit about your childhood, your youth and what your faith looked like spiritually?

Sara (17:03)
I'll try to keep this brief, Alexis. I am worst long the Myers-Briggs or Strengths Finders. My top are like input, connection, and context. And so that just keeps me in this space of like in order to know anything about me, you have to know everything about me.

I grew up Pentecostal. I am from a dynastic family in the assemblies of God. And I say that kind of with a grin, but also it's true in the sense that it was very much our identity. It is our identity and I'm fifth generation. So my great-grandmother was at Azusa Street. My great-great-grandfather started the first church out of Azusa Street. And that was always sort of like the everyone we knew was in that, you know,

space in that family. And I had as a child a very like tender relationship with God in the sense sense about him was he's like my buddy in my pocket. I don't know how to describe it better, just remember feeling, I felt I just, you know, I loved in the Pentecostal space now.

My sisters who grew up in the same place, we all have different reactions to, you know, that same thing. And so it's a holiness movement. The emphasis is on getting yourself holy so that God can work in the world. And and it's like you're you're kind of isolated trying to make yourself holy. There's not a lot of help in that. You know, you're just kind of it. To me now, I see how it can create a very masked and performative, you know, ⁓ that that kind of very emotional worship where you've connected.

your emotions with is God real is very like you had to really work through a lot of that. But as a child, I really I was I had this really scrupulous. And so I was down at the altar all the time. But you think about this. I'm like crying. You know, I my family's around me. We're praying. I do miss sometimes this invitation to sort of just like get on the floor and and like be with the people you love. Just like.

saying it all, you know, and I was very highly confessional. So those are the same things that I had to work through later, you know, like getting saved every Sunday and Wednesday. And then, yes, yes, yeah, yeah, over and over again. And then when you when you run into life into trouble and you're just you're and or experiencing stretches of silence where you don't hear God and he's been actually very like God in my piece, just with me all the time.

Alexis Rice (19:15)
I hear you. Rededicating your life at camps. Yep.

Sara (19:33)
So my imagination was really engaged with who God was. I think that's part of it is that I have a, know, a really, my imagination's very active. And so I, he was with me. I struggled in school and he, you know, he was my prince. He was my helper and my friend. And so the wheels of that fall off in my, like my late twenties.

mid to late twenties, when people around me are suffering, we had a tragedy in the family, I was around a couple of mothers who were grieving the death of their children. And I had a new baby. And I think when the thing hit, you know, when that hits and you're like, wait a minute, what are the guarantees for me here? And you realize, you know, there are no guarantees. essentially, there is no guarantee that you're always gonna be safe, you're always gonna be protected or these things whatever

I was starting to learn about the worst has to offer, human trafficking and all of it. And because I'm a very earnest person, I dove into that. And so for a good year and a half, two years, was just sidelined by fear, anger, you know, just, I didn't know what to say. There were certain songs I could pick. I'm like, okay, I know these are true. I could play and sing those.

But it was the same that brought me into a space of deconstruction now. conversation around deconstruction is so tricky to me because I've had different parts of it. There is a part here early on where it is about God and I. It's like, are you even kind? Are you even good? Are you anonymous and sort of there's no actual care there?

I always had a sense of design, but in late high school, it's like, is God real? You know, and I have like nights out on my roof, you know, smoking a pack of cigarettes, you know, looking at my hand, looking at the clouds, looking at the stars and asking, you know, is God real? then

He addresses me, you know? I mean, I only have my own way of saying that, but he addresses me. And then in my late 20s, I have this really crisis, the Job question, you know, why do bad things happen to good people? Where is God when bad things are happening to people? again, after a year and a half of just a lot of anger and a lot of frustration questions like the Bible at that point becomes really

then again, there's just a season of where I feel like these angry questions I've been throwing out for about a year and a half start coming back to me and back to me in the language in which I said them. So literally the verbatim, the kind of the way. that's woo woo. That's mystical. I don't understand it. But the way that I asked the question started coming back to me in like a really short window. And so there's a little bit of the Pentecostal in me still kicking, you know.

I enter into, I'm talking decades, but a decade later, I have one of the worst bouts of depression. I'd struggled with depression my whole life. And I have a really difficult bout of depression. And the faiths community is not helping. It is very much, and I have a lot of shame, and that's not their fault. Not all of that is my faith. My friends were amazing. They felt helpless, wanted to help.

Alexis Rice (22:29)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (22:39)
I even will say like the stuff they were telling me even now having come full circle like yeah running good for you eating well good stuff you know having a good scripture to like remember and you know promise to like say to yourself good but I was in a place where I needed to get help and I had so much shame I really realized I think this is a faith issue

And when I looked back, I saw then that Pentecostal space, it is a faith issue. they make mental health a faith issue. So that was hard for me. I had to figure out how to, if my emotions aren't trustworthy anymore, and I always was connecting what God was doing in the world to my emotions and how I felt about it. And if I felt this sense of ecstatic worship, then God was moving. What does it mean to know that God is there when the bottom is falling out emotions are betraying me?

And that was the record floodplain. I wrestled with that.

Alexis Rice (23:29)
love to learn a little bit more about how your faith then has grown, right? So you talked about having this moment of realization that slippery slope was actually a that

had been built around us not necessarily of God. faith started changing, right? It started evolving. you talk to us about that?

Sara (23:50)
Yeah, I think the big ones, if I can name the big ones, is Greg Boyd. a pastor up here in the Twin Cities. I've never attended his church, he just talks a lot about what is happening when God expresses or shows himself to us. So every man is said in his heart, if I were God, every single man that's ever lived said, if I were God, if I were in control of this thing, this is what I would do.

so God is working with men on men's terms. And then when he comes to show, but this is what I'm it's Jesus. any question that we have, we have to run through the lens of when God says, this is who I am. It's this word and that word is Jesus. And so so wonderful. It's so complex. It's so perplexing.

And like Jesus asks way more questions than he does give answers. He answers most questions with another question. is this like very delicate, beautiful thing when that could come to earth like Thor and slam down to the ground and clean the whole thing up, He subverts power. So I think my ideas about power have 100 % changed.

Alexis Rice (24:56)
Hmm.

Sara (24:57)
power over, is all we know how to do. That's a very manmade way to approach power. I'm going to control you. I'm going to get in your business and that's how I'm going to make things right is by controlling everything. And Jesus comes as a baby. I mean, I don't have to go through that. You know the story, but he subverts that. He makes a mockery of it on the cross.

the power that was actually his, know, ours is not, so that changed a lot of things for me. It changed the way we were doing church and the way I thought about politics and service and what our actual license is, you know? So I think a lot of us feel like we have a license to like, of endorsement or, you know, like, do I endorse this or not? You know? And I just remember when I felt like God took that license, you know, like,

Well, do I like what you're doing? am I going to give my approval? That's just, Paul talks about it. The more you do that to others, the more that will be done to you. the license is to love radically period. That is the license. You have a license to love people and to do so at a really radical level that that emulates Jesus.

and then putting the emphasis on the hereafter. Obviously, Pentecostals, we talked a lot afterlife. And so a lot of our faith was directed towards the harshness of this life will be alleviated a lot of my people, grandparents did prison ministry for 40 years. There's a big element of service the focus is

Alexis Rice (26:21)
Hmm.

Sara (26:24)
less on problem solving here and more on like, going to get you in your boat to be okay later. And I just started to see like, no, I think God is interested in what's happening here. I learned a lot about that through IJM, through International Justice Mission. That's an incredible organization. They're on the front lines of like addressing violence against the poor. They are changing communities.

in very real ways. And I saw that was born out of their faith. They come in Jesus' name. So it was less about this proselytizing and more what it means to actually come in Jesus' name like Mother Teresa like so many others do, to serve everyone, so those were big changes, over and we're gonna see God in the land of the living.

Alexis Rice (27:03)
We're gonna see God in the land of the living. Can you talk more about that?

Sara (27:07)
Well, I just think the other way is a little bit escapism. and I understand why people need escape, you've lost someone. It's like, you want that, that what a promise that you'll see someone again. And you have just such a deep longing for that. I mean, we all have like, please let that be true that I will see that person again, because the depth of love and the depth of loss is so profound.

So I'm not dismissing that the relief of full restoration and what that could look like I leave that in the category of ultimate mystery. I don't understand it. I don't understand what happens there but to sort of always gather to sing about and you know kind of do these emotional So soothing things that that are not just emotional. They are part of our worship their part. I'm not saying that that's not sincere

Alexis Rice (27:38)
Mm.

Sara (27:57)
But to do that and call that church feels to me that it's missing maybe we lost the plot line, you know, and that our engagement to not see culture as a word to be won, but a garden to be cultivated, to enter into the fullness of a generative life by entering into a life of faith, I am entering into what it means to be.

Alexis Rice (28:06)
Hmm.

Sara (28:21)
tov, which is the word, good at the very beginning in Genesis, it's good with the seeds of future good in it. So every day we're choosing tov or rah and rah is basically anything that stops tov that stops that that generativity. And so that is not for nothing. Gary Haugen talks man who works out at the gym all day long to like

for the jelly jar emergency, to open a jelly jar. I was doing all the things, quiet time and all those things to groom and groom my personal faith. I was developing my personal faith, but to what end? And I had a picture of myself cleaning a car and I'm like.

making sure there are no bugs on the windshield, you know? And I look up and I see these friends from IJM and they're doing donuts in the parking lot. You know, they're like taking off down the highway. And it's like, ⁓ to what end have I developed these spiritual muscles if I'm not actually engaged in the world and in here? And then when you start reading the Bible through that lens, that every single prophet goes to its king saying,

Are you defending the widow and the orphan? What are you doing in this way? You start seeing the role of the people of God as always hospital as triage. are we doing along those lines to actually be the hands and feet of Jesus instead of being known for all the things we're against and these, again, culture war touch points, hot spots.

That lets me be distant from my neighbor. That lets me kind of like be over here and it's like lob my beliefs, know, I've weaponized apologetics. that to me, can't be what I'm doing. So that's the way that I feel like my faith has changed. But there's still so much that I treasure, it's all in there, you know, it's all in you. And that little girl that had Jesus in her pocket when she went to school, because school was so hard.

I still really treasure that. I don't know exactly the metaphysics of all that, a beautiful gift.

Alexis Rice (30:25)
what that brings up for me is when you were saying we were given a license to love, like that is our task as Christians, right? And yet, and yet in the United States right now, that does not feel like what we see often from those who have power over us right now. there is a sense of, gosh,

rage from Christians, from demeaning, demoralizing either those who are not Christian or who are not the type of Christian they are. And it seems to be getting narrower and narrower. there are a lot of us, I think, that don't recognize the Christianity lens we're all witnessing right now. And the example I think about specifically

Sara (31:09)
Yeah.

Alexis Rice (31:12)
is when Pete Hegseth recently shared a video that said like, in Christ, amen, and use such Christian language, and then shared a clip of pastor, Doug Wilson, talking about how women are basically only meant to produce babies, and that's kind of all we can do, and we shouldn't be leaders, and we shouldn't really be voting unless it's within the family context, and really we should be submissive to the men.

Sara (31:36)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (31:38)
And what I'm worried about is that is having impact on younger Christians, that this lens is being enforced. what are your thoughts on that how women are being talked about? Is it Christian, in your opinion?

Sara (31:52)
I mean, I have my own opinions, obviously, think that women are wonderful. I think they bring something to leadership that is needed. I remember when I was out touring and I had been out, you know, playing all over the place, especially here in the upper Midwest, Piper was really banging the drum about

egalitarian, complementarianism. And it started to really like have a reach where they were holding conferences on it. He really made it a major issue here in our area. And so I found myself as I went into churches, people were vetting me and asking, are you complementarian or egalitarian? And at first I said, you know, it was just like it caught me off guard because these are spaces that I had been in and out of, you know, many times and that I had a good relationship with.

Alexis Rice (32:29)
Wow. ⁓

Sara (32:38)
At first I said, not going to answer that question because think this is a tertiary point, But I knew that not in any subversive way, but I've been on the biggest stages, the largest churches, churches that don't ordain women.

You know, I've been on their stages, obviously, it's because I'm just an artist or just doing music or whatever. So it's an interesting, that you get into, like the legalism of all that. it's like, I personally don't have any time for it. You know, I mean, personally, I my own view is like, that posse that was following Jesus around had loads of women in it. And they were, within the context of what

a patriarchal society could write a pretty rich tapestry of women leading in that New Testament setting and even I'd say in the Old Testament setting. so this goes to what I was talking about earlier about a

say I'm in a culture, you know, like an Amish culture, something where it's like they're deciding there's this hierarchy and I can say all the things I think are unhealthy about that. And they can look in on my life and say all the things that unhealthy about me. And I think this ability to sort of see, to live together, to have plural spaces and to be able to communicate, you know,

without saying what Doug Wilson is saying is like, I'm going to take over the whole thing and make my thing the thing, you know? I mean, that's just ridiculous. And it is what we do. It's like, I'm going to take over. And no, there's nothing Christian about that. There's nothing in the Bible that to me that says go take over the world like Thanos, you know, and force everybody to do what you know, to do your thing. So it makes no sense to me at all.

But at the same time, I would defend someone's ability to sort of like have the conversation. Sometimes I picture our whole world as like a big apartment building. And in every apartment, there's like every different type of like family or person, whatever. And I think, okay, here's this little apartment with my, you I'm a Christian and this is what, what am I doing in this big apartment building?

a follower of Jesus, what should I be doing in this think John Inazu does a really good job of this in his book, Learning to Disagree. He's a professor at WashU and he writes a lot about conflict and resolution and protest and that kind of thing. And so that's to me what we're, we've lost that ability to actually like have a good conversation about it.

And then no, it's terrifying. something we never thought would be on the table when they talk about having one vote per household. You know, it seems laughable until you have an authoritarian person, you know, saying, that's actually what I'm going to go for. What I would say is that my personhood way I operate as a person of faith,

may actually really come to affect me, but my work doesn't change my work here in my neighborhood, my real work to see people and be curious about them and to, you know what I mean? it's going to be different and differently applied, you know, like to my right now, my neighbor who might be an alien, that work changes in its shape or in form and urgency.

Alexis Rice (35:22)
Hmm.

Sara (35:38)
But my work is the same these kind of waves are gonna happen and I'm not saying that that level politically doesn't matter I just think we can become Paralyzed by it and I just think work is still to be curious about people and listen to their stories and love well and be

that I am coming to the world in Jesus' name. That's what I'm doing. And that won't change, regardless of who's sort of like storming and stomping around upstairs, and trying to whatever, as men are trying to do their naive or simplistic, but I really believe in those longer narratives to

shape that ultimately when these stories get told, the people that have been on the side of culture care instead of culture war, stories will rise up. A little Ruby Bridges praying on her way to school. You see her little mouth moving and she's praying for her enemies. And I think that's powerful stuff. I think that's powerful stuff.

Alexis Rice (36:37)
Wow, really? She was doing that?

Sara (36:40)
yeah, she's praying on her walk to school. She's praying for these angry people. doesn't, I don't get it. And she's, she's saying prayers for them.

my daughter's named after Ruby Bridges and I find her to be incredibly inspiring. And obviously she's just this little tyke. mean, she wasn't like all dialed into what was happening, but yeah, just that wherewithal

Alexis Rice (36:58)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (37:01)
to be able to proceed without getting the polarization is it's So how do we hold grief for instead of maybe anger? I say that knowing that like five friends of mine are gonna be like, but isn't it time to be angry? I have all the voices in my head of the people

I'm in community with a lot of people. I wrote a song called Dealbreaker where I'm expressing my grief about, I didn't think anything would ever come between us. And I can't believe it's this stuff. It's like the political unrest and everything. And people that were really close to me that were, this one woman that was like a second mom to me. and it's less about having this big falling out and more about like the stuff that she's,

championing on her social media and stuff like that. It's like, you are a spiritual mother to me. I don't understand it. I don't understand this. but in the song, I started out really angry and it was going to be like, that's a deal breaker, And the song ends up being a lament because I just sat with it and like, what do I really want to say is that I'm grieving

that we are finding ourselves in these could I have a vision for us being tender again, and not being so pulled into venom of the language and the dehumanization. That stuff's flying in both directions. It really is. And I'm not a both-sider. understand the danger of both-siderism. But the...

Alexis Rice (38:13)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Sara (38:22)
the anger is flying in both directions and the dehumanizing rhetoric is flying in both directions. And that to me is really, ⁓ it's dangerous. so yeah, I see Doug Wilson and I think, you are a person of infinite value, Doug.

Alexis Rice (38:28)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (38:40)
made in the image of God agree with you and I'm gonna keep trying to curate the good things I believe God's calling me to.

Alexis Rice (38:48)
⁓ what an example. Thank you. it is really helpful because you want to be angry at people who are hurting people. You know, there's, I feel like a lot of people who are either deconstructing or who left church spaces did not do it in this, you know, what a lot of conservative Christian pastors are blaming like, like sin is taking.

Sara (38:56)
Yes.

Alexis Rice (39:08)
people away from the church, think like, no, a lot of people are seeing people who are declaring Christ every day really vocally and then hurting people, like hurting like people who are, we are all created in the image of God. And I think it's really painful to take over and over. And I'm not saying just only, you know, one side does that or something, but like, I do wonder how,

we as Christians who are trying to be faithful in this moment and trying to realize there are so many lenses of the way we could interpret God and see God, like how do we remain faithful to Jesus? And I love the way that you describe that as even someone who is saying something that strikes the anger chord in us, right? Because we have to live in this society right now where every day we wake up and something is so unjust, right?

It's hard to just not feel that anger, rage, and lament, and grief every day. And also when we see people who raised us to of Jesus participating in the mob mentality of the dehumanization, I think it's breaking people's hearts. And so what I love about your example of that is just to say, going to do my work here.

Sara (40:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (40:18)
I am going to choose to have this license to love. This is my work here. And what I can do is look at that person, even though it's so hard and say that person was also made in the image of God.

Sara (40:29)
If I believe this is true, that is, and that doesn't mean I'm not engaged in my community. And I'm not, again, tending the garden in the way that I've seen, or listening for how I can participate in any counter act, kind of activities, things that are going to be helping and restoring people.

Alexis Rice (40:45)
some good trouble.

Sara (40:47)
But, I would say, and again, here's the Pentecostal in me coming out, but it's the spirit of the hour. It's a spirit of the day is there's like division and the polarization. so the sinister other, who said that? I've been spewing ideas and stuff that I've read, you know, I'm just like,

I'm a bit and then Makoto Fujimura who writes about culture care and Charlie Peacock and Andi Ashworth who talk about hospitality and the founders of the art house and Henri Nouwen and, know, I'm just like a little, collection of all these things, but someone was talking about that pull to, there's the othering, you know, where that person is, I've made them a non-human or whatever their other.

And then when we create a sinister other, then that is another sort of like step in then being okay to like arm yourself, you know, and to take out or to destroy or, have that kind of language. So to me, when Troy and I were traveling to Rwanda, we had a partnership there. We were doing lot of different types of things and we were just learning honestly that that was it. We were just learning a lot.

and in awe of people's resilience and of their, you talk about capacity for forgiveness. mean, the ways that we judge our histories through waves of war, but the waves of forgiveness and the time, the fact that, any country is stable kind of at any point is a testament to good men and good women, you know, living lives together.

And I believe that there's something really beautiful and gospel to that in the reconciling of all things. But that Rwanda didn't just spiral into a constant state of war and is just is pretty incredible. And it had a lot to do with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the different ways that they went about telling the truth and offering

But when we were there, learning about the genocide there, that whole thing started with a radio program, just a very incendiary radio program and language that just was banging that drum all day long. And then one day on the radio, you know, the genocidiaries turned to language of like, arm yourself and let's go take action on this, So Episcopal Churches had a relationship with Rwanda where

Alexis Rice (42:40)
Hmm.

Sara (42:54)
the American Episcopal Church, their leadership was coming from Rwanda. And Rwanda was sending missionaries to the United States. And there was a pastor we met. And he was, he spent a year of his life going around to churches in America to say, you're not different than us. You're not, what I'm hearing here is, now this was 15 years ago that I met this pastor and he already had a sense like what you're doing.

Alexis Rice (43:16)
Hmm.

Sara (43:18)
is what we were doing. Your language and what you're about is very familiar to me. And he felt called by God to go speak at churches. And was sharing, you're not better than us and you're not different than us. And this same path, I know where this path goes. It leads to violence. It leads to real violence. So I think what I've attempted to do

Alexis Rice (43:27)
wow.

Sara (43:40)
in this space, even though I my own opinions and stuff, that feels not neither here nor there, but just if when the thing is about violence, no, no, we don't, we can't go there where you're saying if this group of people just didn't exist, then I'd be better off. that's got to be examined every single time. Jesus himself says like, the Samaritan did it right. You the priest, these guys got it wrong. The Samaritan did it right. Well, the Samaritan was the sworn.

enemy, was, he was drawing the attention to this paradigm of saying this kind of care, this kind of tove, this kind of culture care here where you see to, you know, someone who is hurting it doesn't belong to anyone. God's truth,

And Jesus is saying, even here this can happen. it calls us to a, there's just, there's so much work to do. There are many days where I wake up and think the fields are white. And that used to mean one very specific thing to me about evangelism. The fields are white and the workers are few. But I would say still, right now, the fields are white and the workers are few. if this isn't a reconciling gospel, I don't know what it is.

We are to be reconciled to God. be reconciling with each other, be reconciled within our own, you know, to ourselves. And that work, that Colossians, know, that we're partnering with God in the renewal of all things. if your gospel's

ripping families apart and doing all these kinds of things, then to me, there's a lot of work to do for people that would see that Jesus came as a reconciler.

Alexis Rice (45:05)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. that's so helpful. I always wonder if people, who are advocating for ripping families apart, like I speak Spanish and have a deep people from Central and South America growing up in California as well. I wonder if people realize how incredibly deep the faith is of

many, most When you talk with them just in general in Spanish, there are things that they say just out of that's like, how are you doing today? And they say, doing great. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. It's just a saying, right? And I just wonder

If we sat down and understood some of their stories and their laments and the way they see Jesus and how they feel right now, because the people who are imposing these are very clearly saying they are Christian as well. And I just wonder if they would see it in a different way of like, well, these are your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Sara (46:00)
Yeah. Yeah, I growing up, we would have mission Sunday and pray for the 1040 window that was like the unreached, you know, peoples. And so it's just interesting to me then when just geographically you change a person from here to here, And then that changes the whole way you, you know, like that you you'd be crying and praying for this person. And then and now because they're in a different

geographical location, your whole heart to them changes and they become the sinister other. That doesn't make any sense at all. so it is interesting because the Pentecostals were very like not of this world, historically. And it was like politics and all that. was like, let, you know, let the world do their thing. We're here and we're, you know,

Alexis Rice (46:41)
Yep, totally.

Sara (46:44)
But in the 80s, that changes quite a bit and you see more and more people turning towards that. that story has been told, but it's an interesting dynamic, And I'm on the side of, yeah, I also became more involved in social justice. polity is just how we organize ourselves. when someone says, don't be political, well, we're all political. We're all being political at some level.

Alexis Rice (47:04)
Yes. Yes.

Even being apolitical is political.

Sara (47:08)
I can, yeah, I can

choose to be maybe nonpartisan if that's even possible. I can maybe try to do that, but we're all political. the call to me is,

the fruits of the spirit and put amazing to me what will kind of cherry pick for can kind of be a lot of different people if you go through and you pick the things you want. leveled at a lot of people that are deconstructing, like you're just taking what you want, but everybody's doing that. Everyone's kind of

I want to use this one to leverage my political party. I want to use this verse to do this. So at some level, we have to remember our humanity and live there.

Alexis Rice (47:45)
Yeah.

Yeah. And cherry picking, that was another, gosh, it's so funny, All the the slippery slope, the cherry picking, all the things that we were just like kind of fed our conservative faith. I don't know what you want to call it, but we have a lot of similarities, a lot of us, right? And cherry picking was one of those words that kept you in line, right? Of like, you can't think this because you have to think this way, right?

Sara (47:52)
Thank

you

Alexis Rice (48:08)
otherwise you're cherry picking. know, one of the things that helped me with that a Dan McClellan, who's a public scholar talked about how if you read the Bible

the lens

how people Bible for slavery, like you're going to find more passages that endorse slavery than don't. And so if you read it in that but you don't believe that slavery of God now.

Are you cherry picking? Right? so we're all doing that even in Leviticus. if you're pulling that word homosexuality of the Bible in Leviticus, but then you're not talking about the clothing meshing or the eating of the shellfish right? Because it's unclean. Like, are you cherry picking? Like, yes, you're also cherry picking. So we are all doing it.

Sara (48:41)
you

Alexis Rice (48:47)
We are all picking out of the Bible the values that mean something to us, right? And that's defining our faith.

Sara (48:54)
Yeah, and it doesn't negate the Bible as this really wild and wooly living word. know, it doesn't negate it when I think about that, I think about the conversation about I think Renovus is doing a good job

Alexis Rice (48:59)
Nope.

Sara (49:06)
really neat work around the reality that a lot of LGBTQ Christian parents don't speak to them. So to me, the point where like, okay, people aren't speaking to each other. That really grieves me. I can see

faith would lead you to a framework around human sexuality that might seem austere.

to someone else, And I can see your journey who you are and your your desire to still want to be a part of Christian community. And the that people aren't speaking to each other, to me, that feels like where the work, when I say like the fields are white, that feels like a place where how can we continue to see each other with and to be in community together?

again, that weaponized scripture doesn't help us. The lived experience, as I see Jesus as he's like living and walking, he's meeting people. it's past like ethnicities and political, it's past all these type of things, even behaviors into something about

the person, he sees into the soul of things. And there's something about that that I want to understand and have more of in my own life, where I'm meeting someone that is made in the image of God, and I am asking them, you know, who are you and what have you learned? And I can still say, I haven't found it that way or whatever, that we can still like, we can have our conversations, but that I haven't made the sinister other.

that I haven't said life would be better if you didn't exist, I think that that's just that scripture doesn't matter, but that it both matters and it can and has been, weaponized It doesn't necessarily help us do the thing we see Jesus doing.

Alexis Rice (50:43)
So in that vein, I feel like this is a pattern that you've had the way you really believe about this in your relationships forever. So what comes up for me is your song Roll to the Middle And even though it's talking about the person that you love the most, it's kind of in that same vein of like,

when you're at each other's throats, the lament, the grief, all those feelings that you feel, like, what do you do? And I've always wondered about that song, because that song has helped me sometimes. I'll put it on where I just have no desire to want to reconcile with my husband at certain points, or no desire to talk about the argument. And I'm just so upset and so angry, as is what happens in

marriage in relationships, right? So could you tell me a little bit about that song specifically why that was important to you to be so vulnerable to put out into the world?

Sara (51:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

I were having World War III in our kitchen. We had had a huge fight and he was leaving the country in the next morning, which I think I've heard now happens when people are leaving that you, sometimes they have conflict because you were like having a hard time, with their absence. But anyway, we'd had this big fight and he was leaving first thing in the morning and I thought,

we can't leave it here. We had said the meanest I went into the piano room and I was like, just everything in me does not want to resolve but I knew that it just would not be great to send him off with that between us and him be gone that long. And so that song came out as really just a prayer and a longing,

I was going to go upstairs and get into bed, you know, and instead of turning my back and being silent, that would say a word of reconciliation, that I would extend, an olive branch or have something that would make peace between us.

So everything in me wanted to go up and be silent and cold and instead, it's not even like amorous. It's just like a word of.

care, you know what I mean? it's just a matter of like that word of tenderness turning and saying I'm really sorry, just don't want you to go away with us. So

yeah, and that my desire. And then that song, that's the thing about these songs is that it comes back to me over and over again. that's the way it like forms me, I've write it in the moment or whatever. And then it's like, remember what you said about that. So I've come back to that space and that thought many times over.

Alexis Rice (56:13)
the next one that I think about in that same vein is without love,

I feel like that is more relevant now than ever before, at least in my lifetime, what is the purpose of this faith if we are not doing this in the context of love? So I'm just curious about that song and what that song means to you, and especially in the context of today.

Sara (59:09)
that's it. That to me is the overarching.

word, is a word of presence for each other. I'm gonna hang in here with I understand boundaries. there's in an abusive situation, but there with each other, more bearing each other's burdens,

to that end the fruits of the spirit, how do we lean into? That like you said the word if it isn't reconciliation if it isn't love then what is it Without love all my actions all this even activism even good stuff I might think is really good. I only have two eyes two ears I'm very limited,

I'm very finite. so the thing that I could do that would have impact as I understand it, would with my finiteness, enter into the world with a heart of generosity, of kindness, of love, of peace. in the face of conflict, I think about the download that Martin Luther King Jr. gets is

they were taking lessons on how to absorb violence into their own were like learning not return type of type of pacifism is not passive, it's actually very active. what does that, and Jesus, I he absorbs our violence. He absorbs our violence into his very self. It's just stunning. I mean, it's unbelievable.

Alexis Rice (1:00:17)
Hmm.

Sara (1:00:26)
And he's making a statement with that, And again, the theology of that, can go all around in there. That's got to be left to mystery. But we've made it all about God's anger. But whose anger is Jesus absorbing? he's taking the responding in

have to be changed by that. I am changed by that love, all this stuff I'm doing, you know, it doesn't matter.

Alexis Rice (1:00:54)
someone said yesterday in your Live your songs, your music, your voice, but also listening to you just talk today, your imagination, your ways of thinking, it is like butter on toast. It is so lovely to hear a Christian voice, Christian's perspective, deep faith.

that gives me hope and inspiration for continuing on in ways that look like Jesus and that are from dehumanization as much as possible. We're not perfect. ⁓ We make mistakes. So as we close, I would love to hear about the four new songs that you're working

the 25th anniversary of conversations. you tell our listeners about that?

Sara (1:01:32)
it's something that we started last year. we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Add to the Beauty, and then we're celebrating the 25th anniversary of Conversations, which I thought was just kind of like, let's do this, this'll be fun. But it has been deeply meaningful and moving and complex.

revisiting Add to the Beauty, I was like, wow, this was really the point where a lot of the stuff I talked about today, where that was happening, where I was seeing, wait a minute, my role here, really loving a person just the way they are, that's no small thing, you know, that's the whole seeing had this, call to reconciliation I mean, it's like going back and opening up your diary from when you were 25, and reading it aloud,

there's a lot of preciousness. There are things that I really still resonate. There are other things I would say differently now. And so it's interesting to revisit those songs with the, community of people. But it was the way that I met a lot of people that are still listening. Now I met them there at conversations was my first national debut. So, I'm really grateful for the conversation we started. And I see a lot of those songs as the first bead on a string of beads.

that conversation girl is asking very earnest questions about faith and life and is in process. And I just look back at it and think, I would say the overarching theme all of it would be he's always been still believe that, that God by his nature is faithful.

and he has offered us himself his very presence. that to me is, a through line in all of those records, all 14 of them.

And so yeah, it's been fun. So we're bringing conversations to vinyl.

had to do conversations as 13 tracks, we have to do two vinyl anyway. And so there's a B side that second vinyl and with Add to the Beauty, I did four new songs. And then with this one, I'll do four new songs. So I go into the studio next week to record. with Add to the Beauty.

re-release. That was my first new music since What Makes It Through, which released in 22. a continuation of conversations, but I decided to just write from where I am right now, I was going to try to do some kind of tie back. And then I thought, you know, I'm just going to keep the conversation going. so I'm excited to be in the studio next week with the guys.

Alexis Rice (1:03:38)
So you have any concerts coming up?

Sara (1:03:41)
I'm always doing shows here and there. I'm not really touring much anymore, but I do dates here and there. You just have to watch my website. I have a big, big trip. My husband has Art House North. I'm the director of Art House North and my husband and I founded Art House North doing a trip to the UK in October. And so I've got other things happening right now, but I am on the road.

here and there. We're doing a concert here at home, December 12 and 13. We're doing a playthrough of conversations.

Alexis Rice (1:04:07)
And finally, Sara Groves, what gives you hope in this current spiritual moment for the future of our faith and what gives you hope for others who are feeling lonely, sad, struggling, lamenting, scared.

Sara (1:04:23)
Well, I have to admit that I do have days of of despair myself, But the way that God extends Himself for us, that's my exemplar, and I feel like that's a good life. If you picked one—we were talking about cherry picking here, but now I'm going to say if you were to select one verse in the Bible about—

just the fruits of the Spirit or what love looks like, or just like that he didn't consider equality with God something to be used to his advantage. that Jesus being made in the image of, or being God himself did not consider equality with God something to be used to his advantage, but instead made himself as a servant, as a slave. We could live into one of those verses. We could live a life trying to live into one of those verses, one of those calls.

and it would be a very, very good life. So I think that sometimes it feels very complex. And I would say that if we wake up and we live of the fruits of the Spirit, one of the invitation, these invitations are for towards life. And every time we turn to them, we are participating in the life and the divine life. And to me,

There are a million entry points there. Even if we don't understand all of it or can't reconcile everything, we can be reconciling something. And so that is where I try to mind and my heart and my energy is what broken thing can participate in mending? And what thing have I broken that I can  participate in mending? And that is really the daily work.

again, Jesus is my exemplar.

Alexis Rice (1:05:54)
Sara Groves, thank you for sharing your gifts with the world.

Sara (1:05:57)
Yes, thank you, Alexis.

Alexis Rice (1:05:59)
Thank you for being with us today on the Sacred Slope. If you'd like to nominate a pastor, priest or reverend, send me an email at Alexis@thesacredslope.com. I'm Alexis Rice, may the fruit of the spirit guide you this week.

Go in peace, friends.